Thank you Pope Benedict XVI

Thank you Pope Benedict XVI for your servant leadership! Here are some of my favorite quotes from your great encyclical Caritas in Veritate.

Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity.

Charity is at the heart of the Church's social doctrine.

Charity is love received and given.

Charity goes beyond justice, because to love is to give, to offer what is “mine” to the other; but it never lacks justice, which prompts us to give the other what is “his”, what is due to him by reason of his being or his acting. I cannot “give” what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice. If we love others with charity, then first of all we are just towards them. Not only is justice not extraneous to charity, not only is it not an alternative or parallel path to charity: justice is inseparable from charity, and intrinsic to it.

To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity.

It is not a case of two typologies of social doctrine, one pre-conciliar and one post-conciliar, differing from one another: on the contrary, there is a single teaching, consistent and at the same time ever new. It is one thing to draw attention to the particular characteristics of one Encyclical or another, of the teaching of one Pope or another, but quite another to lose sight of the coherence of the overall doctrinal corpus.

The truth of development consists in its completeness: if it does not involve the whole man and every man, it is not true development.

Progress of a merely economic and technological kind is insufficient.

Openness to life is at the center of true development.

Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end that provides a sense both of how to produce it and how to make good use of it. Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.

In comparison with the casualties of industrial society in the past, unemployment today provokes new forms of economic marginalization, and the current crisis can only make this situation worse. Being out of work or dependent on public or private assistance for a prolonged period undermines the freedom and creativity of the person and his family and social relationships, causing great psychological and spiritual suffering. I would like to remind everyone, especially governments engaged in boosting the world's economic and social assets, that the primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man, the human person in his or her integrity: “Man is the source, the focus and the aim of all economic and social life.

The dignity of the individual and the demands of justice require, particularly today, that economic choices do not cause disparities in wealth to increase in an excessive and morally unacceptable manner, and that we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone.

The human being is made for gift, which expresses and makes present his transcendent dimension. Sometimes modern man is wrongly convinced that he is the sole author of himself, his life and society.

In fact, if the market is governed solely by the principle of the equivalence in value of exchanged goods, it cannot produce the social cohesion that it requires in order to function well. Without internal forms of solidarity and mutual trust, the market cannot completely fulfill its proper economic function. And today it is this trust which has ceased to exist, and the loss of trust is a grave loss.

It is nevertheless erroneous to hold that the market economy has an inbuilt need for a quota of poverty and underdevelopment in order to function at its best.

Thus every economic decision has a moral consequence.

An overemphasis on rights leads to a disregard for duties. Duties set a limit on rights because they point to the anthropological and ethical framework of which rights are a part, in this way ensuring that they do not become license. Duties thereby reinforce rights and call for their defense and promotion as a task to be undertaken in the service of the common good. Otherwise, if the only basis of human rights is to be found in the deliberations of an assembly of citizens, those rights can be changed at any time, and so the duty to respect and pursue them fades from the common consciousness.

Denying the right to profess one's religion in public and the right to bring the truths of faith to bear upon public life has negative consequences for true development. The exclusion of religion from the public square — and, at the other extreme, religious fundamentalism — hinders an encounter between persons and their collaboration for the progress of humanity. Public life is sapped of its motivation and politics takes on a domineering and aggressive character. Human rights risk being ignored either because they are robbed of their transcendent foundation or because personal freedom is not acknowledged.

Secularism and fundamentalism exclude the possibility of fruitful dialogue and effective cooperation between reason and religious faith. Reason always stands in need of being purified by faith: this also holds true for political reason, which must not consider itself omnipotent. For its part, religion always needs to be purified by reason in order to show its authentically human face. Any breach in this dialogue comes only at an enormous price to human development.

The principle of subsidiarity must remain closely linked to the principle of solidarity and vice versa, since the former without the latter gives way to social privatism, while the latter without the former gives way to paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need.

Technologically advanced societies must not confuse their own technological development with a presumed cultural superiority, but must rather rediscover within themselves the oft-forgotten virtues which made it possible for them to flourish throughout their history.

I eagerly await the next Pope's social encyclical(s)!

Pope Quotes 3-1-12

I have been as busy as ever, so I apologize for little posting lately. I also feel I have tended to emphasize economics more than Catholic Social Teaching lately, so strapped for time and desiring to spread the Church's teaching on economics and other social issues I decided to start a new series called "Pope Quotes". I hope you find the series informative and helpful!

On food shortages or famine, as has been occurring in East Africa and happens elsewhere around the world even outside of weather/climate-induced famines:

"Life in many poor countries is still extremely insecure as a consequence of food shortages, and the situation could become worse: hunger still reaps enormous numbers of victims among those who, like Lazarus, are not permitted to take their place at the rich man's table, contrary to the hopes expressed by Paul VI. Feed the hungry (cf. Mt 25: 35, 37, 42) is an ethical imperative for the universal Church, as she responds to the teachings of her Founder, the Lord Jesus, concerning solidarity and the sharing of goods. Moreover, the elimination of world hunger has also, in the global era, become a requirement for safeguarding the peace and stability of the planet.

