Tuesday, November 03, 2009

The Loss of a Loved One

In his ADW blog posting, "Good Grief," Msgr. Charles Pope writes about the feelings of grief associated with the death of someone we love. He writes:

Grief is one of the most painful and terrible emotions we can experience. It can crush us like a ton of bricks or loom over us like a dark cloud. Sometimes in sudden loss we just go numb only to discover that numbness is not a lack of feeling at all.

What Msgr. Pope describes is worse, far worse, than merely feeling bad. Make no mistake, the closest thing that there is to Hell on earth is the sudden loss of a loved one. To have someone near and dear to you suddenly ripped away from you, leaving nothing but a gaping wound and the emptiness of being all alone.

Of course, the fortunate person is the one who has faith and, consequently has hope, the confident assurance that the deceased loved one is not forever lost, but by the grace of Christ, lives in Him still. By the power of transcendent love, communion with such person is still possible even after "death." That understanding does provide some measure of comfort, even though on a more emotional level there is sadness from the person being sorely missed.

On the other hand, there are those who do not have such faith and, consequently, have no hope. For them, the deceased is gone, totally and forever. For them, all that is left is the abyss. And then there are those whose loved ones did not die, but merely rejected and abandoned them. While one is happy they are not dead, the loss of that love from a break-up is just as real; they may not be physically dead, but they are dead to the heart. In both of these cases, what we see is a glimpse of Hell.

The permanent loss of love, eternal abandonment, the resulting feeling of emptiness. All of these have the potential to lead to excruciating mental and emotional pain and angst, as well as spritual suffering. If we feel all of these things from the loss of a loved human person, imagine how much worse it would be if it were the heart-wrenching loss of love that results from separation from God? If you think that the anxiety you feel from the loss of a human loved one is unbearable, and you feel that your insides are all twisted up and feel like they are turning inside out, and you feel nothing but utter despair of the pain ever going away, all that is just a taste of what Hell is like, where we are eternally separated from He who is Love itself.

Whatever you do, don't let that happen. Grab onto God as if your life depended on it. Because it does.

Now, grabbing onto Him might necessarily mean clinging to Him while on the Cross, it might mean having to endure the Passion with Him, but it is by the Passion that suffering is destroyed. It is through the Cross that we reach the Resurrection.

Pain and suffering and hardship in this world cannot be avoided. You cannot run away from them. They will eventually catch up to you. Eventually they will ambush you. The only way you can overcome the ambush is by charging through it with Christ. The only way that pain and suffering and hardship are defeated are by embracing them with Christ, grabbing ahold of them and having them transformed by the power of the Cross. Only by grabbing them and transforming them are they defeated. Only by the transformative power of love on the Cross do they lose their sting and power to hurt.

So, grab onto the Lord as if your life and happiness and well-being depended on it. Because they do.

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Monday, November 02, 2009

Election Day 2009

Tuesday, November 2, 2009, is election day in Virginia, New Jersey, and other places. Although we are not of the world, we are in the world, and ours is a living faith, not something merely philosophical or academic that we take out once a week for an hour or so, and then put back in the closet, where the world thinks it belongs, unseen and unheard. Part of living the faith -- everyday, in all aspects of our lives -- is the question of how to apply the truths of the faith -- and the moral obligation to do so -- most especially the truths of the inherent dignity of the human person, in that part of civil society known as the political and electoral process.

The process of electing, of making choices, has been with us from the very beginning, when the man and the woman were put to the choice of (a) rejecting God and seeking power for themselves by eating the fruit or (b) choosing to embrace God, who is Love and Truth, and rejecting the lie of relativism.

Similarly, in elections today, we are faced with a choice -- do we choose (1) that which is most consistent with authentic love and truth or (2) that which we believe will lead to the most power or personal gain?

The bishops of Virginia have provided some guidance in this area:

We must seek the “mind of Christ” in the voting judgments we make, just as we must when contemplating any other moral decision in our lives. The best way to begin the process of forming our consciences is to open our minds and hearts to the Lord in the Eucharist and in our daily prayer lives.

With prayer as our solid foundation, we can then receive the truth of Catholic moral and social teaching, understand the link between that teaching and many issues affecting the lives and dignity of our brothers and sisters in the human family, and seek to learn the positions candidates take on these issues. Then, and only then, can we cast our votes with the assurance that we are doing so with a well-formed conscience.

Neither the bishops, the Church as a whole, have any desire to tell people specifically whom they should vote for (or vote against). The Church does not seek to make automatons or puppets who do whatever they are told without thought or spiritual reflection. Rather, God and His Church seek for people to be personally and actively engaged so as to freely choose the good, that is, to love others in truth. The purpose of the bishops in providing guidance is to help people form their consciences in accordance with God’s truth. Such guidance is especially needed in the face of the effective assertion of some that voting is an occasion for moral relativism and equivalence.

We recognize that the responsibility to make choices in political life rests with each individual in light of a properly formed conscience, and that participation goes well beyond casting a vote in a particular election.

As [Paragraph 7 of Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship] makes clear, the Church’s role is to teach the truth that is revealed to us by Christ in Sacred Scripture and Tradition. This teaching is what we endorse, rather than candidates or political parties. And it is this teaching that should serve as the yardstick by which to measure candidates and party platforms.

Equipped with the Church’s timeless truths, it is the responsibility of each individual to make the best voting decisions that he or she can, with the recognition that we live in a culture that does not fully embrace our values and are faced with flawed party platforms and candidates who do not share all of our policy goals . . . . [T]o correctly form our consciences, we must recognize the importance of all issues affecting human rights and dignity — from the moment of conception until natural death and at every stage in between — and appreciate that such issues are not abstractions but rather realities that determine whether families thrive or struggle, whether individuals are respected or exploited, and even whether people live or die. At the same time, the proper formation of conscience also means discerning the differences in moral gravity among various issues. Disregarding the right to life itself — the foundation upon which all other human rights are based and without which no other right could possibly exist — is more serious than any other human rights violation.

Once our consciences are correctly formed within this consistent and comprehensive moral framework, paragraphs 34 and 35 of the U.S. bishops’ statement serve to provide specific guidance on evaluating candidates and weighing their many policy positions, especially when those positions involve intrinsically evil actions — that is, actions that are always incompatible with love of God and neighbor:

"34. . . . A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter’s intent is to support that position. In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil. At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.

"35. There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons. Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil."

This guidance applies precisely to the question we hear most often from members of our two dioceses: "What if I reject a candidate’s stance in favor of legalized abortion but wish to vote for that candidate for other reasons?" In assessing whether such reasons would justify such a decision, we first observe that such reasons would certainly need to be not only morally grave but also proportionately grave — that is, equally serious or even more serious than abortion. In other words, one would need to compare the gravity of abortion against the gravity of the other considerations. And making that comparison would necessarily involve examining just how serious abortion is in terms of its very nature and in terms of its impact on members of the human family. That means we must appreciate the difference in moral gravity between policies which are intrinsically unjust (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, and the deliberate destruction of human embryos) and policies involving prudential judgments about which people of good will may disagree concerning various means of promoting economic justice, public safety, and fair opportunities for every person. As paragraph 37 of the U.S. bishops’ statement explains, "[T]he moral obligation to oppose intrinsically evil acts has a special claim on our consciences and our actions." Moreover, we must fully understand that so-called "abortion rights" deny the most fundamental human right (and hence all rights) to an entire class of people, and we must confront the almost incomprehensible fact that abortions extinguish the lives of nearly 4,000 children per day (and well over one million per year) in the United States alone.

As this guidance makes clear, preferring one candidate's position on things like environmental issues or taxation policy cannot overcome and justify voting for that candidate if he or she denies the truth of the inherent dignity of all human life and is an advocate of the pretended right to destroy human life in the womb.

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Sunday, November 01, 2009

All You Holy Saints of God, Pray for Us



video


The Litany of Saints
from the Funeral of the Servant of God, Pope John Paul II

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Saturday, October 31, 2009

Running with the Blogs

Here is another newborn baby blog, Runs with Angels . . . Lives with Saints



Go check it out!
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Saturday, October 24, 2009

On Praying with Mary and the Saints

There is the spoke-and-hub model of the Chrisitan faith, where we each have an individual and personal one-on-one relationship with Jesus. Here, one can indeed pray directly to Jesus, totally unconnected from anyone else.

And then there is the drop of water in the ocean model, where each individual is diffused into the whole, such that each person’s relationship with Jesus is both singular AND communal. Here, one prays, not merely in isolation, but in communion with THE ENTIRETY of the Church, which includes ALL of the faithful, both here on earth AND those in heaven. Here, it is right and just and proper and preferable to invite the saints in heaven to join us in prayer, especially the one person in heaven who was closest, and still is closest, to Jesus by reason of her being His mother.

Besides, if we are one with Him, then His mother is our mother. And it is only fitting that we should love her as He loves her. Fully, totally, completely, as any good and faithful son loves his mom.

Moreover, just as, when you approach her, Mary always directs us to her Son (”do whatever He tells you”), so too did Jesus in the Gospel, whenever one approached Him, He always directed people to the Father. Indeed, He explicitly tells people to pray, not to Him, but pray to our Father in heaven. Thus, any prayers to Jesus are directed by Him to the Father.

Well, why not pray directly to the Father then? Actually, Catholics do. And I understand that we pray the Our Father (”the Lord’s Prayer”) far more than do our everyday Protestant brothers and sisters.

If praying with Mary and the saints, asking them to pray for us to Jesus, rather than praying directly to Jesus is wrong, it stands to reason — by that logic — that praying to Jesus is also wrong, rather than praying directly to the Father.

Of course, such reasoning is silly. It is all good and proper to ask Mary and the saints to pray for us, just as it is good and proper to pray to Jesus, as well as the Father, not to mention the Holy Spirit.

(cross-posted at "Beyond the Rhetoric: Why Not Mary?" at the Archdiocese of Washington Blog)
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Sunday, October 18, 2009

Sin - Original and Mortal

Original Sin consisted of more, much more, than merely eating the fruit. And that Original Sin of Adam and Eve is the original sin of the individual as well, that is, the preference of self over God, wanting to be a god and able to choose your own morality, your own concept of truth, of right and wrong, really is echoed in, and the origin of, every other individual sin that we commit.

On the other hand, there is the danger of going to the other extreme in the matter of “mortal sin.” All too often it seems that what constitutes a mortal sin is defined in narrower and narrower terms, giving one the impression that it is in only the most extreme of cases, the most serious of serious and grave of grave acts, deeds, etc., such as murder, etc. In so relegating mortal sin to the most extreme of cases, we forget that the most mortal sin of all (death for all mankind) really was not, on the surface, all that serious at all, but consisted of the seemingly innocuous act of eating a piece of fruit. We need to keep that in mind when we try to “justify” so many of our own sins as being “merely” venial sins because we subjectively believe them to not be all that serious.

In any event, it is good that, together with the revelation of God’s Name, the revelation of the Logos in the Gospel of John, and the revelation of God in and about the human body in the Creation accounts, that the fullness of the truth of the Fall is being discovered (or rediscovered) in the modern Church.

(cross-posted at "What is Original Sin?" at the Archdiocese of Washington Blog)
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Saturday, October 17, 2009

The Archdiocese of Washington is Blogging

There is an interesting and informative new blog up at the Archdiocese of Washington. (new, as in, I just discovered it)

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Sunday, October 11, 2009

Canonization Mass for Saint Damien de Veuster

"Joseph de Veuster, who in the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary received the name of Damien, when he was twenty-three years old, in 1863, left his home in Flanders to proclaim the Gospel on the other side of the world, the Hawaiian Islands. His missionary activity, which gave him so much joy, reaches its summit in charity. Not without fear and repugnance, he chose to go to the Island of Molokai to serve the lepers who were there, abandoned by all; thus he exposed himself to the disease they suffered from. He felt at home with them. The Servant of the Word thus became a suffering servant, a leper with lepers, during the last four years of his life.

"To follow Christ, Father Damien did not only leave his native country, but he also risked his health: therefore he received eternal life, as the Word of Jesus that was proclaimed in the Gospel today says (cf. Mk 10:30).

"On the 20th anniversary of the canonization of another Belgian saint, Brother Mutien-Marie, the Church in Belgium has gathered once again to give thanks to God for one of its sons recognized as an authentic servant of God. We recall, faced with this noble figure, that charity makes unity: it gives birth to it and makes it desirable. In following Saint Paul, Saint Damien leads us to choose the good battle (cf. 1 Tim 1:18), not those that lead to division, but those that gather together. He invites us to open our eyes to the lepers that disfigure the humanity of our brothers and today still calls, more than for our generosity, for the charity of our serving presence."
-- Pope Benedict XVI, October 11, 2009

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A Man of True Hope
Saint Damien - Apostle to Lepers

Father Damien was born on earth January 3, 1840, and born into heaven on April 15, 1889. He was a Belgian Catholic missionary of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and he is revered primarily by Hawaii residents and Christians for having dedicated his life in service to the lepers of Molokai in the Kingdom of Hawaii. Father Damien, born Joseph de Veuster, is the spiritual patron of people with leprosy, outcasts, and those with HIV/AIDS, and of the State of Hawaii.

In 1995, Pope John Paul II beatified him and bestowed the official title of Blessed Damien of Molokai. Today, October 11, 2009, he was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI. The Feast Day for Saint Damien is May 10, the day he arrived at Molokai.



Joseph de Veuster was born in Tremelo, Belgium. His father, a small farmer, sent him to a college at Braine-le-Comte, to prepare for a commercial profession, but Joseph decided to enter the novitiate of the Fathers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary at Louvain in 1860, taking the name of Damien. Three years later, though still in minor orders, he was sent to the mission of the Hawaiian Islands. He arrived on March 19, 1864, and was ordained as a priest in Honolulu two months later, on May 24. Father Damien was later given charge of various districts on the island of Hawaii, helping to build several chapels.

On the island of Molokai, there was a secluded settlement at Kalaupapa, where the government had banished all persons afflicted with leprosy. The Royal Board of Health provided them with a few supplies and food, but little else. Bishop Louis Maigret thought that these wretched people needed a priest to minister to their needs. Because he knew that it meant almost certain death, Bishop Maigret did not want to send anyone "in the name of obedience," so he asked for volunteers. Understanding that they would probably be sacrificing their lives, Damien and three others volunteered to go to Molokai. Damien was the first to go and, at his own request and that of the "lepers," he remained permanently on Molokai.

Father Damien arrived at the settlement on May 10, 1873, as its resident priest. There were then more than 600 inhabitants. He was presented by the bishop as "one who will be a father to you, and who loves you so much that he does not hesitate to become one of you; to live and die with you." A few months after he arrived, Damien wrote to his brother, "I make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all to Jesus Christ."

While Hawaii has been described as a beautiful paradise, the leper colony at Kalaupapa on Molokai was a hell of despair. It has been called a morally deprived, lawless "colony of death" where people were forced to fight each other to survive.

For a long time, Father Damien was the only one to bring them the relief they so greatly needed. He was not only a priest to them, he took on the role of doctor and builder as well. He provided medical treatment, built homes, and dug graves. Working farms were organized, schools were erected, and for the first time, basic laws were enforced. But more than material relief, Father Damien brought hope.

He became a source of consolation and encouragement for the lepers, their pastor, the doctor of their souls and of their bodies, without any distinction of race or religion. He gave a voice to the voiceless, he built a community where the joy of being together and openness to the love of God gave people new reasons for living.

In 1885, after twelve years of service to the afflicted, Father Damien discovered symptoms of having contracted the disease himself when he lost sensation in one of his feet. However, he did not despair; rather, now he was able to identify completely with the people of Molokai. "We lepers," he said to them with love.

Because of his diligent efforts, others began to come to Molokai to give aid to the inhabitants. A Belgian priest, Louis Lambert Conrardy, came and took up pastoral duties. Blessed Mother Marianne Cope, Superior of the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse, arrived with her sisters and organized a working hospital and homes for boys and girls. Like Damien, Blessed Marianne loved those suffering from leprosy more than she loved her very self. Joseph Dutton, an American Civil War soldier seeking a life of penance, arrived unannounced and took up many of the day-to-day activities of washing sores, dealing with ulcers, doing rudimentary surgery, building, and writing to presidents, princes and medical people for help. James Sinnett was a nurse from Chicago who attended the patients, including nursing Father Damien in the last phases of the disease.

Father Damien died in 1889 at the age of 49. He was originally buried on Molokai, but in 1936, at the request of the Belgian government, his body was moved to Belguim, and he is now buried in Leuven, a city close to the village where he was born. However, upon his beatification, Damien's right hand was returned to Molokai to a joyful reception.

Father Damien would be the first to say that his heroic service and witness was not due to his own personal strength. Rather, he got his strength from God, "It is at the foot of the altar that we find the strength we need in our isolation."
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Sunday, August 16, 2009

In the Eucharist, We too are Assumed into the Divinity of Christ

Address of Pope Benedict XVI
Angelus, August 16, 2009


Dear brothers and sisters:

Yesterday we celebrated the great feast of Mary's Assumption to heaven, and today we read in the Gospel these words of Jesus: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven" (Jn 6,51). One cannot but be struck by this correspondence which revolves around the symbol of "heaven": Mary was "assumed" into the place from where her Son had "descended."

