Ebenezer Scrooge is a name synonymous with greed, misanthropy and joylessness—and rightly so. Charles Dickens’s classic villain-turned-hero of A Christmas Carol repulses us at the story’s opening as he curses his employee, his nephew, and men seeking alms for the poor. But after the visits of the three Christmas Spirits, the “man of business” is changed and makes us cheer for his beneficence and redemption in the final chapter. A Christmas Carol has been famously reproduced so many times it can seem trite. But there is an enduring wisdom to its pages that keeps the tale significant: it offers insight into human nature, the value of the person, the true worth of money, and the purpose of society and even life. As simply an honest man of good will, not himself a Catholic, Charles Dickens draws many timeless principles into his narratives, which dovetail nicely with elements of Catholic social teaching. A Christmas Carol’s general agreement with Catholic thought reveals how these principles really are evident to the human mind, if it reasons well.

Solidarity

The story opens on Christmas Eve with Scrooge in his office with Bob Cratchit, his employee. Scrooge receives a few visitors and his response to them serves to demonstrate just how far astray from human values he has erred and simultaneously highlights what his proper attitude should be.

Scrooge’s disregard for his fellow man crops up in his treatment of Bob, whom he denies enough coal to keep his office decently heated: “Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room.”

Scrooge’s nephew Fred enters shortly thereafter attempting to wish the misanthrope a “Merry Christmas,” to which he receives the infamous “hum bug.” The indefatigable young man then launches into a defense of Christmas as worthwhile for the solidarity, or sense of unity, it produces in humanity: Christmas is the “only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they were really fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys…therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe it has done me good.”

Fred’s insistence on the benefit of coming to view others as true fellows neatly corresponds to the Church’s teaching about the basis of her social teaching: “The relationship between God and man is reflected in the relational and social dimension of human nature. Man, in fact, is not a solitary being, but a ‘social being, and unless he relates himself to others he can neither live nor develop his potential’“ (no. 110, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church). This is why Scrooge’s dealings with other men matter. As created and loved by God and always called back to Him, man is meant to mirror this relation with humankind, each one of whom possess equally the image of God. This solidarity with each other, both in families and in society, is the true maker of value, not money or prestige or anything else. This need for relationships and love is what Fred says Christmas illuminates in and elicits from people.

The Value of the Weakest and Poorest

A society built on an understanding of solidarity will intrinsically look after the weakest and the poorest. Tiny Tim, the young, crippled son of Bob Cratchit, possesses a lively and kind spirit; his relationship with his family portrays the beauty of life and especially that of the weakest among us.

“‘God bless us every one!’ said Tiny Tim, the last of all. He sat very close to his father’s side upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side and dreaded that he might be taken from him.” Clearly, his handicapped son is not a burden, but a blessing to their family.

Likewise, the Church has taught a consistent ethic of life and reiterates the unique value of every person regardless of their level of functioning

“Man exists as a unique and unrepeatable being, he exists as an “I”…The human person is an intelligent and conscious being…However, it is not intellect, consciousness and freedom that define the person, rather it is the person who is the basis of the acts of intellect, consciousness and freedom. These acts can even be absent, for even without them man does not cease to be a person” (131).

Tiny Tim and all disabled and weakened individuals are of infinite value no matter how little they contribute to society. Bob Cratchit’s tender affection for his son testifies to this. The measure of a person is not what he or she can contribute to society, but rather the measure of a society is how it regards each of its members, especially the weakest. Any ideology or system that would use a human being to an end other than his or her personal development (such as utilitarianism) must be rejected (133).

This focus on the value of the weak and poor orders social life and economic life properly. “The principle of the universal destination of goods requires that the poor, the marginalized…should be the focus of particular concern….It affects the life of each Christian inasmuch as he or she seeks to imitate the life of Christ, but it applies equally to our social responsibilities and hence to our manner of living” (182).

This is the classic “preferential option for the poor,” but contrary to popular error, it does not necessarily require a strongly socialized state that redistributes wealth. What the preferential option for the poor really is is an imperative for all persons to see Christ in poorest and order our social way of life accordingly. It indicts Scrooge and his earlier misanthropic way of life. It is a concern for every Christian, indeed every person.

This lesson is brought out starkly by the ghost of Scrooge’s former business partner, Jacob Marley, who explains to Scrooge that:

“‘I wear the chain I forged in life,’ replied the ghost” referring to the shackles around him of locks, keys, ledgers, deeds and the like…. ‘No space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused’ …

Scrooge: ‘But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,’ faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply Jacob’s situation to himself.

“‘Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. ‘Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.”

The solidarity and unity of humanity makes us accountable to each other and to God. The reader can’t help but see in this the second part of the golden rule, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Luke 10:27). Mankind matters. How we treat one another matters. It matters in our personal lives and so it should be expressed in society as well.

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Dickens’s dismissal, through Marley, of a separate ethic of business is a poignant critique of any virtue or society that would separate itself from the true end of ethics and society: personal goodness aimed at perfecting ourselves and viewing our fellow man as “selves” of equal worth. In short, there is no “good” apart from love of God and of each other.

There are many more gems in A Christmas Carol. The ones discussed here and each of the others are so enduringly beautiful because Dickens focuses on timeless truths about human value, the same truths recognized by the Church’s social doctrine. Importantly for our modern times, Dickens’s story outlines a roadmap for the revival of a human-focused society, but he does not do so through a call for a government overhaul. Rather, Dickens calls upon the individual to live more humanely, and in-so-doing to transform the social world. This Christmas, may we see worth in others, not just in dollars, and may the world be transfigured accordingly.

Stephanie Pacheco is a freelance writer and convert from Northern Virginia. She earned a M.A. in Theological Studies, summa cum laude, from Christendom College and holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia in Religious Studies with a minor in Government and Political Theory. Her work has been featured in America Magazine, Crisis Magazine, Soul Gardening Journal and syndicated by EWTN and Zenit. She blogs about making sense of the Catholic Faith in modern life at theoress.wordpress.com and lives with her husband and two young children.

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