Pope Benedict XVI releases Encyclical Caritas in Veritate

Today the Vatican released Pope Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate or Charity in Truth. This is the third encyclical of his papacy. Its publication was delayed as Pope Benedict chose to rework it to reflect more accurately the current economic distress.

 

This encyclical is longer than his previous works, but no less clear and poignant in its teaching. This document is meant to be a tribute to the work of Pope Paul VI and build upon Pope Paul VI’s 1967 encyclical, Populorum Progressio, or the Progressive Development of Peoples.

 

This encyclical is not meant solely to be studied by bishops, priests, and theologians. The introductory salutation says, “To the Bishops, Priests, Religious, and Faithful of the Whole Catholic World, and to All Men of Good Will”.  Every faithful Catholic should take to heart the principles and teachings of this encyclical. The primary purpose of this document is to clarify that worldly progress cannot proceed separated from the Truth. Continuing a theme he began when he was known as Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict emphatically declares that there exists an absolute truth. He once again condemns moral relativism.

 

 

I am aware of the ways in which charity has been and continues to be misconstrued and emptied of meaning, with the consequent risk of being misinterpreted, detached from ethical living and, in any event, undervalued. In the social, juridical, cultural, political and economic fields — the contexts, in other words, that are most exposed to this danger — it is easily dismissed as irrelevant for interpreting and giving direction to moral responsibility. Hence the need to link charity with truth not only in the sequence, pointed out by Saint Paul, of veritas in caritate (Eph 4:15), but also in the inverse and complementary sequence of caritas in veritate. Truth needs to be sought, found and expressed within the “economy” of charity, but charity in its turn needs to be understood, confirmed and practised in the light of truth. In this way, not only do we do a service to charity enlightened by truth, but we also help give credibility to truth, demonstrating its persuasive and authenticating power in the practical setting of social living. This is a matter of no small account today, in a social and cultural context which relativizes truth, often paying little heed to it and showing increasing reluctance to acknowledge its existence.

This document needs to be read slowly and thoughtfully. In spite of its length, there are no wasted words. The following excerpts illustrate the tone of Pope Benedict’s teaching.

In paragraph 11, Pope Benedict declares that human institutions are insufficient to bring about authentic human development:

 

In the course of history, it was often maintained that the creation of institutions was sufficient to guarantee the fulfilment of humanity's right to development. Unfortunately, too much confidence was placed in those institutions, as if they were able to deliver the desired objective automatically. 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.

In paragraph 15, Pope Benedict reaffirms the seminal teaching of Pope Paul VI’s enclyclical, Humanae Vitae:

 

The Encyclical Humanae Vitae emphasizes both the unitive and the procreative meaning of sexuality, thereby locating at the foundation of society the married couple, man and woman, who accept one another mutually, in distinction and in complementarity: a couple, therefore, that is open to life. This is not a question of purely individual morality: Humanae Vitae indicates the strong links between life ethics and social ethics, ushering in a new area of magisterial teaching that has gradually been articulated in a series of documents, most recently John Paul II's Encyclical Evangelium Vitae. 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.

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espect for human life merits its own paragraph in this encyclical. Pope Benedict makes it abundantly clear that the sanctity of life cannot be sacrificed on the altar of material wealth or technological progress:

 

One of the most striking aspects of development in the present day is the important question of respect for life, which cannot in any way be detached from questions concerning the development of peoples. It is an aspect which has acquired increasing prominence in recent times, obliging us to broaden our concept of poverty and underdevelopment to include questions connected with the acceptance of life, especially in cases where it is impeded in a variety of ways.

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. If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away[67]. The acceptance of life strengthens moral fibre and makes people capable of mutual help. 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.

 

Pope Benedict also continues to affirm the complementary relationship of faith and reason. Paragraph 31 is especially relevant considering President Obama’s recent decision to disband the President’s Council on Bioethics because there was too much moral reflection in its deliberations:

 

This means 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 Church's social doctrine, which has “an important interdisciplinary dimension”, can exercise, in this perspective, a function of extraordinary effectiveness. It allows faith, theology, metaphysics and science to come together in a collaborative effort in the service of humanity. It is here above all that the Church's social doctrine displays its dimension of wisdom. Paul VI had seen clearly that among the causes of underdevelopment there is a lack of wisdom and reflection, a lack of thinking capable of formulating a guiding synthesis, for which “a clear vision of all economic, social, cultural and spiritual aspects” is required. The excessive segmentation of knowledge, the rejection of metaphysics by the human sciences, the difficulties encountered by dialogue between science and theology are damaging not only to the development of knowledge, but also to the development of peoples, because these things make it harder to see the integral good of man in its various dimensions. The “broadening [of] our concept of reason and its application” is indispensable if we are to succeed in adequately weighing all the elements involved in the question of development and in the solution of socio-economic problems.

The Pope goes on to discuss the implications of globalization and the need for cooperation among nations to ensure authentic justice and human development.

 

It is not coincidental that this encyclical that addresses the moral dimensions of economic and human development is released on the eve of the annual G-8 summit. Clearly, Pope Benedict is extending an offer of the significant wisdom of the Church to the summit participants.

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For more info: 

Encyclicals by Pope Benedict XVI

Encyclicals by Pope Paul VI