Hunger is not so much dependent on lack of material things as on shortage of social resources, the most important of which are institutional. What is missing, in other words, is a network of economic institutions capable of guaranteeing regular access to sufficient food and water for nutritional needs, and also capable of addressing the primary needs and necessities ensuing from genuine food crises, whether due to natural causes or political irresponsibility, nationally and internationally." -- Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, pp. 27 (emphasis added)

On inequality and protection of the working class for the good of society:

"But although all citizens, without exception, can and ought to contribute to that common good in which individuals share so advantageously to themselves, yet it should not be supposed that all can contribute in the like way and to the same extent. No matter what changes may occur in forms of government, there will ever be differences and inequalities of condition in the State. Society cannot exist or be conceived of without them... We have insisted, it is true, that, since the end of society is to make men better, the chief good that society can possess is virtue. Nevertheless, it is the business of a well-constituted body politic to see to the provision of those material and external helps 'the use of which is necessary to virtuous action.'"

The Family

A common unit of analysis in economics is the household. The household is a buyer of goods and services from firms and a supplier of labor to firms. Yet analysis of the household often doesn't take into consideration the composition or relationships of the household.

In Catholic Social Teaching, the family is the most fundamental institution in society where man first realizes and fulfills his social nature. In this way, the family is more than a unit that provides and buys goods and services, it is the sanctuary of life, the reflection of our Trinitarian God, and very important for our development as persons.

It is no wonder that those who are without a loving family often deal with immense struggles in life. That is not to say that those with a loving family don't have struggles or that those without it can't live life well, but the love and support of a family can go a long way toward helping us live well, whether they be our natural family or our human family.

The Pope recently addressed the “Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice” foundation about Catholic Social Teaching and the importance of the family.

Pope John Paul II also took up this issue in his encyclical Centesimus Annus:

The first and fundamental structure for "human ecology" is the family, in which man receives his first formative ideas about truth and goodness, and learns what it means to love and to be loved, and thus what it actually means to be a person. Here we mean the family founded on marriage, in which the mutual gift of self by husband and wife creates an environment in which children can be born and develop their potentialities, become aware of their dignity and prepare to face their unique and individual destiny. But it often happens that people are discouraged from creating the proper conditions for human reproduction and are led to consider themselves and their lives as a series of sensations to be experienced rather than as a work to be accomplished. The result is a lack of freedom, which causes a person to reject a commitment to enter into a stable relationship with another person and to bring children into the world, or which leads people to consider children as one of the many "things" which an individual can have or not have, according to taste, and which compete with other possibilities.

It is necessary to go back to seeing the family as the sanctuary of life. The family is indeed sacred: it is the place in which life — the gift of God — can be properly welcomed and protected against the many attacks to which it is exposed, and can develop in accordance with what constitutes authentic human growth. In the face of the so-called culture of death, the family is the heart of the culture of life.

Human ingenuity seems to be directed more towards limiting, suppressing or destroying the sources of life — including recourse to abortion, which unfortunately is so widespread in the world — than towards defending and opening up the possibilities of life. The Encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis denounced systematic anti-childbearing campaigns which, on the basis of a distorted view of the demographic problem and in a climate of "absolute lack of respect for the freedom of choice of the parties involved", often subject them "to intolerable pressures ... in order to force them to submit to this new form of oppression".78 These policies are extending their field of action by the use of new techniques, to the point of poisoning the lives of millions of defenceless human beings, as if in a form of "chemical warfare".

These criticisms are directed not so much against an economic system as against an ethical and cultural system. The economy in fact is only one aspect and one dimension of the whole of human activity. If economic life is absolutized, if the production and consumption of goods become the centre of social life and society's only value, not subject to any other value, the reason is to be found not so much in the economic system itself as in the fact that the entire socio-cultural system, by ignoring the ethical and religious dimension, has been weakened, and ends by limiting itself to the production of goods and services alone.79

All of this can be summed up by repeating once more that economic freedom is only one element of human freedom. When it becomes autonomous, when man is seen more as a producer or consumer of goods than as a subject who produces and consumes in order to live, then economic freedom loses its necessary relationship to the human person and ends up by alienating and oppressing him.

Taxes and Welfare are not Charity

Taxation and welfare can never be substitutes for charity.

Taxation is a destruction of money (or reserves). Government spending is a creation of money (or reserves). Government welfare programs such as TANF, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, etc. reallocate or redistribute resources by destroying financial assets of the taxed and creating financial assets of the receivers of welfare.

This is the nature of government taxation and spending. Your taxes are not someone else's welfare and therefore are not a gift of charity. This 'redistribution' can achieve socially desirable goals, but cannot replace a true act of charity which requires a person or persons giving and a person or persons receiving:

Charity is love received and given. It is “grace” (cháris). Its source is the wellspring of the Father's love for the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Love comes down to us from the Son. -- Caritas in Veritate pp. 5

What persons need above all is love or charity, not material goods. Giving of material goods is an act of charity, but the charity is needed more than the material goods.

The government is not capable of charity because it is not a person capable of love. There is no relationship established, it is not a true gift and it isn't a true sacrifice.

So you can't rely on the government to be charitable for you. This does not mean that welfare programs should not exist, but it does mean that they don't replace man's inherent need for charity. You cannot defer your responsibility to both give and receive charity to the government.

Nor can you give out of charity if justice is not met:

Charity goes beyond justice, because to love is to give, to offer what is “mine” to the other; but it never lacks justice, which prompts us to give the other what is “his”, what is due to him by reason of his being or his acting. I cannot “give” what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice.

If we love others with charity, then first of all we are just towards them. Not only is justice not extraneous to charity, not only is it not an alternative or parallel path to charity: justice is inseparable from charity, and intrinsic to it. Justice is the primary way of charity or, in Paul VI's words, “the minimum measure” of it, an integral part of the love “in deed and in truth” (1 Jn 3:18), to which Saint John exhorts us.

