Caritas in Veritate
Posted on June 16th, 2009
by Nathan P. Origer |
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MINT-AND-CORN COUNTRY, INDIANA — By way of NOR’s Daily Links: Pope Benedict XVI’s eagerly awaited (at least by yours truly) social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, “is expected to be signed by the pope on June 29, and released at the beginning of summer.”
Unsurprisingly, the current global economic situation has piqued curiosity in this forthcoming document, and, one suspects, perhaps has influenced just what the former Cardinal Ratzinger has to say. From the article, a quotation from the pope, from February:
It is the Church’s duty to denounce the fundamental errors that have now been revealed in the collapse of the major American banks. Human greed is a form of idolatry that is against the true God, and is a falsification of the image of God with another god, Mammon. We must denounce this courageously, but also concretely, because grand moralizations are not helpful if they are not supported by a familiarity with reality, which helps us to understand what can be done concretely. The Church has never simply denounced evils, it also shows the paths that lead to justice, to charity, to the conversion of hearts. In the economy as well, justice is established only if there are just persons. And these persons are assembled through the conversion of hearts
Scott Richert has a lot more to say about the encyclical here:
Yet both [capitalists and socialists] fail to see that the problem is much more basic, as John Paul II (and Leo XIII and Pius XI before him) saw. In a world that values consumption above our duties to God and our fellow man, no economic system will ever in itself make up for our moral failings.
That, I believe, will be the theme that Pope Benedict XVI will pick up in Caritas in Veritate and carry forward. Those who believed (wrongly) that Centesimus annus “baptized capitalism” will be disappointed—but so, I think, will be those who believe that the answer to our current economic crisis is the revival of socialism [My emphasis. - NPO].
Instead, Pope Benedict will follow the course charted by his eminent predecessors as successor to Saint Peter, explaining why “economic law” cannot be allowed to trump Christian charity. The result will be a message that the modern world needs to hear; yet it will also be one that few, sadly, are likely to heed.
Notwithstanding the failings of the Holy Mother Church with respect to sustaining the sort of culture
that a vigorous Faith requires and the flaccidity of political Catholicism, I can think of nothing that the world needs now more than a new social encyclical, particularly from the first “crunchy pope“. The modern-day soi-disant Catholics — the Bill O’Reillys, Sean Hannitys, and Newt Gingriches, not to mention the Pelosis and Kennedys, who exist in a dimension so distant from our own as to require, one should think, theological-breathing apparatuses — may not heed this, but there are those of us — Catholic, but also Orthodox, Protestant, non-Christian, irreligious — who will appreciate the veritatis splendor in Pope Benedict’s proclamation and continue to build and to sustain local cultures and societies that place duty to God, family, and community before the idolization of stuff, that focus on economies (Kunstler: “Community is economy.”), rather than some silly abstraction called “the economy” that has more to do with the Gross Domestic Product than domestic productivity.
Filed under: community, religion
Well said, Nathan. I look forward to it as well.
“In the economy as well, justice is established only if there are just persons. And these persons are assembled through the conversion of hearts.”
This quote from Benedict seems right on. If we assume that the conversion of hearts is most likely to occur within real communities built on personal and sustained relationships, the most just economic activities would naturally be those taking place on a smaller scale.
Thanks for the great quotes and thoughtful post.
[...] 18, 2009 Like Nathan, I’m also curious what the next encyclical will have to say… Undoubtedly it’ll [...]
Catholic distributists and such aren’t the only ones waiting for the encyclical — the paleolibs and Catholic members of the Austrian school are waiting to see what the Holy Father will say. Will the encyclical be sufficient to endorse one position rather than another?
I hope not!
Which is to say that, as much as I lean heavily toward the Distributist side of things, we need allies.
Maybe Caritas in Veritate will just plagiarize Röpke.
I think I’ll put my money with Richert. I expect a reminder from the seat of Peter that placing economics at the center of a worldview is to replace God with Mammon. Seen from this perspective, both Laissez Faire and Socialism make the same fundamental error. Economics is just one or many means for serving a greater end, the love of God, each other, and Creation.
“When Jesus heard this he said to him, “There is still one thing left for you: sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
But when he heard this he became quite sad, for he was very rich.” - Luke 18: 22-23 NAB
I think that those looking for an endorsement of any specific economic philosophy will be disappointed. Like the parable of the rich young man, they will walk away sad. Just like I do every time I read this passage…
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Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI’s Gift to The World…
By Jesse O. Kurtz | 7 July, MMVIIIIPope Benedict XVI(Photo Credit - http://lonewolflibrarian.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/pope-benedict-xvi.jpg)Popes promulgate encyclical letters on varying occasions. The encyclicals are a response to an area of the …
[...] Nathan P. Origer at Post Right: The modern-day soi-disant Catholics — the Bill O’Reillys, Sean Hannitys, and Newt Gingriches, not to mention the Pelosis and Kennedys, who exist in a dimension so distant from our own as to require, one should think, theological-breathing apparatuses — may not heed this, but there are those of us — Catholic, but also Orthodox, Protestant, non-Christian, irreligious — who will appreciate the veritatis splendor in Pope Benedict’s proclamation and continue to build and to sustain local cultures and societies that place duty to God, family, and community before the idolization of stuff, that focus on economies (Kunstler: “Community is economy.”), rather than some silly abstraction called “the economy” that has more to do with the Gross Domestic Product than domestic productivity. [...]
“The encyclical is based on “a virtue-ethics that comes from Aristotle and Aquinas.”
While the pope draws from Greek philosophy and theology for his inspirations, human in their very origin, a new moral conception, based upon a perfect virtue-ethic has been described by the first wholly new interpretation for two thousand years of the moral teaching of Jesus the Christ.
“This new teaching delivers the first ever religious claim of insight into the human condition, that meets the Enlightenment criteria of verifiable and ‘extraordinary evidence’ based truth embodied in action. For the first time in history, however unexpected, the world must now measure for itself, the reality of a new moral tenet, offering access by faith, to absolute proof for its belief.”
This is ‘religion’ without need of any of the conventional trappings of tradition. An individual, virtue-ethical conception within a single moral command, this new interpretation defines the foundation of all moral conduct and the single Law finds expression within a new covenant of marriage.
The manuscript of this new teaching is a free PDF from a growing number of sites. Examine nd download it from:
http://www.energon.org.uk
Revolutionary is the least of what it is!