Of course, this language, which is Biblical, expresses figuratively something which can never enter completely into the world of our ideas and our images. But let us stop a moment to reflect: Jesus presents Himself as the "living bread," that is, the nourishment which contains the life of God Himself, and He is able to communicate this to whoever eats of Him, the true food that gives life and truly nourishes us profoundly.

Jesus says: "Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world" (Jn 6,51). And from whom did the Son of God take "flesh" - His concrete earthly humanity?

He took it from the Virgin Mary. God assumed from her His human body in order to enter into our mortal condition. In turn, at the end of her earthly existence, the body of the Virgin was assumed into heaven by God and made to enter into the celestial condition.

It is a sort of exchange in which God always has the full initiative, but as we have discussed on other occasions, He needed Mary, in a certain sense - He needed the "Yes" of His creature, her flesh, her concrete existence, in order to prepare the material of His sacrifice: His Body and Blood to offer on the Cross as an instrument of eternal life, and in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, as spiritual food and drink.

Dear brothers and sisters, what happened to Mary is also valid in other ways that are just as real for every man and woman, because God asks each of us to welcome Him, to place our hearts and bodies at His disposition, our entire existence, our flesh, as the Bible says - so that He may dwell in the world.

He calls us to unite with Him in the Sacrament of Eucharist, bread that is broken for the life of the world, so that together we may constitute the Church, His historical Body. If we say "Yes," as Mary did, then to the degree that we say "Yes," the mysterious exchange also takes place for us and in us: we are assumed into the divinity of Him who assumed our humanity.

The Eucharist is the means, the instrument, for this reciprocal transformation, which always has God as the end and as principal actor: He is the Head and we are the members; He is the vine and we are the shoots. Whoever eats of this Bread and lives in communion with Jesus, allowing Himself to be transformed by Him and in Him, is saved from eternal death: certainly, he will die like everyone, taking part in the mystery of the passion and Cross of Christ, but he is no longer a slave to death, and will rise on the last day to partake of the eternal feast with Mary and all the saints.

This mystery, this feast of God, starts down here: it is a mystery of faith, hope and love, celebrated in life and in liturgy, especially in the Eucharist, and is expressed in fraternal communion and service to our neighbor.

Let us pray to the Blessed Virgin so that she may help us nourish ourselves in faith with the Bread of eternal life in order to experience now on earth the joy of heaven.
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Saturday, August 15, 2009

Complete Union with Christ - the Assumption of Mary into Heaven


His Holiness Pope John Paul II
General Audience of Wednesday, 9 July 1997


1. The Church’s constant and unanimous Tradition shows how Mary’s Assumption is part of the divine plan and is rooted in her unique sharing in the mission of her Son. In the first millennium sacred authors had already spoken in this way.

Testimonies, not yet fully developed, can be found in St Ambrose, St Epiphanius and Timothy of Jerusalem. St Germanus I of Constantinople (†730) puts these words on Jesus’ lips as he prepares to take his Mother to heaven: “You must be where I am, Mother inseparable from your Son...” (Hom. 3 in Dormitionem, PG 98, 360).

In addition, the same ecclesial Tradition sees the fundamental reason for the Assumption in the divine motherhood.

We find an interesting trace of this conviction in a fifth-century apocryphal account attributed to Pseudo-Melito. The author imagines Christ questioning Peter and the Apostles on the destiny Mary deserved, and this is the reply he received: “Lord, you chose this handmaid of yours to become an immaculate dwelling place for you.... Thus it seemed right to us, your servants, that just as you reign in glory after conquering death, so you should raise your Mother’s body and take her rejoicing with you to heaven” (Transitus Mariae, 16, PG 5, 1238). It can therefore be said that the divine motherhood, which made Mary’s body the immaculate dwelling place of the Lord, was the basis of her glorious destiny.

2. St Germanus maintains in a richly poetic text that it is Jesus’ affection for his Mother which requires Mary to be united with her divine Son in heaven: “Just as a child seeks and desires its mother’s presence and a mother delights in her child’s company, it was fitting that you, whose motherly love for your Son and God leaves no room for doubt, should return to him. And was it not right, in any case, that this God who had a truly filial love for you, should take you into his company?” (Hom. 1 in Dormitionem, PG 98, 347). In another text, the venerable author combines the private aspect of the relationship between Christ and Mary with the saving dimension of her motherhood, maintaining that “the mother of Life should share the dwelling place of Life” (ibid., PG 98, 348).

3. According to some of the Church Fathers, another argument for the privilege of the Assumption is taken from Mary’s sharing in the work of Redemption. St John Damascene underscores the relationship between her participation in the Passion and her glorious destiny: “It was right that she who had seen her Son on the Cross and received the sword of sorrow in the depths of her heart ... should behold this Son seated at the right hand of the Father” (Hom. 2, PG 96, 741). In the light of the paschal mystery, it appears particularly clear that the Mother should also be glorified with her Son after death.

The Second Vatican Council, recalling the mystery of the Assumption in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, draws attention to the privilege of the Immaculate Conception: precisely because she was “preserved free from all stain of original sin” (Lumen gentium, n. 59), Mary could not remain like other human beings in the state of death until the end of the world. The absence of original sin and her perfect holiness from the very first moment of her existence required the full glorification of the body and soul of the Mother of God. 

4. Looking at the mystery of the Blessed Virgin’s Assumption, we can understand the plan of divine Providence plan for humanity: after Christ, the Incarnate Word, Mary is the first human being to achieve the eschatological ideal, anticipating the fullness of happiness promised to the elect through the resurrection of the body.

In the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin we can also see the divine will to advance woman.

In a way analogous to what happened at the beginning of the human race and of salvation history, in God’s plan the eschatological ideal was not to be revealed in an individual, but in a couple. Thus in heavenly glory, beside the risen Christ there is a woman who has been raised up, Mary: the new Adam and the new Eve, the first-fruits of the general resurrection of the bodies of all humanity.

The eschatological conditions of Christ and Mary should not, of course, be put on the same level. Mary, the new Eve, received from Christ, the new Adam, the fullness of grace and heavenly glory, having been raised through the Holy Spirit by the sovereign power of the Son.

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Despite their brevity, these notes enable us to show clearly that Mary’s Assumption reveals the nobility and dignity of the human body.

In the face of the profanation and debasement to which modern society frequently subjects the female body, the mystery of the Assumption proclaims the supernatural destiny and dignity of every human body, called by the Lord to become an instrument of holiness and to share in his glory.

Mary entered into glory because she welcomed the Son of God in her virginal womb and in her heart. By looking at her, the Christian learns to discover the value of his own body and to guard it as a temple of God, in expectation of the resurrection
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The Assumption, a privilege granted to the Mother of God, thus has immense value for the life and destiny of humanity.
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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The Mystery of the All-Powerful God Needing and Being Dependent on Man

Catechesis of Pope Benedict XVI
General Audience, August 12, 2009


Dear brothers and sisters,

The celebration of the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin on Saturday is imminent, and we are in the midst of the year for Priests. Thus, I would like to speak on the nexus between Our Lady and the priesthood.

It is a bond that is profoundly rooted in the mystery of the Incarnation. When God decided to become man in His Son, He needed the free "Yes" of one of His human creatures.

God never acts against our freedom. So something truly extraordinary happened: God became dependent on the freedom to say "Yes" by one of His creatures: He was waiting on this "Yes."

St. Bernard Clairvaux, in one of his homilies, explained dramatically this decisive moment in universal history, when heaven, earth and God awaited what this creature would say. Mary's "Yes" therefore was the door through which God could enter the world and become man. Thus, Mary is really and profoundly involved in the mystery of the Incarnation, of our salvation.

And the Incarnation, the Son becoming man, was from the beginning aimed at His self-giving - giving Himself with much love on the Cross, to become bread for the life of the world. Thus, sacrifice, priesthood and the Incarnation go together, and Mary is at the center of this mystery.

Let us go to the Cross.

Jesus, before dying, saw His Mother at the foot of the Cross, and He saw a beloved son. This beloved son was certainly a very important individual, but so much more: he was an example, a prefiguration of all beloved disciples, of all persons called by the Lord to be His "beloved disciple," and consequently, in a special way, of all priests. Jesus says to Mary: "Mother, behold your son" (Jn 19,26). It was a kind of testament: He entrusts His mother to the care of the son, the disciple.

But He also tells the disciple: "Behold your Mother" (Jn 19,27). The Gospel tells us that from this moment, St. John, the beloved disciple, took Mary "into his own home." Thus it is in the Italian translation.

But the Greek text is much more profound, much richer. And we can translate it as: He took Mary into the intimacy of his life, of his being, into the profundity of his being. To take in Mary meant to introduce her into the dynamism of his entire existence - not as an external thing - and into everything that constituted the horizon of his own apostolate.

I think it is therefore understandable how the special relationship of motherhood between Mary and priests constitutes the primary source, the fundamental reason for the favor that she reserves for each priest. Mary favors them for two reasons: because they are most like Jesus, the supreme love of her heart, and because they, like she, are committed to the mission of proclaiming, witnessing and giving Christ to the world. For his own identification with and sacramental conformation to Jesus, Son of God and son of Mary, every priest can and should feel himself to be a truly beloved child of this most elevated and humblest of mothers.

The Second Vatican Council invites priests to look at Mary as the perfect model for their own existence, invoking her as "Mother of the Supreme and Eternal Priest, Queen of the Apostles, Help of all Priests in their ministry." Priests, the Council says, "should therefore venerate and love her with devotion and filial worship" (cf. Presbyterorum ordinis, 18).

The Holy Cure of Ars, whom we particularly commemorate this year, loved to say: "Jesus Christ, after having given us everything that He could possibly give, also wanted us to be heirs to what He held most precious, that is to say, His own Holy Mother" (B. Nodet, Il pensiero e l’anima del Curato d’Ars, Torino 1967, p. 305). This is true for every Christian, for all of us, but especially so, for priests.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us pray that Mary may make all priests, in the face of all the problems of the world today, conform to the image of her son Jesus as dispensers of the inestimable treasure of His love as the Good Shepherd.

Mary, Mother of Priests, pray for us!
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Saturday, July 25, 2009

"Almighty and Merciful God"

(note - Unlike most public homilies and addresses delivered by Pope Benedict, the following homily was given extemporaneously due to the Holy Father's inability to write while his hand and arm are in a cast)

Vespers Concluding Prayer -

Almighty and merciful God, by your will Christ your Son suffered for the salvation of the whole world. Grant that your people may offer themselves as a living sacrifice to you and be filled to overflowing with your love.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.



Homily of Pope Benedict XVI
Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta in Aosta, Italy

Vespers, July 24, 2009

Excellency,
Dear brothers and sisters,

I wish first of all to say "Thank you," Your Excellency, for the words with which you have introduced me to the great history of this cathedral. You have made me feel that we pray here, not only at this moment, but that I pray with [the faithful of] past centuries in this beautiful church. And thanks to all of you who have come to pray with me and to make visible this network of prayer that links us all and always.

In this brief homily, I wish to say a few words about the prayer with which these Vespers conclude, because I think that in this passage, from the Letter of the Romans, prayer is interpreted and transformed.

The prayer from Romans has two parts: an addresss - a heading, we might say - and then, the prayer itself, made up of two requests.

Let us start with the address, which itself has two parts: it concretizes the "you" with whom we talk in prayer, so we can better knock at the door of God's heart. In the Italian text, we read simply: "Merciful Father" The Latin text is more ample - "Almighty and merciful God."

In my recent encyclical [Caritas in Veritate], I have tried to show the priority of God both in our personal life, as well as in the life of history, of society, of the world. Certainly, choosing God is something profoundly personal, and the person is a being-in-relationship. If the fundamental relationship - the relation with God - is not there, if it is not lived, then all of man's other relationships cannot find their correct form. And this goes likewise for society, for mankind as such.

If God is missing, if one does without God, if God is absent, then there is no compass to show the entirety of all relationships that can make us find the way, the orientation in which one must proceed. God - we must bring back to the world the reality of God, make Him known, and make Him present.


But how are we to know God?

In the ad-limina visits, when I speak with the bishops where traditional relgions still exist - above all in Africa, but also in Asia and Latin America - these religions have many details that are diverse from one another of course, but they also have common elements. All know that there is a God, one God, that "God" is a word in the singular, that the gods are not God, that there is God, the God.

But at the same time, this God seems absent, very distant, who does not seem to come into our daily life - He is hidden, we do not know His face. And so, religions concern themselves mostly with things, powers that are nearer, spirits, ancestors, etc. - since God Himself is too distant, one must deal instead with these powers closer to hand.

The act of evangelization consists precisely in the fact that it brings that "distant" God closer. God is no longer distant but close, so that this "known unknown" can now make Himself known, He reveals Himself, the veil over Him disappears, and He shows His face. And because God is near, we can know Him, He shows us His face, He enters into our daily life. We no longer have to deal with other "powers" because He is the true power. He is the Almighty.

I do not know why they omitted the word "almighty" in the Italian text. The truth is we all feel somewhat threatened by omnipotence - it would seem to limit our freedom, it seems a bit too strong. But we should learn that the omnipotence of God is not arbitrary power, because God is Goodness, He is the Truth. God can do everything, but He cannot act against what is good, He cannot act against the truth, He cannot act against love and against freedom, because He Himself is goodness, He is Love, He is true freedom. So, everything that He does can never be against truth, love and freedom.

On the contrary - He, God, is the custodian of our freedom, of love and of truth. The eye that sees us is not an evil eye that keeps us under surveillance - it is the presence of a love which will never abandon us and which gives us the certainty that it is good that we exist, it is good to live. He is the eye of love who gives us the space to live.


"Almighty and merciful God." This text from the Letter to the Romans is linked with a passage from the Book of Wisdom, which says: "You, God, show us your omnipotence in forgiveness and mercy." The peak of God's power is mercy, it is forgiveness.

In the world concept of power today, we think of someone with large properties, who has something to say about the economy because he can dispose of capital to influence the world through the market. Or we think of someone who has military might, who can threaten. Stalin's question, "How many divisions has the Pope?" still characterizes the average idea of power.

And theirs is power that can be dangerous, that can threaten, that can destroy, that holds so many things of the world in its hands. But Revelation tells us it is not so. True power is the power of grace, the power of mercy. In His mercy, God shows His true power.

Thus, the second part of this prayer's address says, "You have redeemed the world with the Passion, with the suffering of your Son."

God suffered, through His Son, with us. This is the peak of His power - that He is capable of suffering with us. That is how He shows us the true divine power - that He wished to suffer with us, and that He will never leave us alone in our suffering. God, in His Son, had suffered with us and is therefore close to us in our suffering.

Nonetheless, the difficult question remains, one that I cannot now interpret amply: Why was it necessary to suffer in order to save the world?

It was necessary because there exists an ocean of evil in the world, an ocean of injustice, of hatred, of violence. And all the victims of hatred and injustice have the right to justice. God could not ignore the cry of those who suffered and who had been oppressed by injustice.

To forgive is not to ignore but to transform, so God had to enter into this world to oppose this ocean of injustice, much more vast than that of goodness and love. That explains the Cross, and from that moment, against that ocean of evil, there now exists an infinite river that will always be greater than all the injustices of the world, a river of goodness, of truth and of love.


God forgives, transforming the world. He enters our world so that there can be a power against evil in that river of goodness, which is always greater than all the evil that can ever exist.

The address to God is also an address to ourselves: God invites us to place ourselves on His side, to leave that ocean of evil, of hate, of violence, of selfishness, and to identify ourselves with the river of His love, to enter into it.

And this is the request contained in the first part of the prayer: "Grant that your Church may offer itself to you as a living and holy sacrifice."

This appeal, addressed to God, also concerns us. It refers to two passages in the Letter to the Romans. In 12:1, Paul says: "We ourselves should become a living sacrifice."

We ourselves, with all our being, should become adoration, sacrifice. We should restore our world to God and thus transform the world.

And in Chapter 15, Paul describes the apostolate as priesthood. The function of the priesthood is to consecrate the world so that it becomes a living host, it becomes liturgy. That liturgy is not just something alongside the realities of the world, but that the world itself may become a living host, it becomes liturgy. It is the great vision that Teilhard de Chardin later had, that in the end, we would have a true cosmic liturgy, when the world becomes a living host.

Let us pray to the Lord that He may help us to be priests in this sense of helping to transform the world, in the adoration of God, and begin by transforming ourselves. So that our life may speak of God, that our life becomes liturgy, an announcement of God, the gate through which a distant God becomes the God who is near, and that we truly give ourselves to God.

Then comes the second appeal of the prayer: "Grant that your people may always experience the fullness of your love."

In the Latin text it says, "Satiate us with your love." Thus, the text refers to the psalm which we sang, "Open your hand and satiate the hunger of every living being." (144(145):16)

How much hunger there is on earth! Hunger for bread in so many parts of the world - and Your Excellency has spoken of suffering among families here - hunger for justice, hunger for love.

With this prayer, we ask God, "Open your hand and truly satiate the hunger of every living being. Satiate our hunger for the truth, and for your love." So may it be.


Amen.
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Thursday, July 09, 2009

General Audience on Caritas in Veritate

Address of Pope Benedict XVI
General Audience of July 8, 2009

Paul VI Audience Hall

Dear brothers and sisters:

My new encyclical "Caritas in Veritate," which was officially presented yesterday, was fundamentally inspired in a passage from the Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians, in which the apostle speaks of acting according to truth in charity: "Rather," we have just heard, "living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ" (4:15).