On the one hand, charity demands justice: recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of individuals and peoples. It strives to build the earthly city according to law and justice. On the other hand, charity transcends justice and completes it in the logic of giving and forgiving. The earthly city is promoted not merely by relationships of rights and duties, but to an even greater and more fundamental extent by relationships of gratuitousness, mercy and communion. Charity always manifests God's love in human relationships as well, it gives theological and salvific value to all commitment for justice in the world. -- Caritas in Veritate pp. 6

In summary, the government cannot replace charity and therefore cannot solve all of society's problems which are rooted in an absence of charity and justice nor can we give out of charity if justice is not first met. To rely on the government to solve all our problems for us or to say that 'government is taxing me and giving it to the poor so I don't need to give' is to misunderstand true charity and a person's need for love.

Examining CV, Part 7

You can find parts 1-6 here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.

Examining the rest of chapter 3, we see that Pope Benedict XVI continues his discussion of morality and ethics within the economic and political spheres.

Locating resources, financing, production, consumption and all the other phases in the economic cycle inevitably have moral implications. Thus every economic decision has a moral consequence.

Hence the canons of justice must be respected from the outset, as the economic process unfolds, and not just afterwards or incidentally.

He also draws attention to the fact that economic life is a multi-layered phenomenon with three subjects: the market, the State, and civil society; and that recently the market and contractual exchange have been favored by public opinion.

[Economic life] requires contracts, in order to regulate relations of exchange between goods of equivalent value. But it also needs just laws and forms of redistribution governed by politics, and what is more, it needs works redolent of the spirit of gift.

The economy in the global era seems to privilege the former logic, that of contractual exchange, but directly or indirectly it also demonstrates its need for the other two: political logic, and the logic of the unconditional gift.

He reminds us that we all must strive for solidarity, "a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone;" and that "[the pursuit of solidarity] cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State."

He also reminds us yet again that "without gratuitousness, there can be no justice in the first place."

We need what Pope Paul VI called for in Populorum Progressio:

The creation of a model of market economy capable of including within its range all peoples and not just the better off. He called for efforts to build a more human world for all, a world in which “all will be able to give and receive, without one group making progress at the expense of the other”. In this way he was applying on a global scale the insights and aspirations contained in Rerum Novarum, written when, as a result of the Industrial Revolution, the idea was first proposed — somewhat ahead of its time — that the civil order, for its self-regulation, also needed intervention from the State for purposes of redistribution.

We need more than just a binary model of market-plus-State society:

In order to defeat underdevelopment, action is required not only on improving exchange-based transactions and implanting public welfare structures, but above all on gradually increasing openness, in a world context, to forms of economic activity marked by quotas of gratuitousness and communion.

He then calls for a "profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise," noting the risks and dangers of today's common form of business enterprise.

One of the greatest risks for businesses is that they are almost exclusively answerable to their investors, thereby limiting their social value. Owing to their growth in scale and the need for more and more capital, it is becoming increasingly rare for business enterprises to be in the hands of a stable director who feels responsible in the long term, not just the short term, for the life and the results of his company, and it is becoming increasingly rare for businesses to depend on a single territory. Moreover, the so-called outsourcing of production can weaken the company's sense of responsibility towards the stakeholders — namely the workers, the suppliers, the consumers, the natural environment and broader society — in favour of the shareholders, who are not tied to a specific geographical area and who therefore enjoy extraordinary mobility.

In recent years a new cosmopolitan class of managers has emerged, who are often answerable only to the shareholders generally consisting of anonymous funds which de facto determine their remuneration.

Even if the ethical considerations that currently inform debate on the social responsibility of the corporate world are not all acceptable from the perspective of the Church's social doctrine, there is nevertheless a growing conviction that business management cannot concern itself only with the interests of the proprietors, but must also assume responsibility for all the other stakeholders who contribute to the life of the business: the workers, the clients, the suppliers of various elements of production, the community of reference.

How should the business enterprise effectively promote justice/how should we view the business enterprise?

What should be avoided is a speculative use of financial resources that yields to the temptation of seeking only short-term profit, without regard for the long-term sustainability of the enterprise, its benefit to the real economy and attention to the advancement, in suitable and appropriate ways, of further economic initiatives in countries in need of development.

And extra care must be taken into consideration by international corporations:

It is true that the export of investments and skills can benefit the populations of the receiving country. Labour and technical knowledge are a universal good. Yet it is not right to export these things merely for the sake of obtaining advantageous conditions, or worse, for purposes of exploitation, without making a real contribution to local society by helping to bring about a robust productive and social system, an essential factor for stable development.

He reminds us that "business enterprise involves a wide range of values," and that "business has to be understood in an articulated way." Because:

Business activity has a human significance, prior to its professional one. It is present in all work, understood as a personal action, which is why every worker should have the chance to make his contribution knowing that in some way he is working ‘for himself'.

"Political authority also involves a wide range of values."

As well as cultivating differentiated forms of business activity on the global plane, we must also promote a dispersed political authority, effective on different levels.

In terms of the resolution of the current crisis, the State's role seems destined to grow, as it regains many of its competences. In some nations, moreover, the construction or reconstruction of the State remains a key factor in their development.

