The bad news emerged on Thursday. Wreckage was found, two miles down in the Atlantic Ocean, close to the wreck of the Titanic, which all but confirmed that the submersible Titan had suffered a catastrophic accident. The most likely scenario, according to the experts, was “implosion” – a sudden total failure of the pressure hull. All five men on board had likely been killed instantaneously.
All week, people have been discussing the situation on social media. It was clear almost from the start that something terrible had happened, and that it would be near-miraculous if the passengers could be rescued. Many therefore took the view that this was a case of hubris, of the folly of rich men being punished by the universe with devastating finality. Others were more sympathetic. Descending more than two miles to the seafloor to view what remains of the Titanic may not count as exploration exactly, since so many have done it before, but such an endeavour retains an echo of the great adventures of the past, given the danger involved.
Expensive expeditions to well-mapped but still potentially dangerous places –Mount Everest and the poles, as well as the deep ocean – are controversial in some quarters. The wealthy, so the charge goes, are squandering their money in useless indulgence instead of charity. On a much larger scale, the same general argument is used against space exploration, or technological advances in air travel, or any high-end research that doesn’t have an obvious and immediate application for large numbers of people.
The point is worth considering. Money and resources are limited. There remains much poverty and suffering in the world. All of us – especially Christians – should think about how we use what we have been given. In the Catechism (section 2403) the Church teaches what theologians call the universal destination of goods, stating that “the right to private property, acquired or received in a just way, does not do away with the original gift of the earth to the whole of mankind.” The Catechism also tells us that “goods of production…oblige their possessors to employ them in ways that will benefit the greatest number.”
And yet the practical outworking of this teaching is not always straightforward. Take innovations like domestic electricity, or home refrigeration, or cars. In their early years these technologies required large amounts of investment. For considerable periods after their invention, they were luxuries for the well-off, with little clear benefit for the rest of society. And yet they did eventually become available to almost everyone, at much more affordable prices, and they have, on balance, greatly improved people’s lives.
Even on the individual level it is not easy to determine whether we are ordering our economic lives in the most just way. On a strict reading of the Catechism it would be immoral for Catholics to take anything but the most spartan of holidays, or to go on holiday at all, or to own more than a few books, or to buy any food that is not strictly essential for keeping us alive. There are genuine dilemmas when we consider such matters, that can only really be resolved by close prayerful reflection on specific circumstances.
Now the critic of frivolous spending might say that this is a muddying of the waters. Whatever the intricacies of family budgeting, there are some uses of money that are just wrong, and have no conceivable benefit for anyone. This is true; but it is far from obvious that activities like space exploration or cutting-edge technology necessarily fall into that category. It is good to know things; it is good to find out what lies over the next hill, or at the bottom of the ocean, or out among the stars. God created man as an intelligent, thinking creature. He created a universe of endless wonder and intricacy. We are meant to explore, and to be amazed.
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