Charity in truth is, therefore, the principal propelling force for the true development of each person and all of humanity. Because of this, the whole of the Church's social doctrine revolves around the principle "caritas in veritate." Only with charity, enlightened by reason and faith, is it possible to achieve objectives of development with a human and humanizing value. Charity in the truth "is the principle around which the Church's social doctrine turns, a principle that takes on practical form in the criteria that govern moral action" (No. 6).

In the introduction, the encyclical immediately refers to two fundamental criteria: justice and the common good. Justice is an integral part of this love "in deed and truth" (1 John 3:18), to which the Apostle John exhorts us (cf. No. 6). And "to love someone is to desire that person's good and to take effective steps to secure it. Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society. … The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbors, the more effectively we love them." Therefore, there are two operative criteria: justice and the common good. In this second element, charity acquires a social dimension. Every Christian, the encyclical says, is called to this charity and, it adds, "This is the institutional path … of charity" (cf. No. 7).

Like other documents of the magisterium, this encyclical also takes up again and goes deeper into the analysis and reflection of the Church on social issues of vital interest to humanity in our times. In a special way, it is linked to what Paul VI wrote now more than 40 years ago in "Populorum Progressio," the cornerstone of the Church's social teaching, in which the great Pontiff outlined certain decisive and ever relevant ideas for the integral development of man and of the modern world. The world situation, as the chronicle of recent months amply demonstrates, continues presenting not a few problems and the "scandal" of outrageous inequalities, which remain despite commitments made in the past. On one hand, signs of grave social and economic inequalities are evident; on the other hand, peoples from all over are calling for reform that will overcome the discrepancy of development among peoples, and this cannot wait.

The phenomenon of globalization can, in this sense, be a real opportunity, but for this, it is important to undertake a profound moral and cultural renewal and responsible discernment of the decisions that must be made for the common good. A better future for everyone is possible, if it is founded on the discovery of fundamental ethical values. A new economic plan is needed that will reshape development in a global way, basing itself on the fundamental ethics of responsibility before God and before man as a creature of God.

The encyclical certainly doesn't look to give technical solutions to the great social problems of the world today -- this is not the role of the Church's magisterium (cf. No. 9). It recalls, however, the great principles that show themselves to be indispensable for building human development in the coming years. Among these: In the first place, attention to the life of the person, considered as the center of all true progress; respect for the right to religious liberty, always closely linked to the development of the person; rejection of a Promethean vision of the human being, which considers him the absolute author of his own destiny. An unlimited trust in the power of technology in the end shows itself to be illusory.

Upright people are needed as much in politics as in the economy, people who are sincerely attentive to the common good. In particular, looking at world emergencies, it is urgent to call the attention of public opinion to the drama of hunger and food security, which affects a considerable portion of humanity. A drama of such proportions piques our consciences: It must be decisively confronted, eliminating the structural causes that bring it about and promoting agricultural development in the poorest countries.

I am sure that this path of solidarity toward the development of the poorest countries will certainly help to elaborate a solution to the current global crisis. Undoubtedly, the role and political power of the state should be attentively re-evaluated, in an age in which limitations to its sovereignty exist as a result of the new economic-commercial and international financial situation.

And on the other hand, the participation of citizens in national and international politics should not be lacking, thanks as well to a renewed commitment from the associations of workers called to establish new synergies at the local and international level. The means of social communication also have a primary role in this field, to advance dialogue among cultures and distinct traditions.

In wanting to make a plan for development that is not tainted by the malfunctions and distortions amply present today, serious reflection on the very meaning of the economy and its goals is required from everyone. The ecological state of the planet demands it; the cultural and moral crisis of man that is apparent in every corner of the globe requires it. The economy needs ethics for its correct functioning; it needs to recover the important contribution of the principle of gratuitousness and the "logic of gift" in the economy of the market, in which the norm cannot be personal gain.

But this is only possible thanks to a commitment from everyone, economists and politicians, producers and consumers, and presupposes formation of the conscience that gives strength to moral criteria in the elaboration of political and economic projects. Rightly so, many places pay recourse to the fact that rights presuppose corresponding duties, without which rights run the risk of becoming arbitrary.

It is said more and more that it is necessary for all of humanity to have a different style of life, in which the duties of everyone toward the environment are united with those of the person considered in himself and in relation with others. Humanity is one family and fruitful dialogue between faith and reason cannot but enrich it, making the work of charity more effective in society, moreover establishing the appropriate framework to stimulate collaboration between believers and non-believers, in the shared perspective of working for justice and peace in the world.

As guidelines for this fraternal interaction, in the encyclical I indicate the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, which are interconnected. I have indicated, finally, faced with such vast and deep problems in the world of today, the need for a world political authority regulated by law, which abides by the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity already mentioned and which is firmly oriented toward the fulfillment of the common good, in respect of the great moral and religious traditions of humanity.

The Gospel reminds us that man does not live on bread alone: not just with material goods can he satisfy the deep thirst of his heart. The horizons of man are undoubtedly higher and broader. Because of this, every development program should have present, together with the material, the spiritual growth of the human person, who is gifted with soul and body.

This is integral development, to which the Church's social doctrine constantly refers -- development that has its guiding criteria in the propelling strength of "charity in truth." Dear brothers and sisters, let us pray so that this encyclical too can help humanity to feel that it is one family committed in bringing about a world of justice and peace. Let us pray that believers who work in economics and politics realize how important is the coherence of their Gospel testimony in the service they offer society.

In particular, I invite you to pray for the leaders of states and governments of the G-8 who are meeting during these days in L'Aquila. That from this important world summit might come decisions and useful guidelines for the true progress of all peoples, especially of the poorest. Let us entrust these intentions to the maternal intercession of Mary, Mother of the Church and of humanity.


(After saying the foregoing in Italian, the Pope said in English)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today I wish to reflect on my Encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. Some forty years after Pope Paul VI’s Encyclical Populorum Progressio, it too addresses social themes vital to the well-being of humanity and reminds us that authentic renewal of both individuals and society requires living by Christ’s truth in love (cf. Eph 4:15) which stands at the heart of the Church’s social teaching.

The Encyclical does not aim to provide technical solutions to today’s social problems but instead focuses on the principles indispensable for human development. Most important among these is human life itself, the centre of all true progress. Additionally, it speaks of the right to religious freedom as a part of human development, it warns against unbounded hope in technology alone, and it underlines the need for upright men and women – attentive to the common good – in both politics and the business world.

In regard to matters of particular urgency affecting the word today, the Encyclical addresses a wide range of issues and calls for decisive action to promote food security and agricultural development, as well as respect for the environment and for the rule of law. Stressed is the need for politicians, economists, producers and consumers alike to ensure that ethics shape economics so that profit alone does not regulate the world of business.

Dear friends: humanity is a single family where every development program – if it is to be integral – must consider the spiritual growth of human persons and the driving force of charity in truth. Let us pray for all those who serve in politics and the management of economies, and in particular let us pray for the Heads of State gathering in Italy for the G8 summit. May their decisions promote true development especially for the world’s poor. Thank you.
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Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Section 67 of Caritas in Veritate, the United Nations, and that "True World Political Authority"

Much of the discussion on Caritas in Veritate is focused on Section 67, which speaks of "a true world political authority." That certainly is the focus of the reporting by the major media. However, already, from the differing takes on that passage, it is clear that some are misinterpreting and misunderstanding it. So let us take that portion up first and consider it.

67. In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect[146] and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good[147], and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights[148]. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations. The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization[149]. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations.

A proper understanding of this section and the entire Encyclical requires a careful reading of the text, not overlooking key words here and there, and it requires a reading in the context of the whole. Unfortunately, I fear that some portions might be susceptible of being misappropriated or hijacked for political ends, just as much of the Church’s social doctrine has been misappropriated over the years by some seeking to justify a certain political ideology.

In the past, Pope Benedict used the occasion of subsequent addresses and homilies to further explain and expand upon his encyclicals, Deus Caritas Est and Spe Salvi. Thus, I expect he will do the same in this case.

This would seem to be especially needed with respect to Section 67, which at first blush and in isolation might be seen to be awfully and unduly utopianistic. However, it would be a mistake to read Section 67 in isolation rather than in the context of the whole Encyclical or, indeed, in the context of all of Pope Benedict's magisterium. The utopian idea of the perfectibility of man through human progress, human means, or human institutions is counter to everything that Benedict has said and written. Indeed, in other places he has said that such attempts would and have ended only in tyranny (e.g. Spe Salvi).

The Pope speaks, not merely of a "world political authority," but of a "true world political authority," and then he adds in the other qualifiers of subsidiarity, solidarity, common good, charity in truth, and conforming to the moral order, each of which is defined in Christian terms. All of these qualifiers would seem to preclude the possibility of any such true world political authority from ever coming into existence. So, what he is speaking of is not really a structural plan, not a call for a particular political structure, but rather, he is offering a statement of principles. That is, if we consider these Christian-based qualifiers, what Benedict essentially says that is "needed" is a Christianized authority (that is, not Christian, per se, but Christianized, an authority that shares Christian ethos and values) -- and that would be consistent with what Benedict has always taught, that what the world "needs" most of all is Christ.

The world has known many counterfeit world political authorities -- authorities that would use and exploit the occasion with the effect of subverting human development by tyranny and infringements upon human freedom and dignity, rather than fostering authentic positive human development. And in Caritas in Veritate, Benedict many times cautions, however implicitly, against the idea that government is the answer to the problems of human development. In non-economic areas, such as marriage, family, and human sexuality, government in recent times has been the problem, not the solution, he notes. Most definitely, he says, those governments that are in opposition to God are destructive of authentic human development in every area.

Still, we have this mention of a need for a "world political authority" that some might take to mean an active and interventionist body to "control" economic society. Thus, Section 67 presents some difficulty in understanding and it is expected that Pope Benedict will have occasion to further expand upon it. However, perhaps the key to understanding the section is not the phrase "world political authority," but the beginning of the section, wherein he says "there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance." Perhaps this is less of a call for a new political regulatory body than it is a criticism of the current system.

Having raised the issue of reform of the United Nations, perhaps we ought revisit the Pope's address to that same United Nations in April 2008 (which is footnoted in the Encyclical).

. . . I greet the peoples who are represented here. They look to this institution to carry forward the founding inspiration to establish a “center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends” of peace and development (cf. Charter of the United Nations, article 1.2-1.4). As Pope John Paul II expressed it in 1995, the Organization should be “a moral center where all the nations of the world feel at home and develop a shared awareness of being, as it were, a ‘family of nations’” (Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations on the 50th Anniversary of its Foundation, New York, 5 October 1995, 14).

Through the United Nations, States have established universal objectives which, even if they do not coincide with the total common good of the human family, undoubtedly represent a fundamental part of that good. The founding principles of the Organization – the desire for peace, the quest for justice, respect for the dignity of the person, humanitarian cooperation and assistance – express the just aspirations of the human spirit, and constitute the ideals which should underpin international relations. As my predecessors Paul VI and John Paul II have observed from this very podium, all this is something that the Catholic Church and the Holy See follow attentively and with interest, seeing in your activity an example of how issues and conflicts concerning the world community can be subject to common regulation. The United Nations embodies the aspiration for a “greater degree of international ordering” (John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 43), inspired and governed by the principle of subsidiarity, and therefore capable of responding to the demands of the human family through binding international rules and through structures capable of harmonizing the day-to-day unfolding of the lives of peoples. This is all the more necessary at a time when we experience the obvious paradox of a multilateral consensus that continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few, whereas the world’s problems call for interventions in the form of collective action by the international community.

Indeed, questions of security, development goals, reduction of local and global inequalities, protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate, require all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law, and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet. I am thinking especially of those countries in Africa and other parts of the world which remain on the margins of authentic integral development, and are therefore at risk of experiencing only the negative effects of globalization. In the context of international relations, it is necessary to recognize the higher role played by rules and structures that are intrinsically ordered to promote the common good, and therefore to safeguard human freedom. These regulations do not limit freedom. On the contrary, they promote it when they prohibit behaviour and actions which work against the common good, curb its effective exercise and hence compromise the dignity of every human person. In the name of freedom, there has to be a correlation between rights and duties, by which every person is called to assume responsibility for his or her choices, made as a consequence of entering into relations with others. Here our thoughts turn also to the way the results of scientific research and technological advances have sometimes been applied. Notwithstanding the enormous benefits that humanity can gain, some instances of this represent a clear violation of the order of creation, to the point where not only is the sacred character of life contradicted, but the human person and the family are robbed of their natural identity. Likewise, international action to preserve the environment and to protect various forms of life on earth must not only guarantee a rational use of technology and science, but must also rediscover the authentic image of creation. This never requires a choice to be made between science and ethics: rather it is a question of adopting a scientific method that is truly respectful of ethical imperatives.

Recognition of the unity of the human family, and attention to the innate dignity of every man and woman, today find renewed emphasis in the principle of the responsibility to protect. This has only recently been defined, but it was already present implicitly at the origins of the United Nations, and is now increasingly characteristic of its activity. Every State has the primary duty to protect its own population from grave and sustained violations of human rights, as well as from the consequences of humanitarian crises, whether natural or man-made. If States are unable to guarantee such protection, the international community must intervene with the juridical means provided in the United Nations Charter and in other international instruments. The action of the international community and its institutions, provided that it respects the principles undergirding the international order, should never be interpreted as an unwarranted imposition or a limitation of sovereignty. On the contrary, it is indifference or failure to intervene that do the real damage. What is needed is a deeper search for ways of pre-empting and managing conflicts by exploring every possible diplomatic avenue, and giving attention and encouragement to even the faintest sign of dialogue or desire for reconciliation.

The principle of “responsibility to protect” was considered by the ancient ius gentium as the foundation of every action taken by those in government with regard to the governed: at the time when the concept of national sovereign States was first developing, the Dominican Friar Francisco de Vitoria, rightly considered as a precursor of the idea of the United Nations, described this responsibility as an aspect of natural reason shared by all nations, and the result of an international order whose task it was to regulate relations between peoples. Now, as then, this principle has to invoke the idea of the person as image of the Creator, the desire for the absolute and the essence of freedom. The founding of the United Nations, as we know, coincided with the profound upheavals that humanity experienced when reference to the meaning of transcendence and natural reason was abandoned, and in consequence, freedom and human dignity were grossly violated. When this happens, it threatens the objective foundations of the values inspiring and governing the international order and it undermines the cogent and inviolable principles formulated and consolidated by the United Nations. When faced with new and insistent challenges, it is a mistake to fall back on a pragmatic approach, limited to determining “common ground”, minimal in content and weak in its effect.

This reference to human dignity, which is the foundation and goal of the responsibility to protect, leads us to the theme we are specifically focusing upon this year, which marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document was the outcome of a convergence of different religious and cultural traditions, all of them motivated by the common desire to place the human person at the heart of institutions, laws and the workings of society, and to consider the human person essential for the world of culture, religion and science. Human rights are increasingly being presented as the common language and the ethical substratum of international relations. At the same time, the universality, indivisibility and interdependence of human rights all serve as guarantees safeguarding human dignity. It is evident, though, that the rights recognized and expounded in the Declaration apply to everyone by virtue of the common origin of the person, who remains the high-point of God’s creative design for the world and for history. They are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations. Removing human rights from this context would mean restricting their range and yielding to a relativistic conception, according to which the meaning and interpretation of rights could vary and their universality would be denied in the name of different cultural, political, social and even religious outlooks. This great variety of viewpoints must not be allowed to obscure the fact that not only rights are universal, but so too is the human person, the subject of those rights.

The life of the community, both domestically and internationally, clearly demonstrates that respect for rights, and the guarantees that follow from them, are measures of the common good that serve to evaluate the relationship between justice and injustice, development and poverty, security and conflict. The promotion of human rights remains the most effective strategy for eliminating inequalities between countries and social groups, and for increasing security. Indeed, the victims of hardship and despair, whose human dignity is violated with impunity, become easy prey to the call to violence, and they can then become violators of peace. The common good that human rights help to accomplish cannot, however, be attained merely by applying correct procedures, nor even less by achieving a balance between competing rights. The merit of the Universal Declaration is that it has enabled different cultures, juridical expressions and institutional models to converge around a fundamental nucleus of values, and hence of rights. Today, though, efforts need to be redoubled in the face of pressure to reinterpret the foundations of the Declaration and to compromise its inner unity so as to facilitate a move away from the protection of human dignity towards the satisfaction of simple interests, often particular interests. The Declaration was adopted as a “common standard of achievement” (Preamble) and cannot be applied piecemeal, according to trends or selective choices that merely run the risk of contradicting the unity of the human person and thus the indivisibility of human rights.

Experience shows that legality often prevails over justice when the insistence upon rights makes them appear as the exclusive result of legislative enactments or normative decisions taken by the various agencies of those in power. When presented purely in terms of legality, rights risk becoming weak propositions divorced from the ethical and rational dimension which is their foundation and their goal. The Universal Declaration, rather, has reinforced the conviction that respect for human rights is principally rooted in unchanging justice, on which the binding force of international proclamations is also based. This aspect is often overlooked when the attempt is made to deprive rights of their true function in the name of a narrowly utilitarian perspective. Since rights and the resulting duties follow naturally from human interaction, it is easy to forget that they are the fruit of a commonly held sense of justice built primarily upon solidarity among the members of society, and hence valid at all times and for all peoples. This intuition was expressed as early as the fifth century by Augustine of Hippo, one of the masters of our intellectual heritage. He taught that the saying: Do not do to others what you would not want done to you “cannot in any way vary according to the different understandings that have arisen in the world” (De Doctrina Christiana, III, 14). Human rights, then, must be respected as an expression of justice, and not merely because they are enforceable through the will of the legislators.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As history proceeds, new situations arise, and the attempt is made to link them to new rights. Discernment, that is, the capacity to distinguish good from evil, becomes even more essential in the context of demands that concern the very lives and conduct of persons, communities and peoples. In tackling the theme of rights, since important situations and profound realities are involved, discernment is both an indispensable and a fruitful virtue.