The State does not need to have identical characteristics everywhere: the support aimed at strengthening weak constitutional systems can easily be accompanied by the development of other political players, of a cultural, social, territorial or religious nature, alongside the State. The articulation of political authority at the local, national and international levels is one of the best ways of giving direction to the process of economic globalization. It is also the way to ensure that it does not actually undermine the foundations of democracy.

And finally, Pope Benedict XVI teaches us that "globalization is neither good nor bad," and that true globalization and integration requires "a sustained commitment so as to promote a person-based and community-oriented cultural process of world-wide integration that is open to transcendence."

The processes of globalization, suitably understood and directed, open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale; if badly directed, however, they can lead to an increase in poverty and inequality, and could even trigger a global crisis. It is necessary to correct the malfunctions, some of them serious, that cause new divisions between peoples and within peoples, and also to ensure that the redistribution of wealth does not come about through the redistribution or increase of poverty: a real danger if the present situation were to be badly managed.

Today the material resources available for rescuing these peoples from poverty are potentially greater than before, but they have ended up largely in the hands of people from developed countries, who have benefited more from the liberalization that has occurred in the mobility of capital and labour. The world-wide diffusion of forms of prosperity should not therefore be held up by projects that are self-centred, protectionist or at the service of private interests.

"In this way it will be possible to experience and to steer the globalization of humanity in relational terms, in terms of communion and the sharing of goods."

Examining CV, Part 6

In Chapter 3 of CV, Pope Benedict XVI delves into fraternity, economic development, and civil society.

He first affirms that we, as humans, are made for gift and that we are often wrongly convinced that we are the sole authors of ourselves, our lives, and all of society. He reminds us that we have a wounded nature born out of original sin and that the economy has felt the pernicious effects of this sin.

Happiness is not material prosperity and economics is not autonomous from morality:

The conviction that man is self-sufficient and can successfully eliminate the evil present in history by his own action alone has led him to confuse happiness and salvation with immanent forms of material prosperity and social action. Then, the conviction that the economy must be autonomous, that it must be shielded from “influences” of a moral character, has led man to abuse the economic process in a thoroughly destructive way. In the long term, these convictions have led to economic, social and political systems that trample upon personal and social freedom, and are therefore unable to deliver the justice that they promise.

Charity, hope, truth...these things are greater than we are. Charity in truth builds an authentic human community that we alone cannot build by ourselves. Gratuitousness must be evident in society if economic, social and political development is to be authentically human.

The Pope then goes on to make very key statements regarding markets and justice that "free marketers" often ignore or reject:

In a climate of mutual trust, the market is the economic institution that permits encounter between persons, inasmuch as they are economic subjects who make use of contracts to regulate their relations as they exchange goods and services of equivalent value between them, in order to satisfy their needs and desires. The market is subject to the principles of so-called commutative justice, which regulates the relations of giving and receiving between parties to a transaction. But the social doctrine of the Church has unceasingly highlighted the importance of distributive justice and social justice for the market economy, not only because it belongs within a broader social and political context, but also because of the wider network of relations within which it operates. In fact, if the market is governed solely by the principle of the equivalence in value of exchanged goods, it cannot produce the social cohesion that it requires in order to function well.

Without internal forms of solidarity and mutual trust, the market cannot completely fulfil its proper economic function. And today it is this trust which has ceased to exist, and the loss of trust is a grave loss.

According to the Pope, it was not just a matter of correcting dysfunctions through assistance. The poor are not to be considered a “burden”, but a resource, even from the purely economic point of view. It is nevertheless erroneous to hold that the market economy has an inbuilt need for a quota of poverty and underdevelopment in order to function at its best.

It is in the interests of the market to promote emancipation, but in order to do so effectively, it cannot rely only on itself, because it is not able to produce by itself something that lies outside its competence. It must draw its moral energies from other subjects that are capable of generating them.

These statements are very strong because they rightly point out that markets alone do NOT bring about a just distribution of goods as many economists would have you believe. The solution lies not just in redistribution, but far more importantly in moral actors within markets. We must all act together toward the common good and not rely on selfish actions within a market to produce the result for us. Pope Benedict XVI continues:

In and of itself, the market is not, and must not become, the place where the strong subdue the weak. Society does not have to protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso facto to entail the death of authentically human relations. Admittedly, the market can be a negative force, not because it is so by nature, but because a certain ideology can make it so. It must be remembered that the market does not exist in the pure state. It is shaped by the cultural configurations which define it and give it direction. Economy and finance, as instruments, can be used badly when those at the helm are motivated by purely selfish ends. Instruments that are good in themselves can thereby be transformed into harmful ones. But it is man's darkened reason that produces these consequences, not the instrument per se. Therefore it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.

WE, as economic actors, make up markets and it is WE who are responsible for their goodness or their badness. In other words, Pope Benedict is criticizing the market harshly, not because it isn't efficient or that it is evil, but because our actions within the market aren't directed toward the common good. Those who hold that selfish actions within a market bring about the common good as is often claimed (starting with Adam Smith's "invisible hand") by economists and politicians are wrong! It is clear that this does not bring about the common good, instead we must act always for each other, within and outside the market, so as to bring about a community of charity and fraternity that provides for the welfare of all.

The economic sphere is neither ethically neutral, nor inherently inhuman and opposed to society. It is part and parcel of human activity and precisely because it is human, it must be structured and governed in an ethical manner.

