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Flickr-Eustaquio Santimano
The Pope’s final chapters of Caritas in Veritate address specific topics of the human family that are universal despite different cultures, stages of development, and wealth.
He emphasizes the duties of individuals, states and countries over what has been accepted as rights though these “rights” have not been proven. Individual rights, when detached from a framework of duties, can run wild. The powerful should not take what they can without regard for the needs of others.
Appeals are made for affluent societies toward the underdeveloped: lack of food, drinkable water, health care and education in poor countries or outskirts of metropolitan areas require our attention and resources in an attitude of solidarity.
Because the world derives from God’s plan, modern problems are taken into account as not being symptomatic of wrong thinking and acting but their source: the lack of centrality of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman, ethics that are not people-centered, and disrespect for the environment by treating it as no more than raw material to be exploited without regard for future generations. Pope Benedict calls upon states to enact policies promoting changes with these values in mind.
The Pope is quietly emphatic. He advises: the international community has an urgent duty to find institutional means of regulating the exploitation of non-renewable resources. We need a world-wide redistribution of energy resources so that countries lacking those resources can have access to them. Authorities must ensure that the economic and social costs of shared environmental resources are recognized and fully borne.
The way humanity treats the environment influences the way it treats itself. To conquer hedonism and consumerism, he calls for new life-styles in the quest for beauty, truth, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth to determine consumer choices, savings and investment. To protect nature, the decisive issue is the overall moral tenor of society. Lack of respect for the right to life and natural death, if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, human embryos are sacrificed to research society’s conscience ends up losing the concept of human ecology and environmental ecology. It is contradictory to expect to respect the natural environment when educational systems and laws do not help them to respect themselves.
The Church has a responsibility toward creation and must assert it in the public sphere. She must defend earth water and air as gifts that belong to everyone and protect mankind from self-destruction.
The development of peoples depends on recognition that the human race is a single family. This requires a new trajectory of thinking. Reciprocity is at the heart of what it means to be a human being. As a spiritual being, the human creature is defined through interpersonal relations. As he authentically lives these relations, the more his personal identity matures. It is not by isolation that man establishes his worth but by relationship with God and others.
This moral education is essential in realizing full human potential. The law etched on our hearts is the precondition for social cooperation. The transcendence of Christian faith will allow different cultures to grow in brotherhood and advance global community development.
The Holy Father warns us about our future. Though he is hopeful in his urgings and even positive in his warnings, he nevertheless provides us with an ominous glimpse of the dangerous consequences ahead that stem from the decisions that are already at work and seem unlikely to be repented. The reader can sense the contrary forces and God -given free choice of the many who choose to ignore Pope Benedict’s wisdom and knowledge as well as his anointing as Father.
People of good will are invited to make use of this encyclical perhaps mostly by praying for the world’s return to the practice of worship of God who is love and truth. By continuing the work that is so crucial and already established: ethics in economy, finance and business, humanities driven worker’s rights organizations, watchdog groups and finding our own voice, we can strengthen and reform the world’s conscience for better.
A healthy relationship with God will lead to healthy relationships with man.
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