Discernment, then, shows that entrusting exclusively to individual States, with their laws and institutions, the final responsibility to meet the aspirations of persons, communities and entire peoples, can sometimes have consequences that exclude the possibility of a social order respectful of the dignity and rights of the person. On the other hand, a vision of life firmly anchored in the religious dimension can help to achieve this, since recognition of the transcendent value of every man and woman favours conversion of heart, which then leads to a commitment to resist violence, terrorism and war, and to promote justice and peace. This also provides the proper context for the inter-religious dialogue that the United Nations is called to support, just as it supports dialogue in other areas of human activity. Dialogue should be recognized as the means by which the various components of society can articulate their point of view and build consensus around the truth concerning particular values or goals. It pertains to the nature of religions, freely practised, that they can autonomously conduct a dialogue of thought and life. If at this level, too, the religious sphere is kept separate from political action, then great benefits ensue for individuals and communities. On the other hand, the United Nations can count on the results of dialogue between religions, and can draw fruit from the willingness of believers to place their experiences at the service of the common good. Their task is to propose a vision of faith not in terms of intolerance, discrimination and conflict, but in terms of complete respect for truth, coexistence, rights, and reconciliation.

Human rights, of course, must include the right to religious freedom, understood as the expression of a dimension that is at once individual and communitarian – a vision that brings out the unity of the person while clearly distinguishing between the dimension of the citizen and that of the believer. The activity of the United Nations in recent years has ensured that public debate gives space to viewpoints inspired by a religious vision in all its dimensions, including ritual, worship, education, dissemination of information and the freedom to profess and choose religion. It is inconceivable, then, that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves – their faith – in order to be active citizens. It should never be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy one’s rights. The rights associated with religion are all the more in need of protection if they are considered to clash with a prevailing secular ideology or with majority religious positions of an exclusive nature. The full guarantee of religious liberty cannot be limited to the free exercise of worship, but has to give due consideration to the public dimension of religion, and hence to the possibility of believers playing their part in building the social order. Indeed, they actually do so, for example through their influential and generous involvement in a vast network of initiatives which extend from Universities, scientific institutions and schools to health care agencies and charitable organizations in the service of the poorest and most marginalized. Refusal to recognize the contribution to society that is rooted in the religious dimension and in the quest for the Absolute – by its nature, expressing communion between persons – would effectively privilege an individualistic approach, and would fragment the unity of the person.

My presence at this Assembly is a sign of esteem for the United Nations, and it is intended to express the hope that the Organization will increasingly serve as a sign of unity between States and an instrument of service to the entire human family. It also demonstrates the willingness of the Catholic Church to offer her proper contribution to building international relations in a way that allows every person and every people to feel they can make a difference. In a manner that is consistent with her contribution in the ethical and moral sphere and the free activity of her faithful, the Church also works for the realization of these goals through the international activity of the Holy See. Indeed, the Holy See has always had a place at the assemblies of the Nations, thereby manifesting its specific character as a subject in the international domain. As the United Nations recently confirmed, the Holy See thereby makes its contribution according to the dispositions of international law, helps to define that law, and makes appeal to it.

The United Nations remains a privileged setting in which the Church is committed to contributing her experience “of humanity”, developed over the centuries among peoples of every race and culture, and placing it at the disposal of all members of the international community. This experience and activity, directed towards attaining freedom for every believer, seeks also to increase the protection given to the rights of the person. Those rights are grounded and shaped by the transcendent nature of the person, which permits men and women to pursue their journey of faith and their search for God in this world. Recognition of this dimension must be strengthened if we are to sustain humanity’s hope for a better world and if we are to create the conditions for peace, development, cooperation, and guarantee of rights for future generations.

In my recent Encyclical, Spe Salvi, I indicated that “every generation has the task of engaging anew in the arduous search for the right way to order human affairs” (no. 25). For Christians, this task is motivated by the hope drawn from the saving work of Jesus Christ. That is why the Church is happy to be associated with the activity of this distinguished Organization, charged with the responsibility of promoting peace and good will throughout the earth. Dear Friends, I thank you for this opportunity to address you today, and I promise you of the support of my prayers as you pursue your noble task.

Before I take my leave from this distinguished Assembly, I should like to offer my greetings, in the official languages, to all the Nations here represented.

Peace and Prosperity with God’s help!

Here, again, as with the Encyclical, we see less of a statement of praise for the United Nations and world political authorities than we see a statement of what is needed for right and just authorities and a caution against what is contrary to justice and human rights and dignity. What is most needed, the Pope says, are structures that share Christian ethos and values (which, properly understood, are universal and therefore not applicable to Christians exclusively), that is, a belief in the fundamental and transcendent dignity of the human person, which includes the freedom to be true to that transcendent diginity.

In history and in the present, Benedict says at the United Nations, various authorities have acted contrary to these values and beliefs. So what he says is needed is not some new world authority per se, he is not calling for a particular structure to be built, but is stating principle, calling for world authorities to comply with the moral truth, that is, to become a "true" world authority, an authority that is consistent with charity and truth and thereby safeguards and promotes the freedom and dignity of the human person.
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Caritas in Veritate - Charity in Truth
Conclusion

Caritas in Veritate
Encyclical Letter of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI

on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth
Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul, June 29, 2009

Go to Chapter Six

Conclusion

78. Without God, man neither knows which way to go, nor even understands who he is. In the face of the enormous problems surrounding the development of peoples, which almost make us yield to discouragement, we find solace in the sayings of our Lord Jesus Christ, who teaches us: “Apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5) and then encourages us: “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20). As we contemplate the vast amount of work to be done, we are sustained by our faith that God is present alongside those who come together in his name to work for justice. Paul VI recalled in Populorum Progressio that man cannot bring about his own progress unaided, because by himself he cannot establish an authentic humanism. Only if we are aware of our calling, as individuals and as a community, to be part of God's family as his sons and daughters, will we be able to generate a new vision and muster new energy in the service of a truly integral humanism. The greatest service to development, then, is a Christian humanism[157] that enkindles charity and takes its lead from truth, accepting both as a lasting gift from God. Openness to God makes us open towards our brothers and sisters and towards an understanding of life as a joyful task to be accomplished in a spirit of solidarity. On the other hand, ideological rejection of God and an atheism of indifference, oblivious to the Creator and at risk of becoming equally oblivious to human values, constitute some of the chief obstacles to development today. A humanism which excludes God is an inhuman humanism. Only a humanism open to the Absolute can guide us in the promotion and building of forms of social and civic life — structures, institutions, culture and ethos — without exposing us to the risk of becoming ensnared by the fashions of the moment. Awareness of God's undying love sustains us in our laborious and stimulating work for justice and the development of peoples, amid successes and failures, in the ceaseless pursuit of a just ordering of human affairs. God's love calls us to move beyond the limited and the ephemeral, it gives us the courage to continue seeking and working for the benefit of all, even if this cannot be achieved immediately and if what we are able to achieve, alongside political authorities and those working in the field of economics, is always less than we might wish[158]. God gives us the strength to fight and to suffer for love of the common good, because he is our All, our greatest hope.

79. Development needs Christians with their arms raised towards God in prayer, Christians moved by the knowledge that truth-filled love, caritas in veritate, from which authentic development proceeds, is not produced by us, but given to us. For this reason, even in the most difficult and complex times, besides recognizing what is happening, we must above all else turn to God's love. Development requires attention to the spiritual life, a serious consideration of the experiences of trust in God, spiritual fellowship in Christ, reliance upon God's providence and mercy, love and forgiveness, self-denial, acceptance of others, justice and peace. All this is essential if “hearts of stone” are to be transformed into “hearts of flesh” (Ezek 36:26), rendering life on earth “divine” and thus more worthy of humanity. All this is of man, because man is the subject of his own existence; and at the same time it is of God, because God is at the beginning and end of all that is good, all that leads to salvation: “the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours; and you are Christ's; and Christ is God's” (1 Cor 3:22-23). Christians long for the entire human family to call upon God as “Our Father!” In union with the only-begotten Son, may all people learn to pray to the Father and to ask him, in the words that Jesus himself taught us, for the grace to glorify him by living according to his will, to receive the daily bread that we need, to be understanding and generous towards our debtors, not to be tempted beyond our limits, and to be delivered from evil (cf. Mt 6:9-13).

At the conclusion of the Pauline Year, I gladly express this hope in the Apostle's own words, taken from the Letter to the Romans: “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honour” (Rom 12:9-10). May the Virgin Mary — proclaimed Mater Ecclesiae by Paul VI and honoured by Christians as Speculum Iustitiae and Regina Pacis — protect us and obtain for us, through her heavenly intercession, the strength, hope and joy necessary to continue to dedicate ourselves with generosity to the task of bringing about the “development of the whole man and of all men”[159].

Given in Rome, at Saint Peter's, on 29 June, the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, in the year 2009, the fifth of my Pontificate.



Benedictus PP. XVI



Endnotes
[157] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 42: loc. cit., 278.
[158] Cf. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi, 35: loc. cit., 1013-1014.
[159] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 42: loc. cit., 278.



© Copyright 2009 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
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Caritas in Veritate - Charity in Truth
Chapter Six

Caritas in Veritate
Encyclical Letter of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI

on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth
Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul, June 29, 2009

Go to Chapter Five

Chapter Six
The Development of Peoples and Technology


68. The development of peoples is intimately linked to the development of individuals. The human person by nature is actively involved in his own development. The development in question is not simply the result of natural [deterministic] mechanisms, since as everybody knows, we are all capable of making free and responsible choices. Nor is it merely at the mercy of our caprice, since we all know that we are a gift, not something self-generated. Our freedom is profoundly shaped by our being, and by its limits. No one shapes his own conscience arbitrarily, but we all build our own “I” on the basis of a “self” which is given to us. Not only are other persons outside our control, but each one of us is outside his or her own control. A person's development is compromised, if he claims to be solely responsible for producing what he becomes. By analogy, the development of peoples goes awry if humanity thinks it can re-create itself through the “wonders” of technology, just as economic development is exposed as a destructive sham if it relies on the “wonders” of finance in order to sustain unnatural and consumerist growth. In the face of such Promethean presumption, we must fortify our love for a freedom that is not merely arbitrary, but is rendered truly human by acknowledgment of the good that underlies it. To this end, man needs to look inside himself in order to recognize the fundamental norms of the natural moral law which God has written on our hearts.

69. The challenge of development today is closely linked to technological progress, with its astounding applications in the field of biology. Technology — it is worth emphasizing — is a profoundly human reality, linked to the autonomy and freedom of man. In technology we express and confirm the hegemony of the spirit over matter. “The human spirit, ‘increasingly free of its bondage to creatures, can be more easily drawn to the worship and contemplation of the Creator'”[150]. Technology enables us to exercise dominion over matter, to reduce risks, to save labor, to improve our conditions of life. It touches the heart of the vocation of human labor: in technology, seen as the product of his genius, man recognizes himself and forges his own humanity. Technology is the objective side of human action[151] whose origin and raison d'etre is found in the subjective element: the worker himself. For this reason, technology is never merely technology. It reveals man and his aspirations towards development, it expresses the inner tension that impels him gradually to overcome material limitations. Technology, in this sense, is a response to God's command to till and to keep the land (cf. Gen 2:15) that he has entrusted to humanity, and it must serve to reinforce the covenant between human beings and the environment, a covenant that should mirror God's creative love.

70. Technological development can give rise to the idea that technology is self-sufficient when too much attention is given to the “how” questions, and not enough to the many “why” questions underlying human activity. For this reason technology can appear ambivalent. Produced through human creativity as a tool of personal freedom, technology can be understood as a manifestation of absolute freedom, the freedom that seeks to prescind from the limits inherent in things. The process of globalization could replace ideologies with technology[152], allowing the latter to become an ideological power that threatens to confine us within an a priori that holds us back from encountering being and truth. Were that to happen, we would all know, evaluate and make decisions about our life situations from within a technocratic cultural perspective to which we would belong structurally, without ever being able to discover a meaning that is not of our own making. The “technical” worldview that follows from this vision is now so dominant that truth has come to be seen as coinciding with the possible. But when the sole criterion of truth is efficiency and utility, development is automatically denied. True development does not consist primarily in “doing”. The key to development is a mind capable of thinking in technological terms and grasping the fully human meaning of human activities, within the context of the holistic meaning of the individual's being. Even when we work through satellites or through remote electronic impulses, our actions always remain human, an expression of our responsible freedom. Technology is highly attractive because it draws us out of our physical limitations and broadens our horizon. But human freedom is authentic only when it responds to the fascination of technology with decisions that are the fruit of moral responsibility. Hence the pressing need for formation in an ethically responsible use of technology. Moving beyond the fascination that technology exerts, we must reappropriate the true meaning of freedom, which is not an intoxication with total autonomy, but a response to the call of being, beginning with our own personal being.

71. This deviation from solid humanistic principles that a technical mindset can produce is seen today in certain technological applications in the fields of development and peace. Often the development of peoples is considered a matter of financial engineering, the freeing up of markets, the removal of tariffs, investment in production, and institutional reforms — in other words, a purely technical matter. All these factors are of great importance, but we have to ask why technical choices made thus far have yielded rather mixed results. We need to think hard about the cause. Development will never be fully guaranteed through automatic or impersonal forces, whether they derive from the market or from international politics. Development is impossible without upright men and women, without financiers and politicians whose consciences are finely attuned to the requirements of the common good. Both professional competence and moral consistency are necessary. When technology is allowed to take over, the result is confusion between ends and means, such that the sole criterion for action in business is thought to be the maximization of profit, in politics the consolidation of power, and in science the findings of research. Often, underneath the intricacies of economic, financial and political interconnections, there remain misunderstandings, hardships and injustice. The flow of technological know-how increases, but it is those in possession of it who benefit, while the situation on the ground for the peoples who live in its shadow remains unchanged: for them there is little chance of emancipation.

72. Even peace can run the risk of being considered a technical product, merely the outcome of agreements between governments or of initiatives aimed at ensuring effective economic aid. It is true that peace-building requires the constant interplay of diplomatic contacts, economic, technological and cultural exchanges, agreements on common projects, as well as joint strategies to curb the threat of military conflict and to root out the underlying causes of terrorism. Nevertheless, if such efforts are to have lasting effects, they must be based on values rooted in the truth of human life. That is, the voice of the peoples affected must be heard and their situation must be taken into consideration, if their expectations are to be correctly interpreted. One must align oneself, so to speak, with the unsung efforts of so many individuals deeply committed to bringing peoples together and to facilitating development on the basis of love and mutual understanding. Among them are members of the Christian faithful, involved in the great task of upholding the fully human dimension of development and peace.

73. Linked to technological development is the increasingly pervasive presence of the means of social communications. It is almost impossible today to imagine the life of the human family without them. For better or for worse, they are so integral a part of life today that it seems quite absurd to maintain that they are neutral — and hence unaffected by any moral considerations concerning people. Often such views, stressing the strictly technical nature of the media, effectively support their subordination to economic interests intent on dominating the market and, not least, to attempts to impose cultural models that serve ideological and political agendas. Given the media's fundamental importance in engineering changes in attitude towards reality and the human person, we must reflect carefully on their influence, especially in regard to the ethical-cultural dimension of globalization and the development of peoples in solidarity. Mirroring what is required for an ethical approach to globalization and development, so too the meaning and purpose of the media must be sought within an anthropological perspective. This means that they can have a civilizing effect not only when, thanks to technological development, they increase the possibilities of communicating information, but above all when they are geared towards a vision of the person and the common good that reflects truly universal values. Just because social communications increase the possibilities of interconnection and the dissemination of ideas, it does not follow that they promote freedom or internationalize development and democracy for all. To achieve goals of this kind, they need to focus on promoting the dignity of persons and peoples, they need to be clearly inspired by charity and placed at the service of truth, of the good, and of natural and supernatural fraternity. In fact, human freedom is intrinsically linked with these higher values. The media can make an important contribution towards the growth in communion of the human family and the ethos of society when they are used to promote universal participation in the common search for what is just.

74. A particularly crucial battleground in today's cultural struggle between the supremacy of technology and human moral responsibility is the field of bioethics, where the very possibility of integral human development is radically called into question. In this most delicate and critical area, the fundamental question asserts itself force-fully: is man the product of his own labors or does he depend on God? Scientific discoveries in this field and the possibilities of technological intervention seem so advanced as to force a choice between two types of reasoning: reason open to transcendence or reason closed within immanence. We are presented with a clear either/or. Yet the rationality of a self-centered use of technology proves to be irrational because it implies a decisive rejection of meaning and value. It is no coincidence that closing the door to transcendence brings one up short against a difficulty: how could being emerge from nothing, how could intelligence be born from chance?[53] Faced with these dramatic questions, reason and faith can come to each other's assistance. Only together will they save man. Entranced by an exclusive reliance on technology, reason without faith is doomed to flounder in an illusion of its own omnipotence. Faith without reason risks being cut off from everyday life[154].