What is needed?:

The great challenge before us, accentuated by the problems of development in this global era and made even more urgent by the economic and financial crisis, is to demonstrate, in thinking and behaviour, not only that traditional principles of social ethics like transparency, honesty and responsibility cannot be ignored or attenuated, but also that in commercial relationships the principle of gratuitousness and the logic of gift as an expression of fraternity can and must find their place within normal economic activity.

Because: "every economic decision has a moral consequence. Justice must be applied to every phase of economic activity, because this is always concerned with man and his needs."

Pope Benedict XVI writes that economic life needs contracts to regulate exchange, just laws and redistribution governed by poltiics, and most importantly works redolent of the spirit of gift. He calls especially for today's market economies to make room for institutions with motives other than profit-oriented enterprises, for civil society to push for greater solidarity and not simply rely on the State to do so, and for the State to redistribute when necessary to take care of the peoples who are not included within the benefits of the market economy.

Examining CV, part 5

As a segway into the next segment of CV, Pope Benedict ties his discussion on food shortages and our basic natural right to food and water to the fundamental right to life:

The right to food, like the right to water, has an important place within the pursuit of other rights, beginning with the fundamental right to life. It is therefore necessary to cultivate a public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination.

He then very importantly draws our attention to the center of true development (which is the focus of this encyclical) and the grave evils that are preventing it:

Not only does the situation of poverty still provoke high rates of infant mortality in many regions, but some parts of the world still experience practices of demographic control, on the part of governments that often promote contraception and even go so far as to impose abortion. In economically developed countries, legislation contrary to life is very widespread, and it has already shaped moral attitudes and praxis, contributing to the spread of an anti-birth mentality; frequent attempts are made to export this mentality to other States as if it were a form of cultural progress.

Some non-governmental Organizations work actively to spread abortion, at times promoting the practice of sterilization in poor countries, in some cases not even informing the women concerned. Moreover, there is reason to suspect that development aid is sometimes linked to specific health-care policies which de facto involve the imposition of strong birth control measures. Further grounds for concern are laws permitting euthanasia as well as pressure from lobby groups, nationally and internationally, in favour of its juridical recognition.

Openness to life is at the centre of true development. When a society moves towards the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man's true good.

By cultivating openness to life, wealthy peoples can better understand the needs of poor ones, they can avoid employing huge economic and intellectual resources to satisfy the selfish desires of their own citizens, and instead, they can promote virtuous action within the perspective of production that is morally sound and marked by solidarity, respecting the fundamental right to life of every people and every individual.

Similarly, another aspect tied closely to development is being denied in our time: the right to religious freedom. Both religious fanaticism that takes the form of violence in the name of God and "the deliberate promotion of religious indifference (or practical atheism) obstructs the requirements for the development of peoples, depriving them of spiritual and human resources."

The Pope writes:

Man is not a lost atom in a random universe: he is God's creature, whom God chose to endow with an immortal soul and whom he has always loved. If man were merely the fruit of either chance or necessity, or if he had to lower his aspirations to the limited horizon of the world in which he lives, if all reality were merely history and culture, and man did not possess a nature destined to transcend itself in a supernatural life, then one could speak of growth, or evolution, but not development.

We are also reminded that truth and charity are not to be separated. We cannot develop without charity and faith, as the scientific, human-knowledge-is-sufficient community would have us believe, yet charity and faith are also not without knowledge and human reason:

Charity does not exclude knowledge, but rather requires, promotes, and animates it from within. Knowledge is never purely the work of the intellect. It can certainly be reduced to calculation and experiment, but if it aspires to be wisdom capable of directing man in the light of his first beginnings and his final ends, it must be “seasoned” with the “salt” of charity. Deeds without knowledge are blind, and knowledge without love is sterile.

Charity is not an added extra, like an appendix to work already concluded in each of the various disciplines: it engages them in dialogue from the very beginning. The demands of love do not contradict those of reason. Human knowledge is insufficient and the conclusions of science cannot indicate by themselves the path towards integral human development. There is always a need to push further ahead: this is what is required by charity in truth. Going beyond, however, never means prescinding from the conclusions of reason, nor contradicting its results. Intelligence and love are not in separate compartments: love is rich in intelligence and intelligence is full of love.

An implication of this truth is that "moral evaluation and scientific research must go hand in hand, and that charity must animate them in a harmonious interdisciplinary whole, marked by unity and distinction."

The tendency to prefer short run (sometimes immediate) gains over a longer run view has had drastic consequences, especially for the poor and unemployed.
The Pope specifically draws our attention to the evils of inequality and unemployment:

The dignity of the individual and the demands of justice require, particularly today, that economic choices do not cause disparities in wealth to increase in an excessive and morally unacceptable manner, and that we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone. All things considered, this is also required by “economic logic”. Through the systemic increase of social inequality, both within a single country and between the populations of different countries (i.e. the massive increase in relative poverty), not only does social cohesion suffer, thereby placing democracy at risk, but so too does the economy, through the progressive erosion of “social capital”: the network of relationships of trust, dependability, and respect for rules, all of which are indispensable for any form of civil coexistence.

In order to improve the conditions we face in our time, new solutions are needed that take into account this broader concept of reason and that above all respect the dignity of the human person.

Examining Caritas in Veritate, part 4

Part 4 will focus on CV's re-examination of the role of the State, because of the changes that have occured since the time of Populorum Progressio. Beginning in pp.24, Pope Benedict XVI notes that PP assigned a central role to public authorities because the scope of societal issues was at that time still limited to within national borders. In other words, there wasn't widespread globalization or international integration. The past 5 decades have seen considerable integration of nations which the Pope expresses in this quote:

In our own day, the State finds itself having to address the limitations to its sovereignty imposed by the new context of international trade and finance, which is characterized by increasing mobility both of financial capital and means of production, material and immaterial. This new context has altered the political power of States.