75. Paul VI had already recognized and drawn attention to the global dimension of the social question[155]. Following his lead, we need to affirm today that the social question has become a radically anthropological question, in the sense that it concerns not just how life is conceived but also how it is manipulated, as bio-technology places it increasingly under man's control. In vitro fertilization, embryo research, the possibility of manufacturing clones and human hybrids: all this is now emerging and being promoted in today's highly disillusioned culture, which believes it has mastered every mystery, because the origin of life is now within our grasp. Here we see the clearest expression of technology's supremacy. In this type of culture, the conscience is simply invited to take note of technological possibilities. Yet we must not underestimate the disturbing scenarios that threaten our future, or the powerful new instruments that the “culture of death” has at its disposal. To the tragic and widespread scourge of abortion we may well have to add in the future — indeed it is already surreptiously present — the systematic eugenic programming of births. At the other end of the spectrum, a pro-euthanasia mindset is making inroads as an equally damaging assertion of control over life that under certain circumstances is deemed no longer worth living. Underlying these scenarios are cultural viewpoints that deny human dignity. These practices in turn foster a materialistic and mechanistic understanding of human life. Who could measure the negative effects of this kind of mentality for development? How can we be surprised by the indifference shown towards situations of human degradation, when such indifference extends even to our attitude towards what is and is not human? What is astonishing is the arbitrary and selective determination of what to put forward today as worthy of respect. Insignificant matters are considered shocking, yet unprecedented injustices seem to be widely tolerated. While the poor of the world continue knocking on the doors of the rich, the world of affluence runs the risk of no longer hearing those knocks, on account of a conscience that can no longer distinguish what is human. God reveals man to himself; reason and faith work hand in hand to demonstrate to us what is good, provided we want to see it; the natural law, in which creative Reason shines forth, reveals our greatness, but also our wretchedness insofar as we fail to recognize the call to moral truth.

76. One aspect of the contemporary technological mindset is the tendency to consider the problems and emotions of the interior life from a purely psychological point of view, even to the point of neurological reductionism. In this way man's interiority is emptied of its meaning and gradually our awareness of the human soul's ontological depths, as probed by the saints, is lost. The question of development is closely bound up with our understanding of the human soul, insofar as we often reduce the self to the psyche and confuse the soul's health with emotional well-being. These over-simplifications stem from a profound failure to understand the spiritual life, and they obscure the fact that the development of individuals and peoples depends partly on the resolution of problems of a spiritual nature. Development must include not just material growth but also spiritual growth, since the human person is a “unity of body and soul”[156], born of God's creative love and destined for eternal life. The human being develops when he grows in the spirit, when his soul comes to know itself and the truths that God has implanted deep within, when he enters into dialogue with himself and his Creator. When he is far away from God, man is unsettled and ill at ease. Social and psychological alienation and the many neuroses that afflict affluent societies are attributable in part to spiritual factors. A prosperous society, highly developed in material terms but weighing heavily on the soul, is not of itself conducive to authentic development. The new forms of slavery to drugs and the lack of hope into which so many people fall can be explained not only in sociological and psychological terms but also in essentially spiritual terms. The emptiness in which the soul feels abandoned, despite the availability of countless therapies for body and psyche, leads to suffering. There cannot be holistic development and universal common good unless people's spiritual and moral welfare is taken into account, considered in their totality as body and soul.

77. The supremacy of technology tends to prevent people from recognizing anything that cannot be explained in terms of matter alone. Yet everyone experiences the many immaterial and spiritual dimensions of life. Knowing is not simply a material act, since the object that is known always conceals something beyond the empirical datum. All our knowledge, even the most simple, is always a minor miracle, since it can never be fully explained by the material instruments that we apply to it. In every truth there is something more than we would have expected, in the love that we receive there is always an element that surprises us. We should never cease to marvel at these things. In all knowledge and in every act of love the human soul experiences something “over and above”, which seems very much like a gift that we receive, or a height to which we are raised. The development of individuals and peoples is likewise located on a height, if we consider the spiritual dimension that must be present if such development is to be authentic. It requires new eyes and a new heart, capable of rising above a materialistic vision of human events, capable of glimpsing in development the “beyond” that technology cannot give. By following this path, it is possible to pursue the integral human development that takes its direction from the driving force of charity in truth.

Go to Conclusion

Endnotes
[150] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 41: loc. cit., 277-278; cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 57.
[151] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 5: loc. cit., 586-589.
[152] Cf. Paul VI, Apostolic Letter Octogesima Adveniens, 29: loc. cit., 420.
[153] Cf. Benedict XVI, Address to the Participants in the Fourth National Congress of the Church in Italy, Verona, 19 October 2006; Id., Homily at Mass, Islinger Feld, Regensburg, 12 September 2006.
[154] Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on certain bioethical questions Dignitas Personae (8 September 2008): AAS 100 (2008), 858-887.
[155] Cf. Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 3: loc. cit., 258.
[156] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 14.
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Caritas in Veritate - Charity in Truth
Chapter Five

Caritas in Veritate
Encyclical Letter of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI

on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth
Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul, June 29, 2009

Go to Chapter Four

Chapter Five
The Cooperation of the Human Family


53. One of the deepest forms of poverty a person can experience is isolation. If we look closely at other kinds of poverty, including material forms, we see that they are born from isolation, from not being loved or from difficulties in being able to love. Poverty is often produced by a rejection of God's love, by man's basic and tragic tendency to close in on himself, thinking himself to be self-sufficient or merely an insignificant and ephemeral fact, a “stranger” in a random universe. Man is alienated when he is alone, when he is detached from reality, when he stops thinking and believing in a foundation[125]. All of humanity is alienated when too much trust is placed in merely human projects, ideologies and false utopias[126]. Today humanity appears much more interactive than in the past: this shared sense of being close to one another must be transformed into true communion. The development of peoples depends, above all, on a recognition that the human race is a single family working together in true communion, not simply a group of subjects who happen to live side by side[127].

Pope Paul VI noted that “the world is in trouble because of the lack of thinking”[128]. He was making an observation, but also expressing a wish: a new trajectory of thinking is needed in order to arrive at a better understanding of the implications of our being one family; interaction among the peoples of the world calls us to embark upon this new trajectory, so that integration can signify solidarity[129] rather than marginalization. Thinking of this kind requires a deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation. This is a task that cannot be undertaken by the social sciences alone, insofar as the contribution of disciplines such as metaphysics and theology is needed if man's transcendent dignity is to be properly understood.

As a spiritual being, the human creature is defined through interpersonal relations. The more authentically he or she lives these relations, the more his or her own personal identity matures. It is not by isolation that man establishes his worth, but by placing himself in relation with others and with God. Hence these relations take on fundamental importance. The same holds true for peoples as well. A metaphysical understanding of the relations between persons is therefore of great benefit for their development. In this regard, reason finds inspiration and direction in Christian revelation, according to which the human community does not absorb the individual, annihilating his autonomy, as happens in the various forms of totalitarianism, but rather values him all the more because the relation between individual and community is a relation between one totality and another[130]. Just as a family does not submerge the identities of its individual members, just as the Church rejoices in each “new creation” (Gal 6:15; 2 Cor 5:17) incorporated by Baptism into her living Body, so too the unity of the human family does not submerge the identities of individuals, peoples and cultures, but makes them more transparent to each other and links them more closely in their legitimate diversity.

54. The theme of development can be identified with the inclusion-in-relation of all individuals and peoples within the one community of the human family, built in solidarity on the basis of the fundamental values of justice and peace. This perspective is illuminated in a striking way by the relationship between the Persons of the Trinity within the one divine Substance. The Trinity is absolute unity insofar as the three divine Persons are pure relationality. The reciprocal transparency among the divine Persons is total and the bond between each of them complete, since they constitute a unique and absolute unity. God desires to incorporate us into this reality of communion as well: “that they may be one even as we are one” (Jn 17:22). The Church is a sign and instrument of this unity[131]. Relationships between human beings throughout history cannot but be enriched by reference to this divine model. In particular, in the light of the revealed mystery of the Trinity, we understand that true openness does not mean loss of individual identity but profound interpenetration. This also emerges from the common human experiences of love and truth. Just as the sacramental love of spouses unites them spiritually in “one flesh” (Gen 2:24; Mt 19:5; Eph 5:31) and makes out of the two a real and relational unity, so, in an analogous way, truth unites spirits and causes them to think in unison, attracting them as a unity to itself.

55. The Christian revelation of the unity of the human race presupposes a metaphysical interpretation of the “humanum” in which relationality is an essential element. Other cultures and religions teach brotherhood and peace and are therefore of enormous importance to integral human development. Some religious and cultural attitudes, however, do not fully embrace the principle of love and truth and therefore end up retarding or even obstructing authentic human development. There are certain religious cultures in the world today that do not oblige men and women to live in communion but rather cut them off from one other in a search for individual well-being, limited to the gratification of psychological desires. Furthermore, a certain proliferation of different religious “paths”, attracting small groups or even single individuals, together with religious syncretism, can give rise to separation and disengagement. One possible negative effect of the process of globalization is the tendency to favor this kind of syncretism[132] by encouraging forms of “religion” that, instead of bringing people together, alienate them from one another and distance them from reality. At the same time, some religious and cultural traditions persist which ossify society in rigid social groupings, in magical beliefs that fail to respect the dignity of the person, and in attitudes of subjugation to occult powers. In these contexts, love and truth have difficulty asserting themselves, and authentic development is impeded.

For this reason, while it may be true that development needs the religions and cultures of different peoples, it is equally true that adequate discernment is needed. Religious freedom does not mean religious indifferentism, nor does it imply that all religions are equal[133]. Discernment is needed regarding the contribution of cultures and religions, especially on the part of those who wield political power, if the social community is to be built up in a spirit of respect for the common good. Such discernment has to be based on the criterion of charity and truth. Since the development of persons and peoples is at stake, this discernment will have to take account of the need for emancipation and inclusivity, in the context of a truly universal human community. “The whole man and all men” is also the criterion for evaluating cultures and religions. Christianity, the religion of the “God who has a human face”[134], contains this very criterion within itself.

56. The Christian religion and other religions can offer their contribution to development only if God has a place in the public realm, specifically in regard to its cultural, social, economic, and particularly its political dimensions. The Church's social doctrine came into being in order to claim “citizenship status” for the Christian religion[135]. 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.

57. Fruitful dialogue between faith and reason cannot but render the work of charity more effective within society, and it constitutes the most appropriate framework for promoting fraternal collaboration between believers and non-believers in their shared commitment to working for justice and the peace of the human family. In the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, the Council fathers asserted that “believers and unbelievers agree almost unanimously that all things on earth should be ordered towards man as to their center and summit”[136]. For believers, the world derives neither from blind chance nor from strict necessity, but from God's plan. This is what gives rise to the duty of believers to unite their efforts with those of all men and women of good will, with the followers of other religions and with non-believers, so that this world of ours may effectively correspond to the divine plan: living as a family under the Creator's watchful eye. A particular manifestation of charity and a guiding criterion for fraternal cooperation between believers and non-believers is undoubtedly the principle of subsidiarity[137], an expression of inalienable human freedom. Subsidiarity is first and foremost a form of assistance to the human person via the autonomy of intermediate bodies. Such assistance is offered when individuals or groups are unable to accomplish something on their own, and it is always designed to achieve their emancipation, because it fosters freedom and participation through assumption of responsibility. Subsidiarity respects personal dignity by recognizing in the person a subject who is always capable of giving something to others. By considering reciprocity as the heart of what it is to be a human being, subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state. It is able to take account both of the manifold articulation of plans — and therefore of the plurality of subjects — as well as the coordination of those plans. Hence the principle of subsidiarity is particularly well-suited to managing globalization and directing it towards authentic human development. In order not to produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature, the governance of globalization must be marked by subsidiarity, articulated into several layers and involving different levels that can work together. Globalization certainly requires authority, insofar as it poses the problem of a global common good that needs to be pursued. This authority, however, must be organized in a subsidiary and stratified way[138], if it is not to infringe upon freedom and if it is to yield effective results in practice.

58. 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. This general rule must also be taken broadly into consideration when addressing issues concerning international development aid. Such aid, whatever the donors' intentions, can sometimes lock people into a state of dependence and even foster situations of localized oppression and exploitation in the receiving country. Economic aid, in order to be true to its purpose, must not pursue secondary objectives. It must be distributed with the involvement not only of the governments of receiving countries, but also local economic agents and the bearers of culture within civil society, including local Churches. Aid programs must increasingly acquire the characteristics of participation and completion from the grass roots. Indeed, the most valuable resources in countries receiving development aid are human resources: herein lies the real capital that needs to accumulate in order to guarantee a truly autonomous future for the poorest countries. It should also be remembered that, in the economic sphere, the principal form of assistance needed by developing countries is that of allowing and encouraging the gradual penetration of their products into international markets, thus making it possible for these countries to participate fully in international economic life. Too often in the past, aid has served to create only fringe markets for the products of these donor countries. This was often due to a lack of genuine demand for the products in question: it is therefore necessary to help such countries improve their products and adapt them more effectively to existing demand. Furthermore, there are those who fear the effects of competition through the importation of products — normally agricultural products — from economically poor countries. Nevertheless, it should be remembered that for such countries, the possibility of marketing their products is very often what guarantees their survival in both the short and long term. Just and equitable international trade in agricultural goods can be beneficial to everyone, both to suppliers and to customers. For this reason, not only is commercial orientation needed for production of this kind, but also the establishment of international trade regulations to support it and stronger financing for development in order to increase the productivity of these economies.

59. Cooperation for development must not be concerned exclusively with the economic dimension: it offers a wonderful opportunity for encounter between cultures and peoples. If the parties to cooperation on the side of economically developed countries — as occasionally happens — fail to take account of their own or others' cultural identity, or the human values that shape it, they cannot enter into meaningful dialogue with the citizens of poor countries. If the latter, in their turn, are uncritically and indiscriminately open to every cultural proposal, they will not be in a position to assume responsibility for their own authentic development[139]. 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. Evolving societies must remain faithful to all that is truly human in their traditions, avoiding the temptation to overlay them automatically with the mechanisms of a globalized technological civilization. In all cultures there are examples of ethical convergence, some isolated, some interrelated, as an expression of the one human nature, willed by the Creator; the tradition of ethical wisdom knows this as the natural law[140]. This universal moral law provides a sound basis for all cultural, religious and political dialogue, and it ensures that the multi-faceted pluralism of cultural diversity does not detach itself from the common quest for truth, goodness and God. Thus adherence to the law etched on human hearts is the precondition for all constructive social cooperation. Every culture has burdens from which it must be freed and shadows from which it must emerge. The Christian faith, by becoming incarnate in cultures and at the same time transcending them, can help them grow in universal brotherhood and solidarity, for the advancement of global and community development.

60. In the search for solutions to the current economic crisis, development aid for poor countries must be considered a valid means of creating wealth for all. What aid program is there that can hold out such significant growth prospects — even from the point of view of the world economy — as the support of populations that are still in the initial or early phases of economic development? From this perspective, more economically developed nations should do all they can to allocate larger portions of their gross domestic product to development aid, thus respecting the obligations that the international community has undertaken in this regard. One way of doing so is by reviewing their internal social assistance and welfare policies, applying the principle of subsidiarity and creating better integrated welfare systems, with the active participation of private individuals and civil society. In this way, it is actually possible to improve social services and welfare programs, and at the same time to save resources — by eliminating waste and rejecting fraudulent claims — which could then be allocated to international solidarity. A more devolved and organic system of social solidarity, less bureaucratic but no less coordinated, would make it possible to harness much dormant energy, for the benefit of solidarity between peoples.

One possible approach to development aid would be to apply effectively what is known as fiscal subsidiarity, allowing citizens to decide how to allocate a portion of the taxes they pay to the State. Provided it does not degenerate into the promotion of special interests, this can help to stimulate forms of welfare solidarity from below, with obvious benefits in the area of solidarity for development as well.

61. Greater solidarity at the international level is seen especially in the ongoing promotion — even in the midst of economic crisis — of greater access to education, which is at the same time an essential precondition for effective international cooperation. The term “education” refers not only to classroom teaching and vocational training — both of which are important factors in development — but to the complete formation of the person. In this regard, there is a problem that should be highlighted: in order to educate, it is necessary to know the nature of the human person, to know who he or she is. The increasing prominence of a relativistic understanding of that nature presents serious problems for education, especially moral education, jeopardizing its universal extension. Yielding to this kind of relativism makes everyone poorer and has a negative impact on the effectiveness of aid to the most needy populations, who lack not only economic and technical means, but also educational methods and resources to assist people in realizing their full human potential.

An illustration of the significance of this problem is offered by the phenomenon of international tourism[141], which can be a major factor in economic development and cultural growth, but can also become an occasion for exploitation and moral degradation. The current situation offers unique opportunities for the economic aspects of development — that is to say the flow of money and the emergence of a significant amount of local enterprise — to be combined with the cultural aspects, chief among which is education. In many cases this is what happens, but in other cases international tourism has a negative educational impact both for the tourist and the local populace. The latter are often exposed to immoral or even perverted forms of conduct, as in the case of so-called sex tourism, to which many human beings are sacrificed even at a tender age. It is sad to note that this activity often takes place with the support of local governments, with silence from those in the tourists' countries of origin, and with the complicity of many of the tour operators. Even in less extreme cases, international tourism often follows a consumerist and hedonistic pattern, as a form of escapism planned in a manner typical of the countries of origin, and therefore not conducive to authentic encounter between persons and cultures. We need, therefore, to develop a different type of tourism that has the ability to promote genuine mutual understanding, without taking away from the element of rest and healthy recreation. Tourism of this type needs to increase, partly through closer coordination with the experience gained from international cooperation and enterprise for development.

62. Another aspect of integral human development that is worthy of attention is the phenomenon of migration. This is a striking phenomenon because of the sheer numbers of people involved, the social, economic, political, cultural and religious problems it raises, and the dramatic challenges it poses to nations and the international community. We can say that we are facing a social phenomenon of epoch-making proportions that requires bold, forward-looking policies of international cooperation if it is to be handled effectively. Such policies should set out from close collaboration between the migrants' countries of origin and their countries of destination; it should be accompanied by adequate international norms able to coordinate different legislative systems with a view to safeguarding the needs and rights of individual migrants and their families, and at the same time, those of the host countries. No country can be expected to address today's problems of migration by itself. We are all witnesses of the burden of suffering, the dislocation and the aspirations that accompany the flow of migrants. The phenomenon, as everyone knows, is difficult to manage; but there is no doubt that foreign workers, despite any difficulties concerning integration, make a significant contribution to the economic development of the host country through their labor, besides that which they make to their country of origin through the money they send home. Obviously, these laborers cannot be considered as a commodity or a mere workforce. They must not, therefore, be treated like any other factor of production. Every migrant is a human person who, as such, possesses fundamental, inalienable rights that must be respected by everyone and in every circumstance[142].

63. No consideration of the problems associated with development could fail to highlight the direct link between poverty and unemployment. In many cases, poverty results from a violation of the dignity of human work, either because work opportunities are limited (through unemployment or underemployment), or “because a low value is put on work and the rights that flow from it, especially the right to a just wage and to the personal security of the worker and his or her family”[143]. For this reason, on 1 May 2000 on the occasion of the Jubilee of Workers, my venerable predecessor Pope John Paul II issued an appeal for “a global coalition in favour of ‘decent work”'[144], supporting the strategy of the International Labor Organization. In this way, he gave a strong moral impetus to this objective, seeing it as an aspiration of families in every country of the world. What is meant by the word “decency” in regard to work? It means work that expresses the essential dignity of every man and woman in the context of their particular society: work that is freely chosen, effectively associating workers, both men and women, with the development of their community; work that enables the worker to be respected and free from any form of discrimination; work that makes it possible for families to meet their needs and provide schooling for their children, without the children themselves being forced into labor; work that permits the workers to organize themselves freely, and to make their voices heard; work that leaves enough room for rediscovering one's roots at a personal, familial and spiritual level; work that guarantees those who have retired a decent standard of living.

64. While reflecting on the theme of work, it is appropriate to recall how important it is that labor unions — which have always been encouraged and supported by the Church — should be open to the new perspectives that are emerging in the world of work. Looking to wider concerns than the specific category of labor for which they were formed, union organizations are called to address some of the new questions arising in our society: I am thinking, for example, of the complex of issues that social scientists describe in terms of a conflict between worker and consumer. Without necessarily endorsing the thesis that the central focus on the worker has given way to a central focus on the consumer, this would still appear to constitute new ground for unions to explore creatively. The global context in which work takes place also demands that national labor unions, which tend to limit themselves to defending the interests of their registered members, should turn their attention to those outside their membership, and in particular to workers in developing countries where social rights are often violated. The protection of these workers, partly achieved through appropriate initiatives aimed at their countries of origin, will enable trade unions to demonstrate the authentic ethical and cultural motivations that made it possible for them, in a different social and labor context, to play a decisive role in development. The Church's traditional teaching makes a valid distinction between the respective roles and functions of trade unions and politics. This distinction allows unions to identify civil society as the proper setting for their necessary activity of defending and promoting labor, especially on behalf of exploited and unrepresented workers, whose woeful condition is often ignored by the distracted eye of society.

65. Finance, therefore — through the renewed structures and operating methods that have to be designed after its misuse, which wreaked such havoc on the real economy — now needs to go back to being an instrument directed towards improved wealth creation and development. Insofar as they are instruments, the entire economy and finance, not just certain sectors, must be used in an ethical way so as to create suitable conditions for human development and for the development of peoples. It is certainly useful, and in some circumstances imperative, to launch financial initiatives in which the humanitarian dimension predominates. However, this must not obscure the fact that the entire financial system has to be aimed at sustaining true development. Above all, the intention to do good must not be considered incompatible with the effective capacity to produce goods. Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers. Right intention, transparency, and the search for positive results are mutually compatible and must never be detached from one another. If love is wise, it can find ways of working in accordance with provident and just expediency, as is illustrated in a significant way by much of the experience of credit unions.

Both the regulation of the financial sector, so as to safeguard weaker parties and discourage scandalous speculation, and experimentation with new forms of finance, designed to support development projects, are positive experiences that should be further explored and encouraged, highlighting the responsibility of the investor. Furthermore, the experience of micro-finance, which has its roots in the thinking and activity of the civil humanists — I am thinking especially of the birth of pawnbroking — should be strengthened and fine-tuned. This is all the more necessary in these days when financial difficulties can become severe for many of the more vulnerable sectors of the population, who should be protected from the risk of usury and from despair. The weakest members of society should be helped to defend themselves against usury, just as poor peoples should be helped to derive real benefit from micro-credit, in order to discourage the exploitation that is possible in these two areas. Since rich countries are also experiencing new forms of poverty, micro-finance can give practical assistance by launching new initiatives and opening up new sectors for the benefit of the weaker elements in society, even at a time of general economic downturn.

66. Global interconnectedness has led to the emergence of a new political power, that of consumers and their associations. This is a phenomenon that needs to be further explored, as it contains positive elements to be encouraged as well as excesses to be avoided. It is good for people to realize that purchasing is always a moral — and not simply economic — act. Hence the consumer has a specific social responsibility, which goes hand-in-hand with the social responsibility of the enterprise. Consumers should be continually educated[145] regarding their daily role, which can be exercised with respect for moral principles without diminishing the intrinsic economic rationality of the act of purchasing. In the retail industry, particularly at times like the present when purchasing power has diminished and people must live more frugally, it is necessary to explore other paths: for example, forms of cooperative purchasing like the consumer cooperatives that have been in operation since the nineteenth century, partly through the initiative of Catholics. In addition, it can be helpful to promote new ways of marketing products from deprived areas of the world, so as to guarantee their producers a decent return. However, certain conditions need to be met: the market should be genuinely transparent; the producers, as well as increasing their profit margins, should also receive improved formation in professional skills and technology; and finally, trade of this kind must not become hostage to partisan ideologies. A more incisive role for consumers, as long as they themselves are not manipulated by associations that do not truly represent them, is a desirable element for building economic democracy.

67. In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect[146] and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good[147], and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights[148]. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations. The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization[149]. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations.

Go to Chapter Six

Endnotes
[125] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 41: loc. cit., 843-845.
[126] Cf. ibid.
[127] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae, 20: loc. cit., 422-424.
[128] Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 85: loc. cit., 298-299.
[129] Cf. John Paul II, Message for the 1998 World Day of Peace, 3: AAS 90 (1998), 150; Address to the Members of the Vatican Foundation “Centesimus Annus – Pro Pontifice”, 9 May 1998, 2; Address to the Civil Authorities and Diplomatic Corps of Austria, 20 June 1998, 8; Message to the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, 5 May 2000, 6.
[130] According to Saint Thomas “ratio partis contrariatur rationi personae”, In III Sent., d. 5, q. 3, a. 2; also “Homo non ordinatur ad communitatem politicam secundum se totum et secundum omnia sua”, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 21, a. 4, ad 3.
[131] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 1.
[132] Cf. John Paul II, Address to the Sixth Public Session of the Pontifical Academies of Theology and of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 8 November 2001, 3.
[133] Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church Dominus Iesus (6 August 2000), 22: AAS 92 (2000), 763-764; Id., Doctrinal Note on some questions regarding the participation of Catholics in political life (24 November 2002), 8: AAS 96 (2004), 369-370.
[134] Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi, 31: loc. cit., 1010; Address to the Participants in the Fourth National Congress of the Church in Italy, Verona, 19 October 2006.
[135] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 5: loc. cit., 798-800; Benedict XVI, Address to the Participants in the Fourth National Congress of the Church in Italy, Verona, 19 October 2006.
[136] No. 12.
[137] Cf. Pius XI, Encyclical Letter Quadragesimo Anno (15 May 1931): AAS 23 (1931), 203; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 48: loc. cit., 852-854; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1883.
[138] Cf. John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris, loc. cit., 274.
[139] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 10, 41: loc. cit., 262, 277-278.
[140] Cf. Benedict XVI, Address to Members of the International Theological Commission, 5 October 2007; Address to the Participants in the International Congress on Natural Moral Law, 12 February 2007.
[141] Cf. Benedict XVI, Address to the Bishops of Thailand on their “Ad Limina” Visit, 16 May 2008.
[142] Cf. Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, Instruction Erga Migrantes Caritas Christi (3 May 2004): AAS 96 (2004), 762-822.
[143] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 8: loc. cit., 594-598.
[144] Jubilee of Workers, Greeting after Mass, 1 May 2000.
[145] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 36: loc. cit., 838-840.
[146] Cf. Benedict XVI, Address to the Members of the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization, New York, 18 April 2008.
[147] Cf. John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris, loc. cit., 293; Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 441.
[148] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 82.
[149] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 43: loc. cit., 574-575.
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Caritas in Veritate - Charity in Truth
Chapter Four

Caritas in Veritate
Encyclical Letter of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI

on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth
Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul, June 29, 2009

Go to Chapter Three

Chapter Four
The Development of People
Rights and Duties
The Environment


43. “The reality of human solidarity, which is a benefit for us, also imposes a duty”[105]. Many people today would claim that they owe nothing to anyone, except to themselves. They are concerned only with their rights, and they often have great difficulty in taking responsibility for their own and other people's integral development. Hence it is important to call for a renewed reflection on how rights presuppose duties, if they are not to become mere license[106]. Nowadays we are witnessing a grave inconsistency. On the one hand, appeals are made to alleged rights, arbitrary and non-essential in nature, accompanied by the demand that they be recognized and promoted by public structures, while, on the other hand, elementary and basic rights remain unacknowledged and are violated in much of the world[107]. A link has often been noted between claims to a “right to excess”, and even to transgression and vice, within affluent societies, and the lack of food, drinkable water, basic instruction and elementary health care in areas of the underdeveloped world and on the outskirts of large metropolitan centers. The link consists in this: individual rights, when detached from a framework of duties which grants them their full meaning, can run wild, leading to an escalation of demands which is effectively unlimited and indiscriminate. 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. Governments and international bodies can then lose sight of the objectivity and “inviolability” of rights. When this happens, the authentic development of peoples is endangered[108]. Such a way of thinking and acting compromises the authority of international bodies, especially in the eyes of those countries most in need of development. Indeed, the latter demand that the international community take up the duty of helping them to be “artisans of their own destiny”[109], that is, to take up duties of their own. The sharing of reciprocal duties is a more powerful incentive to action than the mere assertion of rights.

44. The notion of rights and duties in development must also take account of the problems associated with population growth. This is a very important aspect of authentic development, since it concerns the inalienable values of life and the family[110]. To consider population increase as the primary cause of underdevelopment is mistaken, even from an economic point of view. Suffice it to consider, on the one hand, the significant reduction in infant mortality and the rise in average life expectancy found in economically developed countries, and on the other hand, the signs of crisis observable in societies that are registering an alarming decline in their birth rate. Due attention must obviously be given to responsible procreation, which among other things has a positive contribution to make to integral human development. The Church, in her concern for man's authentic development, urges him to have full respect for human values in the exercise of his sexuality. It cannot be reduced merely to pleasure or entertainment, nor can sex education be reduced to technical instruction aimed solely at protecting the interested parties from possible disease or the “risk” of procreation. This would be to impoverish and disregard the deeper meaning of sexuality, a meaning which needs to be acknowledged and responsibly appropriated not only by individuals but also by the community. It is irresponsible to view sexuality merely as a source of pleasure, and likewise to regulate it through strategies of mandatory birth control. In either case materialistic ideas and policies are at work, and individuals are ultimately subjected to various forms of violence. Against such policies, there is a need to defend the primary competence of the family in the area of sexuality[111], as opposed to the State and its restrictive policies, and to ensure that parents are suitably prepared to undertake their responsibilities.

Morally responsible openness to life represents a rich social and economic resource. Populous nations have been able to emerge from poverty thanks not least to the size of their population and the talents of their people. On the other hand, formerly prosperous nations are presently passing through a phase of uncertainty and in some cases decline, precisely because of their falling birth rates; this has become a crucial problem for highly affluent societies. The decline in births, falling at times beneath the so-called “replacement level”, also puts a strain on social welfare systems, increases their cost, eats into savings and hence the financial resources needed for investment, reduces the availability of qualified laborers, and narrows the “brain pool” upon which nations can draw for their needs. Furthermore, smaller and at times miniscule families run the risk of impoverishing social relations, and failing to ensure effective forms of solidarity. These situations are symptomatic of scant confidence in the future and moral weariness. It is thus becoming a social and even economic necessity once more to hold up to future generations the beauty of marriage and the family, and the fact that these institutions correspond to the deepest needs and dignity of the person. In view of this, States are called to enact policies promoting the centrality and the integrity of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman, the primary vital cell of society[112], and to assume responsibility for its economic and fiscal needs, while respecting its essentially relational character.

45. Striving to meet the deepest moral needs of the person also has important and beneficial repercussions at the level of economics. The economy needs ethics in order to function correctly — not any ethics whatsoever, but an ethics which is people-centered. Today we hear much talk of ethics in the world of economy, finance and business. Research centers and seminars in business ethics are on the rise; the system of ethical certification is spreading throughout the developed world as part of the movement of ideas associated with the responsibilities of business towards society. Banks are proposing “ethical” accounts and investment funds. “Ethical financing” is being developed, especially through micro-credit and, more generally, micro-finance. These processes are praiseworthy and deserve much support. Their positive effects are also being felt in the less developed areas of the world. It would be advisable, however, to develop a sound criterion of discernment, since the adjective “ethical” can be abused. When the word is used generically, it can lend itself to any number of interpretations, even to the point where it includes decisions and choices contrary to justice and authentic human welfare.

Much in fact depends on the underlying system of morality. On this subject the Church's social doctrine can make a specific contribution, since it is based on man's creation “in the image of God” (Gen 1:27), a datum which gives rise to the inviolable dignity of the human person and the transcendent value of natural moral norms. When business ethics prescinds from these two pillars, it inevitably risks losing its distinctive nature and it falls prey to forms of exploitation; more specifically, it risks becoming subservient to existing economic and financial systems rather than correcting their dysfunctional aspects. Among other things, it risks being used to justify the financing of projects that are in reality unethical. The word “ethical”, then, should not be used to make ideological distinctions, as if to suggest that initiatives not formally so designated would not be ethical. Efforts are needed — and it is essential to say this — not only to create “ethical” sectors or segments of the economy or the world of finance, but to ensure that the whole economy — the whole of finance — is ethical, not merely by virtue of an external label, but by its respect for requirements intrinsic to its very nature. The Church's social teaching is quite clear on the subject, recalling that the economy, in all its branches, constitutes a sector of human activity[113].

46. When we consider the issues involved in the relationship between business and ethics, as well as the evolution currently taking place in methods of production, it would appear that the traditionally valid distinction between profit-based companies and non-profit organizations can no longer do full justice to reality, or offer practical direction for the future. In recent decades a broad intermediate area has emerged between the two types of enterprise. It is made up of traditional companies which nonetheless subscribe to social aid agreements in support of underdeveloped countries, charitable foundations associated with individual companies, groups of companies oriented towards social welfare, and the diversified world of the so-called “civil economy” and the “economy of communion”. This is not merely a matter of a “third sector”, but of a broad new composite reality embracing the private and public spheres, one which does not exclude profit, but instead considers it a means for achieving human and social ends. Whether such companies distribute dividends or not, whether their juridical structure corresponds to one or other of the established forms, becomes secondary in relation to their willingness to view profit as a means of achieving the goal of a more humane market and society. It is to be hoped that these new kinds of enterprise will succeed in finding a suitable juridical and fiscal structure in every country. Without prejudice to the importance and the economic and social benefits of the more traditional forms of business, they steer the system towards a clearer and more complete assumption of duties on the part of economic subjects. And not only that. The very plurality of institutional forms of business gives rise to a market which is not only more civilized but also more competitive.

47. The strengthening of different types of businesses, especially those capable of viewing profit as a means for achieving the goal of a more humane market and society, must also be pursued in those countries that are excluded or marginalized from the influential circles of the global economy. In these countries it is very important to move ahead with projects based on subsidiarity, suitably planned and managed, aimed at affirming rights yet also providing for the assumption of corresponding responsibilities. In development programs, the principle of the centrality of the human person, as the subject primarily responsible for development, must be preserved. The principal concern must be to improve the actual living conditions of the people in a given region, thus enabling them to carry out those duties which their poverty does not presently allow them to fulfil. Social concern must never be an abstract attitude. Development programs, if they are to be adapted to individual situations, need to be flexible; and the people who benefit from them ought to be directly involved in their planning and implementation. The criteria to be applied should aspire towards incremental development in a context of solidarity — with careful monitoring of results — inasmuch as there are no universally valid solutions. Much depends on the way programs are managed in practice. “The peoples themselves have the prime responsibility to work for their own development. But they will not bring this about in isolation”[114]. These words of Paul VI are all the more timely nowadays, as our world becomes progressively more integrated. The dynamics of inclusion are hardly automatic. Solutions need to be carefully designed to correspond to people's concrete lives, based on a prudential evaluation of each situation. Alongside macro-projects, there is a place for micro-projects, and above all there is need for the active mobilization of all the subjects of civil society, both juridical and physical persons.