In other words, the State is limited in its ability to legislate because of increasingly integrated international relations. The Pope then calls for a re-evaluation of the State's role and believes that once it is more clearly defined, political participation by the public will increase.

The first effect of globlaization Pope Benedict XVI addresses is the downsizing of social security systems worldwide in order to attract businesses to the country:

Consequently, the market has prompted new forms of competition between States as they seek to attract foreign businesses to set up production centres, by means of a variety of instruments, including favourable fiscal regimes and deregulation of the labour market. These processes have led to a downsizing of social security systems as the price to be paid for seeking greater competitive advantage in the global market, with consequent grave danger for the rights of workers, for fundamental human rights and for the solidarity associated with the traditional forms of the social State. Systems of social security can lose the capacity to carry out their task, both in emerging countries and in those that were among the earliest to develop, as well as in poor countries. Here budgetary policies, with cuts in social spending often made under pressure from international financial institutions, can leave citizens powerless in the face of old and new risks; such powerlessness is increased by the lack of effective protection on the part of workers' associations.

He believes the situation to be so grave that the rights "of associations that can defend workers' rights must therefore be honoured today even more than in the past, as a prompt and far-sighted response to the urgent need for new forms of cooperation at the international level, as well as the local level."

He then notes that mobility of labor in the context of unemployment can be good, it can stimulate wealth production and cultural exchange; but it can also have negative effects, such as uncertainty over working conditions, psychological instability, situations of human decline, and waste of social resources.

He then reminds us of the evils of unemployment, a point I try to stress often because our nation has given up trying to decrease unemployment because of what have now been long-running fears of inflation and bankruptcy that simply haven't happened:

Being out of work or dependent on public or private assistance for a prolonged period undermines the freedom and creativity of the person and his family and social relationships, causing great psychological and spiritual suffering. I would like to remind everyone, especially governments engaged in boosting the world's economic and social assets, that the primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man, the human person in his or her integrity: "Man is the source, the focus and the aim of all economic and social life."

He also notes that many poor countries are still suffering from food shortages and thus hunger despite the abundance of material resources we have to feed them:

Life in many poor countries is still extremely insecure as a consequence of food shortages, and the situation could become worse: hunger still reaps enormous numbers of victims among those who, like Lazarus, are not permitted to take their place at the rich man's table, contrary to the hopes expressed by Paul VI.

Hunger is not so much dependent on lack of material things as on shortage of social resources, the most important of which are institutional.

Moreover, the elimination of world hunger has also, in the global era, become a requirement for safeguarding the peace and stability of the planet.

He then proposes a proper solution:

What is missing, in other words, is a network of economic institutions capable of guaranteeing regular access to sufficient food and water for nutritional needs, and also capable of addressing the primary needs and necessities ensuing from genuine food crises, whether due to natural causes or political irresponsibility, nationally and internationally.

The problem of food insecurity needs to be addressed within a long-term perspective, eliminating the structural causes that give rise to it and promoting the agricultural development of poorer countries. This can be done by investing in rural infrastructures, irrigation systems, transport, organization of markets, and in the development and dissemination of agricultural technology that can make the best use of the human, natural and socio-economic resources that are more readily available at the local level, while guaranteeing their sustainability over the long term as well. All this needs to be accomplished with the involvement of local communities in choices and decisions that affect the use of agricultural land.

Pope Benedict XVI will go on to address other international issues that are of great concern in our time and continue to re-evaluate the role of the State in providing solutions for these problems which I will examine in part 5 of this series.

Examining Caritas in Veritate, Part 3

Parts 1 and 2 focused on the Introduction and Chapter 1 of CV, which were concerned with the purpose and scope of the encyclical. Chapter 2 dives into applying this broader picture to specific situations or principles.

Pope Benedict XVI first reviews the situation today in light of Pope Paul VI's vision of development:

Paul VI had an articulated vision of development. He understood the term to indicate the goal of rescuing peoples, first and foremost, from hunger, deprivation, endemic diseases and illiteracy. From the economic point of view, this meant their active participation, on equal terms, in the international economic process; from the social point of view, it meant their evolution into educated societies marked by solidarity; from the political point of view, it meant the consolidation of democratic regimes capable of ensuring freedom and peace.

The proper role of profit and economic growth within human development:

Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end that provides a sense both of how to produce it and how to make good use of it. Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty. The economic development that Paul VI hoped to see was meant to produce real growth, of benefit to everyone and genuinely sustainable. It is true that growth has taken place, and it continues to be a positive factor that has lifted billions of people out of misery — recently it has given many countries the possibility of becoming effective players in international politics. Yet it must be acknowledged that this same economic growth has been and continues to be weighed down by malfunctions and dramatic problems, highlighted even further by the current crisis.

Current socioeconomic problems plauging the world:

1) "The technical forces in play,
2) the global interrelations,
3) the damaging effects on the real economy of badly managed and largely speculative financial dealing,
4) large-scale migration of peoples, often provoked by some particular circumstance and then given insufficient attention,
5) the unregulated exploitation of the earth's resources...

...all this leads us today to reflect on the measures that would be necessary to provide a solution to problems that are not only new in comparison to those addressed by Pope Paul VI, but also, and above all, of decisive impact upon the present and future good of humanity."