International cooperation requires people who can be part of the process of economic and human development through the solidarity of their presence, supervision, training and respect. From this standpoint, international organizations might question the actual effectiveness of their bureaucratic and administrative machinery, which is often excessively costly. At times it happens that those who receive aid become subordinate to the aid-givers, and the poor serve to perpetuate expensive bureaucracies which consume an excessively high percentage of funds intended for development. Hence it is to be hoped that all international agencies and non-governmental organizations will commit themselves to complete transparency, informing donors and the public of the percentage of their income allocated to programmes of cooperation, the actual content of those programmes and, finally, the detailed expenditure of the institution itself.

48. Today the subject of development is also closely related to the duties arising from our relationship to the natural environment. The environment is God's gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole. When nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or evolutionary determinism, our sense of responsibility wanes. In nature, the believer recognizes the wonderful result of God's creative activity, which we may use responsibly to satisfy our legitimate needs, material or otherwise, while respecting the intrinsic balance of creation. If this vision is lost, we end up either considering nature an untouchable taboo or, on the contrary, abusing it. Neither attitude is consonant with the Christian vision of nature as the fruit of God's creation.

Nature expresses a design of love and truth. It is prior to us, and it has been given to us by God as the setting for our life. Nature speaks to us of the Creator (cf. Rom 1:20) and his love for humanity. It is destined to be “recapitulated” in Christ at the end of time (cf. Eph 1:9-10; Col 1:19-20). Thus it too is a “vocation”[115]. Nature is at our disposal not as “a heap of scattered refuse”[116], but as a gift of the Creator who has given it an inbuilt order, enabling man to draw from it the principles needed in order “to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). But it should also be stressed that it is contrary to authentic development to view nature as something more important than the human person. This position leads to attitudes of neo-paganism or a new pantheism — human salvation cannot come from nature alone, understood in a purely naturalistic sense. This having been said, it is also necessary to reject the opposite position, which aims at total technical dominion over nature, because the natural environment is more than raw material to be manipulated at our pleasure; it is a wondrous work of the Creator containing a “grammar” which sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use, not its reckless exploitation. Today much harm is done to development precisely as a result of these distorted notions. Reducing nature merely to a collection of contingent data ends up doing violence to the environment and even encouraging activity that fails to respect human nature itself. Our human nature, constituted not only by matter but also by spirit, and as such, endowed with transcendent meaning and aspirations, is also normative for culture. Human beings interpret and shape the natural environment through culture, which in turn is given direction by the responsible use of freedom, in accordance with the dictates of the moral law. Consequently, projects for integral human development cannot ignore coming generations, but need to be marked by solidarity and inter-generational justice, while taking into account a variety of contexts: ecological, juridical, economic, political and cultural[117].

49. Questions linked to the care and preservation of the environment today need to give due consideration to the energy problem. The fact that some States, power groups and companies hoard non-renewable energy resources represents a grave obstacle to development in poor countries. Those countries lack the economic means either to gain access to existing sources of non-renewable energy or to finance research into new alternatives. The stockpiling of natural resources, which in many cases are found in the poor countries themselves, gives rise to exploitation and frequent conflicts between and within nations. These conflicts are often fought on the soil of those same countries, with a heavy toll of death, destruction and further decay. The international community has an urgent duty to find institutional means of regulating the exploitation of non-renewable resources, involving poor countries in the process, in order to plan together for the future.

On this front too, there is a pressing moral need for renewed solidarity, especially in relationships between developing countries and those that are highly industrialized[118]. The technologically advanced societies can and must lower their domestic energy consumption, either through an evolution in manufacturing methods or through greater ecological sensitivity among their citizens. It should be added that at present it is possible to achieve improved energy efficiency while at the same time encouraging research into alternative forms of energy. What is also needed, though, is a worldwide redistribution of energy resources, so that countries lacking those resources can have access to them. The fate of those countries cannot be left in the hands of whoever is first to claim the spoils, or whoever is able to prevail over the rest. Here we are dealing with major issues; if they are to be faced adequately, then everyone must responsibly recognize the impact they will have on future generations, particularly on the many young people in the poorer nations, who “ask to assume their active part in the construction of a better world”[119].

50. This responsibility is a global one, for it is concerned not just with energy but with the whole of creation, which must not be bequeathed to future generations depleted of its resources. Human beings legitimately exercise a responsible stewardship over nature, in order to protect it, to enjoy its fruits and to cultivate it in new ways, with the assistance of advanced technologies, so that it can worthily accommodate and feed the world's population. On this earth there is room for everyone: here the entire human family must find the resources to live with dignity, through the help of nature itself — God's gift to his children — and through hard work and creativity. At the same time we must recognize our grave duty to hand the earth on to future generations in such a condition that they too can worthily inhabit it and continue to cultivate it. This means being committed to making joint decisions “after pondering responsibly the road to be taken, decisions aimed at strengthening that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying”[120]. Let us hope that the international community and individual governments will succeed in countering harmful ways of treating the environment. It is likewise incumbent upon the competent authorities to make every effort to ensure that the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations: the protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate obliges all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet[121]. One of the greatest challenges facing the economy is to achieve the most efficient use — not abuse — of natural resources, based on a realization that the notion of “efficiency” is not value-free.

51. The way humanity treats the environment influences the way it treats itself, and vice versa. This invites contemporary society to a serious review of its life-style, which, in many parts of the world, is prone to hedonism and consumerism, regardless of their harmful consequences[122]. What is needed is an effective shift in mentality which can lead to the adoption of new life-styles “in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments”[123]. Every violation of solidarity and civic friendship harms the environment, just as environmental deterioration in turn upsets relations in society. Nature, especially in our time, is so integrated into the dynamics of society and culture that by now it hardly constitutes an independent variable. Desertification and the decline in productivity in some agricultural areas are also the result of impoverishment and underdevelopment among their inhabitants. When incentives are offered for their economic and cultural development, nature itself is protected. Moreover, how many natural resources are squandered by wars! Peace in and among peoples would also provide greater protection for nature. The hoarding of resources, especially water, can generate serious conflicts among the peoples involved. Peaceful agreement about the use of resources can protect nature and, at the same time, the well-being of the societies concerned.

The Church has a responsibility towards creation and she must assert this responsibility in the public sphere. In so doing, she must defend not only earth, water and air as gifts of creation that belong to everyone. She must above all protect mankind from self-destruction. There is need for what might be called a human ecology, correctly understood. The deterioration of nature is in fact closely connected to the culture that shapes human coexistence: when “human ecology”[124] is respected within society, environmental ecology also benefits. Just as human virtues are interrelated, such that the weakening of one places others at risk, so the ecological system is based on respect for a plan that affects both the health of society and its good relationship with nature.

In order to protect nature, it is not enough to intervene with economic incentives or deterrents; not even an apposite education is sufficient. These are important steps, but the decisive issue is the overall moral tenor of society. If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology. It is contradictory to insist that future generations respect the natural environment when our educational systems and laws do not help them to respect themselves. The book of nature is one and indivisible: it takes in not only the environment but also life, sexuality, marriage, the family, social relations: in a word, integral human development. Our duties towards the environment are linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in himself and in relation to others. It would be wrong to uphold one set of duties while trampling on the other. Herein lies a grave contradiction in our mentality and practice today: one which demeans the person, disrupts the environment and damages society.

52. Truth, and the love which it reveals, cannot be produced: they can only be received as a gift. Their ultimate source is not, and cannot be, mankind, but only God, who is himself Truth and Love. This principle is extremely important for society and for development, since neither can be a purely human product; the vocation to development on the part of individuals and peoples is not based simply on human choice, but is an intrinsic part of a plan that is prior to us and constitutes for all of us a duty to be freely accepted. That which is prior to us and constitutes us — subsistent Love and Truth — shows us what goodness is, and in what our true happiness consists. It shows us the road to true development.

Go to Chapter Five

Endnotes
[105] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 17: loc. cit., 265-266.
[106] Cf. John Paul II, Message for the 2003 World Day of Peace, 5: AAS 95 (2003), 343.
[107] Cf. ibid.
[108] Cf. Benedict XVI, Message for the 2007 World Day of Peace, 13: loc. cit., 781-782.
[109] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 65: loc. cit., 289.
[110] Cf. ibid., 36-37: loc. cit., 275-276.
[111] Cf. ibid., 37: loc. cit., 275-276.
[112] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People Apostolicam Actuositatem, 11.
[113] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 14: loc. cit., 264; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 32: loc. cit., 832-833.
[114] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 77: loc. cit., 295.
[115] John Paul II, Message for the 1990 World Day of Peace, 6: AAS 82 (1990), 150.
[116] Heraclitus of Ephesus (Ephesus, c. 535 B.C. - c. 475 B.C.), Fragment 22B124, in H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Weidmann, Berlin, 1952, 6(th) ed.
[117] Pontifical Council for Justice And Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 451-487.
[118] Cf. John Paul II, Message for the 1990 World Day of Peace, 10: loc. cit., 152-153.
[119] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 65: loc. cit., 289.
[120] Benedict XVI, Message for the 2008 World Day of Peace, 7: AAS 100 (2008), 41.
[121] Cf. Benedict XVI, Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization, New York, 18 April 2008.
[122] Cf. John Paul II, Message for the 1990 World Day of Peace, 13: loc. cit., 154-155.
[123] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 36: loc. cit., 838-840.
[124] Ibid., 38: loc. cit., 840-841; Benedict XVI, Message for the 2007 World Day of Peace, 8: loc. cit., 779.
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Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Caritas in Veritate - Charity in Truth
Chapter Three

Caritas in Veritate
Encyclical Letter of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI

on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth
Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul, June 29, 2009

Go to Chapter Two

Chapter Three
Fraternity, Economic Development, and Civil Society


34. Charity in truth places man before the astonishing experience of gift. Gratuitousness is present in our lives in many different forms, which often go unrecognized because of a purely consumerist and utilitarian view of life. 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. This is a presumption that follows from being selfishly closed in upon himself, and it is a consequence — to express it in faith terms — of original sin. The Church's wisdom has always pointed to the presence of original sin in social conditions and in the structure of society: “Ignorance of the fact that man has a wounded nature inclined to evil gives rise to serious errors in the areas of education, politics, social action and morals”[85]. In the list of areas where the pernicious effects of sin are evident, the economy has been included for some time now. We have a clear proof of this at the present time. 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. As I said in my Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi, history is thereby deprived of Christian hope[86], deprived of a powerful social resource at the service of integral human development, sought in freedom and in justice. Hope encourages reason and gives it the strength to direct the will[87]. It is already present in faith, indeed it is called forth by faith. Charity in truth feeds on hope and, at the same time, manifests it. As the absolutely gratuitous gift of God, hope bursts into our lives as something not due to us, something that transcends every law of justice. Gift by its nature goes beyond merit, its rule is that of superabundance. It takes first place in our souls as a sign of God's presence in us, a sign of what he expects from us. Truth — which is itself gift, in the same way as charity — is greater than we are, as Saint Augustine teaches[88]. Likewise the truth of ourselves, of our personal conscience, is first of all given to us. In every cognitive process, truth is not something that we produce, it is always found, or better, received. Truth, like love, “is neither planned nor willed, but somehow imposes itself upon human beings”[89].

Because it is a gift received by everyone, charity in truth is a force that builds community, it brings all people together without imposing barriers or limits. The human community that we build by ourselves can never, purely by its own strength, be a fully fraternal community, nor can it overcome every division and become a truly universal community. The unity of the human race, a fraternal communion transcending every barrier, is called into being by the word of God-who-is-Love. In addressing this key question, we must make it clear, on the one hand, that the logic of gift does not exclude justice, nor does it merely sit alongside it as a second element added from without; on the other hand, economic, social and political development, if it is to be authentically human, needs to make room for the principle of gratuitousness as an expression of fraternity.

35. 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. 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[90]. According to the Pope, it was not just a matter of correcting dysfunctions through assistance. The poor are not to be considered a “burden”[91], 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.

36. Economic activity cannot solve all social problems through the simple application of commercial logic. This needs to be directed towards the pursuit of the common good, for which the political community in particular must also take responsibility. Therefore, it must be borne in mind that grave imbalances are produced when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution.

The Church has always held that economic action is not to be regarded as something opposed to society. 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.

The Church's social doctrine holds that authentically human social relationships of friendship, solidarity and reciprocity can also be conducted within economic activity, and not only outside it or “after” it. 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.

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 behavior, 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. This is a human demand at the present time, but it is also demanded by economic logic. It is a demand both of charity and of truth.

37. The Church's social doctrine has always maintained that justice must be applied to every phase of economic activity, because this is always concerned with man and his needs. 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. The social sciences and the direction taken by the contemporary economy point to the same conclusion. Perhaps at one time it was conceivable that first the creation of wealth could be entrusted to the economy, and then the task of distributing it could be assigned to politics. Today that would be more difficult, given that economic activity is no longer circumscribed within territorial limits, while the authority of governments continues to be principally local. Hence the canons of justice must be respected from the outset, as the economic process unfolds, and not just afterwards or incidentally. Space also needs to be created within the market for economic activity carried out by subjects who freely choose to act according to principles other than those of pure profit, without sacrificing the production of economic value in the process. The many economic entities that draw their origin from religious and lay initiatives demonstrate that this is concretely possible.

In the global era, the economy is influenced by competitive models tied to cultures that differ greatly among themselves. The different forms of economic enterprise to which they give rise find their main point of encounter in commutative justice. Economic life undoubtedly 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.

38. My predecessor John Paul II drew attention to this question in Centesimus Annus, when he spoke of the need for a system with three subjects: the market, the State and civil society[92]. He saw civil society as the most natural setting for an economy of gratuitousness and fraternity, but did not mean to deny it a place in the other two settings. Today we can say that economic life must be understood as a multi-layered phenomenon: in every one of these layers, to varying degrees and in ways specifically suited to each, the aspect of fraternal reciprocity must be present. In the global era, economic activity cannot prescind from gratuitousness, which fosters and disseminates solidarity and responsibility for justice and the common good among the different economic players. It is clearly a specific and profound form of economic democracy. Solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone[93], and it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State. While in the past it was possible to argue that justice had to come first and gratuitousness could follow afterwards, as a complement, today it is clear that without gratuitousness, there can be no justice in the first place. What is needed, therefore, is a market that permits the free operation, in conditions of equal opportunity, of enterprises in pursuit of different institutional ends. Alongside profit-oriented private enterprise and the various types of public enterprise, there must be room for commercial entities based on mutualist principles and pursuing social ends to take root and express themselves. It is from their reciprocal encounter in the marketplace that one may expect hybrid forms of commercial behaviour to emerge, and hence an attentiveness to ways of civilizing the economy. Charity in truth, in this case, requires that shape and structure be given to those types of economic initiative which, without rejecting profit, aim at a higher goal than the mere logic of the exchange of equivalents, of profit as an end in itself.

39. Paul VI in Populorum Progressio called for 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”[94]. 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. Not only is this vision threatened today by the way in which markets and societies are opening up, but it is evidently insufficient to satisfy the demands of a fully humane economy. What the Church's social doctrine has always sustained, on the basis of its vision of man and society, is corroborated today by the dynamics of globalization.

When both the logic of the market and the logic of the State come to an agreement that each will continue to exercise a monopoly over its respective area of influence, in the long term much is lost: solidarity in relations between citizens, participation and adherence, actions of gratuitousness, all of which stand in contrast with giving in order to acquire (the logic of exchange) and giving through duty (the logic of public obligation, imposed by State law). 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. The exclusively binary model of market-plus-State is corrosive of society, while economic forms based on solidarity, which find their natural home in civil society without being restricted to it, build up society. The market of gratuitousness does not exist, and attitudes of gratuitousness cannot be established by law. Yet both the market and politics need individuals who are open to reciprocal gift.

40. Today's international economic scene, marked by grave deviations and failures, requires a profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise. Old models are disappearing, but promising new ones are taking shape on the horizon. Without doubt, 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. Today's international capital market offers great freedom of action. Yet there is also increasing awareness of the need for greater social responsibility on the part of business. 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. 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. By contrast, though, many far-sighted managers today are becoming increasingly aware of the profound links between their enterprise and the territory or territories in which it operates. Paul VI invited people to give serious attention to the damage that can be caused to one's home country by the transfer abroad of capital purely for personal advantage[95]. John Paul II taught that investment always has moral, as well as economic significance[96]. All this — it should be stressed — is still valid today, despite the fact that the capital market has been significantly liberalized, and modern technological thinking can suggest that investment is merely a technical act, not a human and ethical one. There is no reason to deny that a certain amount of capital can do good, if invested abroad rather than at home. Yet the requirements of justice must be safeguarded, with due consideration for the way in which the capital was generated and the harm to individuals that will result if it is not used where it was produced[97]. 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. 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.