More problems to address:
6) Increases in overall wealth, but also increasing poverty and growing inequalities:

The world's wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities are on the increase. In rich countries, new sectors of society are succumbing to poverty and new forms of poverty are emerging. In poorer areas some groups enjoy a sort of “superdevelopment” of a wasteful and consumerist kind which forms an unacceptable contrast with the ongoing situations of dehumanizing deprivation. “The scandal of glaring inequalities” continues.

7) Corruption and exploitation are still rampant:

Corruption and illegality are unfortunately evident in the conduct of the economic and political class in rich countries, both old and new, as well as in poor ones. Among those who sometimes fail to respect the human rights of workers are large multinational companies as well as local producers.

8) Int'l aid is often loaded with alterior motives:

International aid has often been diverted from its proper ends, through irresponsible actions both within the chain of donors and within that of the beneficiaries.

9 & 10) Rich countries are overly protective of their wealth and intellectual property and social norms in poorer countries are preventing authentic development:

On the part of rich countries there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care. At the same time, in some poor countries, cultural models and social norms of behaviour persist which hinder the process of development.

Despite all these, Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that the current economic crisis offers us "an opportunity for discernment, in which to shape a new vision for the future."

More importantly, he reminds us that "progress of a merely economic and technological kind is insufficient. Development needs above all to be true and integral."

Part 4 will take a closer look at some of these problems and other problems occuring in our time.

Examining Caritas in Veritate, Part 2

In Chapter 1 of Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI recalls the main points of Populorum Progressio and their significance. He points out that PP was written immediately after Vatican II and set out to convey two important truths: The Church is engaged in promoting integral human development through all of her proclamation, celebration, works of charity, and educational activities which includes a public role as long as she is able to operate in a climate of freedom. The second truth is that "authentic human development concerns the whole of the person in every single dimension." Pope Benedict goes on to make what I think is an extremely important point regarding this development:

Without the perspective of eternal life, human progress in this world is denied breathing-space. Enclosed within history, it runs the risk of being reduced to the mere accumulation of wealth; humanity thus loses the courage to be at the service of higher goods, at the service of the great and disinterested initiatives called forth by universal charity. Man does not develop through his own powers, nor can development simply be handed to him.

In reality, institutions by themselves are not enough, because integral human development is primarily a vocation, and therefore it involves a free assumption of responsibility in solidarity on the part of everyone. Moreover, such development requires a transcendent vision of the person, it needs God: without him, development is either denied, or entrusted exclusively to man, who falls into the trap of thinking he can bring about his own salvation, and ends up promoting a dehumanized form of development. Only through an encounter with God are we able to see in the other something more than just another creature, to recognize the divine image in the other, thus truly coming to discover him or her and to mature in a love that “becomes concern and care for the other.”

Despite PP's connection with Vatican II, it did not constitute a break from the teachings that came before PP. The Pope reminds us that the Church's magisterium is "a single teaching, consistent and at the same time ever new."

PP also warned of two opposing utopian ideologies: too much reliance on technology for development, and a complete denial of technology for development:

Idealizing technical progress, or contemplating the utopia of a return to humanity's original natural state, are two contrasting ways of detaching progress from its moral evaluation and hence from our responsibility.

Pope Benedict XVI also noted the strong link between PP and Humanae Vitae, another of Pope Paul VI's encyclicals:

Humanae Vitae indicates the strong links between life ethics and social ethics...The Church forcefully maintains this link between life ethics and social ethics, fully aware that “a society lacks solid foundations when, on the one hand, it asserts values such as the dignity of the person, justice and peace, but then, on the other hand, radically acts to the contrary by allowing or tolerating a variety of ways in which human life is devalued and violated, especially where it is weak or marginalized.”

Later, Pope Bendict XVI teaches us that progess, is first a foremost a vocation:

To regard development as a vocation is to recognize, on the one hand, that it derives from a transcendent call, and on the other hand that it is incapable, on its own, of supplying its ultimate meaning.

Because it is a vocation it requires "a free and responsible answer. Integral human development presupposes the responsible freedom of the individual and of peoples: no structure can guarantee this development over and above human responsibility."

This responsiblity over our own development reminds us that we are "the principal agents of [our] own success or failure."

As development is a vocation, or a responsibility on our part, it requires not only freedom, but truth:

Only when it is free can development be integrally human; only in a climate of responsible freedom can it grow in a satisfactory manner. Besides requiring freedom, integral human development as a vocation also demands respect for its truth. The vocation to progress drives us to “do more, know more and have more in order to be more."

True development also involves every man and the whole man, both natural and supernatural, with the Gospel as fundamental to that development.

And lastly, Pope Benedict XVI recalled the central place of charity within development, especially in aiding the areas of underdevelopment:

Finally, the vision of development as a vocation brings with it the central place of charity within that development. Paul VI, in his Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, pointed out that the causes of underdevelopment are not primarily of the material order. He invited us to search for them in other dimensions of the human person: first of all, in the will, which often neglects the duties of solidarity; secondly in thinking, which does not always give proper direction to the will.

Underdevelopment has an even more important cause than lack of deep thought: it is “the lack of brotherhood among individuals and peoples.”

Chapter one thus ends with a reminder of the urgent need for reform "and in the face of great problems of injustice in the development of peoples, it calls for courageous action to be taken without delay."

Examining Caritas in Veritate, Part 1

The most recent Social Paply Encyclical written by Pope Benedict XVI almost 2 years ago, entitled Caritas in Veritate or Charity in Truth, was written to address the current social problems and issues of our time and to call to mind the principles of authentic development laid forth in Populorum Progressio written over 40 years ago.

This post begins a series examining the teachings of Caritas in Veritate so that we can better practice and apply Catholic Social Teaching in our daily lives.

Pope Benedict begins by explaining how charity in truth is at the center of authentic development and of the Church's social doctrine:

Charity in truth, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity.

Each person finds his good by adherence to God's plan for him, in order to realize it fully: in this plan, he finds his truth, and through adherence to this truth he becomes free.

Charity, in fact, “rejoices in the truth.”

“God is love” (Deus Caritas Est): everything has its origin in God's love, everything is shaped by it, everything is directed towards it. Love is God's greatest gift to humanity, it is his promise and our hope.

Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived.

In the present social and cultural context, where there is a widespread tendency to relativize truth, practising charity in truth helps people to understand that adhering to the values of Christianity is not merely useful but essential for building a good society and for true integral human development.

Charity is love received and given. This dynamic of charity received and given is what gives rise to the Church's social teaching, which is caritas in veritate in re sociali: the proclamation of the truth of Christ's love in society.

Without truth, without trust and love for what is true, there is no social conscience and responsibility, and social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in social fragmentation, especially in a globalized society at difficult times like the present.

After having shown the importance of charity in truth, Pope Benedict goes on to apply the principle to the practical moral goals of justice and the common good:

Charity goes beyond justice, because to love is to give, to offer what is “mine” to the other; but it never lacks justice, which prompts us to give the other what is “his”, what is due to him by reason of his being or his acting.

I cannot “give” what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice.

On the one hand, charity demands justice. On the other hand, charity transcends justice and completes it in the logic of giving and forgiving.

The common good is the good of “all of us”, made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society. It is a good that is sought not for its own sake, but for the people who belong to the social community and who can only really and effectively pursue their good within it.

To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity.

Every Christian is called to practise this charity, in a manner corresponding to his vocation and according to the degree of influence he wields in the pólis (community).

Closing the introduction to Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict explains that he is continuing the message of Populorum Progressio, which he proclaims as the Rerum Novarum of the present age, by applying the principle of charity in truth to the authentic development of the human family and by explaining the Church's role in this mission:

Love in truth — caritas in veritate — is a great challenge for the Church in a world that is becoming progressively and pervasively globalized.

Only in charity, illumined by the light of reason and faith, is it possible to pursue development goals that possess a more humane and humanizing value.

The sharing of goods and resources, from which authentic development proceeds, is not guaranteed by merely technical progress and relationships of utility, but by the potential of love that overcomes evil with good (cf. Rom 12:21), opening up the path towards reciprocity of consciences and liberties.

The Church does not have technical solutions to offer and does not claim “to interfere in any way in the politics of States.”

She does, however, have a mission of truth to accomplish, in every time and circumstance, for a society that is attuned to man, to his dignity, to his vocation.

Without truth, it is easy to fall into an empiricist and sceptical view of life, incapable of rising to the level of praxis because of a lack of interest in grasping the values — sometimes even the meanings — with which to judge and direct it.

Fidelity to man requires fidelity to the truth, which alone is the guarantee of freedom (cf. Jn 8:32) and of the possibility of integral human development. For this reason the Church searches for truth, proclaims it tirelessly and recognizes it wherever it is manifested.

Caritas in Veritate

Populorum Progressio

Loss of Trust in the Marketplace

From Caritas in Veritate:

In a climate of mutual trust, the market is the economic institution that permits encounter between persons, inasmuch as they are economic subjects who make use of contracts to regulate their relations as they exchange goods and services of equivalent value between them, in order to satisfy their needs and desires.

The market is subject to the principles of so-called commutative justice, which regulates the relations of giving and receiving between parties to a transaction. But the social doctrine of the Church has unceasingly highlighted the importance of distributive justice and social justice for the market economy, not only because it belongs within a broader social and political context, but also because of the wider network of relations within which it operates. In fact, if the market is governed solely by the principle of the equivalence in value of exchanged goods, it cannot produce the social cohesion that it requires in order to function well.

Without internal forms of solidarity and mutual trust, the market cannot completely fulfill its proper economic function. And today it is this trust which has ceased to exist, and the loss of trust is a grave loss. It was timely when Paul VI in Populorum Progressio insisted that the economic system itself would benefit from the wide-ranging practice of justice, inasmuch as the first to gain from the development of poor countries would be rich ones.

According to the Pope, it was not just a matter of correcting dysfunctions through assistance. The poor are not to be considered a “burden”, but a resource, even from the purely economic point of view. It is nevertheless erroneous to hold that the market economy has an inbuilt need for a quota of poverty and underdevelopment in order to function at its best.

It is in the interests of the market to promote emancipation, but in order to do so effectively, it cannot rely only on itself, because it is not able to produce by itself something that lies outside its competence. It must draw its moral energies from other subjects that are capable of generating them.--Pope Benedict XVI

The Pope on Health Care

This piece is from Kevin Clarke, a writer for U.S. Catholic. It is an article on the Pope's comments on health care and the Tea Party movement that many Catholics have followed. It may also be an opinion piece, because it is laden with "opinion-like" comments, but I'll let you interpret as you like.

[UPDATE: The comments come from the 25th International Conference of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry at the Vatican Nov. 18-19. Here is a more official story.]