41. In the context of this discussion, it is helpful to observe that business enterprise involves a wide range of values, becoming wider all the time. The continuing hegemony of the binary model of market-plus-State has accustomed us to think only in terms of the private business leader of a capitalistic bent on the one hand, and the State director on the other. In reality, business has to be understood in an articulated way. There are a number of reasons, of a meta-economic kind, for saying this. Business activity has a human significance, prior to its professional one[98]. It is present in all work, understood as a personal action, an “actus personae”[99], which is why every worker should have the chance to make his contribution knowing that in some way “he is working ‘for himself'”[100]. With good reason, Paul VI taught that “everyone who works is a creator”[101]. It is in response to the needs and the dignity of the worker, as well as the needs of society, that there exist various types of business enterprise, over and above the simple distinction between “private” and “public”. Each of them requires and expresses a specific business capacity. In order to construct an economy that will soon be in a position to serve the national and global common good, it is appropriate to take account of this broader significance of business activity. It favours cross-fertilization between different types of business activity, with shifting of competences from the “non-profit” world to the “profit” world and vice versa, from the public world to that of civil society, from advanced economies to developing countries.

Political authority” also involves a wide range of values, which must not be overlooked in the process of constructing a new order of economic productivity, socially responsible and human in scale. 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. The integrated economy of the present day does not make the role of States redundant, but rather it commits governments to greater collaboration with one another. Both wisdom and prudence suggest not being too precipitous in declaring the demise of the State. 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 focus of international aid, within a solidarity-based plan to resolve today's economic problems, should rather be on consolidating constitutional, juridical and administrative systems in countries that do not yet fully enjoy these goods. Alongside economic aid, there needs to be aid directed towards reinforcing the guarantees proper to the state of law: a system of public order and effective imprisonment that respects human rights, truly democratic institutions. 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.

42. Sometimes globalization is viewed in fatalistic terms, as if the dynamics involved were the product of anonymous impersonal forces or structures independent of the human will[102]. In this regard it is useful to remember that while globalization should certainly be understood as a socio-economic process, this is not its only dimension. Underneath the more visible process, humanity itself is becoming increasingly interconnected; it is made up of individuals and peoples to whom this process should offer benefits and development[103], as they assume their respective responsibilities, singly and collectively. The breaking-down of borders is not simply a material fact: it is also a cultural event both in its causes and its effects. If globalization is viewed from a deterministic standpoint, the criteria with which to evaluate and direct it are lost. As a human reality, it is the product of diverse cultural tendencies, which need to be subjected to a process of discernment. The truth of globalization as a process and its fundamental ethical criterion are given by the unity of the human family and its development towards what is good. Hence a sustained commitment is needed so as to promote a person-based and community-oriented cultural process of world-wide integration that is open to transcendence.

Despite some of its structural elements, which should neither be denied nor exaggerated, “globalization, a priori, is neither good nor bad. It will be what people make of it”[104]. We should not be its victims, but rather its protagonists, acting in the light of reason, guided by charity and truth. Blind opposition would be a mistaken and prejudiced attitude, incapable of recognizing the positive aspects of the process, with the consequent risk of missing the chance to take advantage of its many opportunities for development. 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. For a long time it was thought that poor peoples should remain at a fixed stage of development, and should be content to receive assistance from the philanthropy of developed peoples. Paul VI strongly opposed this mentality in Populorum Progressio. 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 labor. 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. Indeed the involvement of emerging or developing countries allows us to manage the crisis better today. The transition inherent in the process of globalization presents great difficulties and dangers that can only be overcome if we are able to appropriate the underlying anthropological and ethical spirit that drives globalization towards the humanizing goal of solidarity. Unfortunately this spirit is often overwhelmed or suppressed by ethical and cultural considerations of an individualistic and utilitarian nature. Globalization is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon which must be grasped in the diversity and unity of all its different dimensions, including the theological dimension. 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.

Go to Chapter Four


Endnotes
[85] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 407; cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 25: loc. cit., 822-824.
[86] Cf. no. 17: AAS 99 (2007), 1000.
[87] Cf. ibid., 23: loc. cit., 1004-1005.
[88] Saint Augustine expounds this teaching in detail in his dialogue on free will (De libero arbitrio, II, 3, 8ff.). He indicates the existence within the human soul of an “internal sense”. This sense consists in an act that is fulfilled outside the normal functions of reason, an act that is not the result of reflection, but is almost instinctive, through which reason, realizing its transient and fallible nature, admits the existence of something eternal, higher than itself, something absolutely true and certain. The name that Saint Augustine gives to this interior truth is at times the name of God (Confessions X, 24, 35; XII, 25, 35; De libero arbitrio II, 3, 8), more often that of Christ (De magistro 11:38; Confessions VII, 18, 24; XI, 2, 4).
[89] Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est, 3: loc. cit., 219.
[90] Cf. no. 49: loc. cit., 281.
[91] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 28: loc. cit., 827-828.
[92] Cf. no. 35: loc. cit., 836-838.
[93] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 38: loc. cit., 565-566.
[94] No. 44: loc. cit., 279.
[95] Cf. ibid., 24: loc. cit., 269.
[96] Cf. Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 36: loc. cit., 838-840.
[97] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 24: loc. cit., 269.
[98] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 32: loc. cit., 832-833; Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 25: loc. cit., 269-270.
[99] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 24: loc. cit., 637-638.
[100] Ibid., 15: loc. cit., 616-618.
[101] Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 27: loc. cit., 271.
[102] Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation Libertatis Conscientia (22 March 1987), 74: AAS 79 (1987), 587.
[103] Cf. John Paul II, Interview published in the Catholic daily newspaper La Croix, 20 August 1997.
[104] John Paul II, Address to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, 27 April 2001.

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Caritas in Veritate - Charity in Truth
Chapter Two

Caritas in Veritate
Encyclical Letter of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI

on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth
Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul, June 29, 2009

go to Chapter One

Chapter Two
Human Development in Our Time


21. 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. After so many years, as we observe with concern the developments and perspectives of the succession of crises that afflict the world today, we ask to what extent Paul VI's expectations have been fulfilled by the model of development adopted in recent decades. We recognize, therefore, that the Church had good reason to be concerned about the capacity of a purely technological society to set realistic goals and to make good use of the instruments at its disposal. 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. This presents us with choices that cannot be postponed concerning nothing less than the destiny of man, who, moreover, cannot prescind from his nature. The technical forces in play, the global interrelations, the damaging effects on the real economy of badly managed and largely speculative financial dealing, large-scale migration of peoples, often provoked by some particular circumstance and then given insufficient attention, 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. The different aspects of the crisis, its solutions, and any new development that the future may bring, are increasingly interconnected, they imply one another, they require new efforts of holistic understanding and a new humanistic synthesis. The complexity and gravity of the present economic situation rightly cause us concern, but we must adopt a realistic attitude as we take up with confidence and hope the new responsibilities to which we are called by the prospect of a world in need of profound cultural renewal, a world that needs to rediscover fundamental values on which to build a better future. The current crisis obliges us to re-plan our journey, to set ourselves new rules and to discover new forms of commitment, to build on positive experiences and to reject negative ones. The crisis thus becomes an opportunity for discernment, in which to shape a new vision for the future. In this spirit, with confidence rather than resignation, it is appropriate to address the difficulties of the present time.

22. Today the picture of development has many overlapping layers. The actors and the causes in both underdevelopment and development are manifold, the faults and the merits are differentiated. This fact should prompt us to liberate ourselves from ideologies, which often oversimplify reality in artificial ways, and it should lead us to examine objectively the full human dimension of the problems. As John Paul II has already observed, the demarcation line between rich and poor countries is no longer as clear as it was at the time of Populorum Progressio[55]. 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”[56] continues. 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. 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. Similarly, in the context of immaterial or cultural causes of development and underdevelopment, we find these same patterns of responsibility reproduced. 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 behavior persist which hinder the process of development.

23. Many areas of the globe today have evolved considerably, albeit in problematical and disparate ways, thereby taking their place among the great powers destined to play important roles in the future. Yet it should be stressed that progress of a merely economic and technological kind is insufficient. Development needs above all to be true and integral. The mere fact of emerging from economic backwardness, though positive in itself, does not resolve the complex issues of human advancement, neither for the countries that are spearheading such progress, nor for those that are already economically developed, nor even for those that are still poor, which can suffer not just through old forms of exploitation, but also from the negative consequences of a growth that is marked by irregularities and imbalances.

After the collapse of the economic and political systems of the Communist countries of Eastern Europe and the end of the so-called opposing blocs, a complete re-examination of development was needed. Pope John Paul II called for it, when in 1987 he pointed to the existence of these blocs as one of the principal causes of underdevelopment[57], inasmuch as politics withdrew resources from the economy and from the culture, and ideology inhibited freedom. Moreover, in 1991, after the events of 1989, he asked that, in view of the ending of the blocs, there should be a comprehensive new plan for development, not only in those countries, but also in the West and in those parts of the world that were in the process of evolving[58]. This has been achieved only in part, and it is still a real duty that needs to be discharged, perhaps by means of the choices that are necessary to overcome current economic problems.

24. The world that Paul VI had before him — even though society had already evolved to such an extent that he could speak of social issues in global terms — was still far less integrated than today's world. Economic activity and the political process were both largely conducted within the same geographical area, and could therefore feed off one another. Production took place predominantly within national boundaries, and financial investments had somewhat limited circulation outside the country, so that the politics of many States could still determine the priorities of the economy and to some degree govern its performance using the instruments at their disposal. Hence Populorum Progressio assigned a central, albeit not exclusive, role to “public authorities”[59].

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.

Today, as we take to heart the lessons of the current economic crisis, which sees the State's public authorities directly involved in correcting errors and malfunctions, it seems more realistic to re-evaluate their role and their powers, which need to be prudently reviewed and remodelled so as to enable them, perhaps through new forms of engagement, to address the challenges of today's world. Once the role of public authorities has been more clearly defined, one could foresee an increase in the new forms of political participation, nationally and internationally, that have come about through the activity of organizations operating in civil society; in this way it is to be hoped that the citizens' interest and participation in the res publica will become more deeply rooted.

25. From the social point of view, systems of protection and welfare, already present in many countries in Paul VI's day, are finding it hard and could find it even harder in the future to pursue their goals of true social justice in today's profoundly changed environment. The global market has stimulated first and foremost, on the part of rich countries, a search for areas in which to outsource production at low cost with a view to reducing the prices of many goods, increasing purchasing power and thus accelerating the rate of development in terms of greater availability of consumer goods for the domestic market. Consequently, the market has prompted new forms of competition between States as they seek to attract foreign businesses to set up production centers, by means of a variety of instruments, including favourable fiscal regimes and deregulation of the labor 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. Through the combination of social and economic change, trade union organizations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interests of workers, partly because governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labor unions. Hence traditional networks of solidarity have more and more obstacles to overcome. The repeated calls issued within the Church's social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum[60], for the promotion of workers' associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honored 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.

The mobility of labor, associated with a climate of deregulation, is an important phenomenon with certain positive aspects, because it can stimulate wealth production and cultural exchange. Nevertheless, uncertainty over working conditions caused by mobility and deregulation, when it becomes endemic, tends to create new forms of psychological instability, giving rise to difficulty in forging coherent life-plans, including that of marriage. This leads to situations of human decline, to say nothing of the waste of social resources. 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”[61].

26. On the cultural plane, compared with Paul VI's day, the difference is even more marked. At that time cultures were relatively well defined and had greater opportunity to defend themselves against attempts to merge them into one. Today the possibilities of interaction between cultures have increased significantly, giving rise to new openings for intercultural dialogue: a dialogue that, if it is to be effective, has to set out from a deep-seated knowledge of the specific identity of the various dialogue partners. Let it not be forgotten that the increased commercialization of cultural exchange today leads to a twofold danger. First, one may observe a cultural eclecticism that is often assumed uncritically: cultures are simply placed alongside one another and viewed as substantially equivalent and interchangeable. This easily yields to a relativism that does not serve true intercultural dialogue; on the social plane, cultural relativism has the effect that cultural groups coexist side by side, but remain separate, with no authentic dialogue and therefore with no true integration. Secondly, the opposite danger exists, that of cultural levelling and indiscriminate acceptance of types of conduct and life-styles. In this way one loses sight of the profound significance of the culture of different nations, of the traditions of the various peoples, by which the individual defines himself in relation to life's fundamental questions[62]. What eclecticism and cultural levelling have in common is the separation of culture from human nature. Thus, cultures can no longer define themselves within a nature that transcends them[63], and man ends up being reduced to a mere cultural statistic. When this happens, humanity runs new risks of enslavement and manipulation.

27. 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[64]. 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. 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. In this perspective, it could be useful to consider the new possibilities that are opening up through proper use of traditional as well as innovative farming techniques, always assuming that these have been judged, after sufficient testing, to be appropriate, respectful of the environment and attentive to the needs of the most deprived peoples. At the same time, the question of equitable agrarian reform in developing countries should not be ignored. 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[65]. It is important, moreover, to emphasize that solidarity with poor countries in the process of development can point towards a solution of the current global crisis, as politicians and directors of international institutions have begun to sense in recent times. Through support for economically poor countries by means of financial plans inspired by solidarity — so that these countries can take steps to satisfy their own citizens' demand for consumer goods and for development — not only can true economic growth be generated, but a contribution can be made towards sustaining the productive capacities of rich countries that risk being compromised by the crisis.

28. 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[66] 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 favor of its juridical recognition.

Openness to life is at the center 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 fiber 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.

29. There is another aspect of modern life that is very closely connected to development: the denial of the right to religious freedom. I am not referring simply to the struggles and conflicts that continue to be fought in the world for religious motives, even if at times the religious motive is merely a cover for other reasons, such as the desire for domination and wealth. Today, in fact, people frequently kill in the holy name of God, as both my predecessor John Paul II and I myself have often publicly acknowledged and lamented[68]. Violence puts the brakes on authentic development and impedes the evolution of peoples towards greater socio-economic and spiritual well-being. This applies especially to terrorism motivated by fundamentalism[69], which generates grief, destruction and death, obstructs dialogue between nations and diverts extensive resources from their peaceful and civil uses.

Yet it should be added that, as well as religious fanaticism that in some contexts impedes the exercise of the right to religious freedom, so too the deliberate promotion of religious indifference or practical atheism on the part of many countries obstructs the requirements for the development of peoples, depriving them of spiritual and human resources. God is the guarantor of man's true development, inasmuch as, having created him in his image, he also establishes the transcendent dignity of men and women and feeds their innate yearning to “be more”. Man is not a lost atom in a random universe[70]: 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. When the State promotes, teaches, or actually imposes forms of practical atheism, it deprives its citizens of the moral and spiritual strength that is indispensable for attaining integral human development and it impedes them from moving forward with renewed dynamism as they strive to offer a more generous human response to divine love[71]. In the context of cultural, commercial or political relations, it also sometimes happens that economically developed or emerging countries export this reductive vision of the person and his destiny to poor countries. This is the damage that “superdevelopment”[72] causes to authentic development when it is accompanied by “moral underdevelopment”[73].

30. In this context, the theme of integral human development takes on an even broader range of meanings: the correlation between its multiple elements requires a commitment to foster the interaction of the different levels of human knowledge in order to promote the authentic development of peoples. Often it is thought that development, or the socio-economic measures that go with it, merely require that it be implemented through joint action. This joint action, however, needs to be given direction, because “all social action involves a doctrine”[74]. In view of the complexity of the issues, it is obvious that the various disciplines have to work together through an orderly interdisciplinary exchange. 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. Indeed, “the individual who is animated by true charity labors skilfully to discover the causes of misery, to find the means to combat it, to overcome it resolutely”[75]. Faced with the phenomena that lie before us, charity in truth requires first of all that we know and understand, acknowledging and respecting the specific competence of every level of knowledge. 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[76]. 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.

31. 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”[77], 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[78], for which “a clear vision of all economic, social, cultural and spiritual aspects”[79] is required. The excessive segmentation of knowledge[80], the rejection of metaphysics by the human sciences[81], 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”[82] 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.

32. The significant new elements in the picture of the development of peoples today in many cases demand new solutions. These need to be found together, respecting the laws proper to each element and in the light of an integral vision of man, reflecting the different aspects of the human person, contemplated through a lens purified by charity. Remarkable convergences and possible solutions will then come to light, without any fundamental component of human life being obscured.

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[83], 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.

Economic science tells us that structural insecurity generates anti-productive attitudes wasteful of human resources, inasmuch as workers tend to adapt passively to automatic mechanisms, rather than to release creativity. On this point too, there is a convergence between economic science and moral evaluation. Human costs always include economic costs, and economic dysfunctions always involve human costs.

It should be remembered that the reduction of cultures to the technological dimension, even if it favors short-term profits, in the long term impedes reciprocal enrichment and the dynamics of cooperation. It is important to distinguish between short- and long-term economic or sociological considerations. Lowering the level of protection accorded to the rights of workers, or abandoning mechanisms of wealth redistribution in order to increase the country's international competitiveness, hinder the achievement of lasting development. Moreover, the human consequences of current tendencies towards a short-term economy — sometimes very short-term — need to be carefully evaluated. This requires further and deeper reflection on the meaning of the economy and its goals[84], as well as a profound and far-sighted revision of the current model of development, so as to correct its dysfunctions and deviations. This is demanded, in any case, by the earth's state of ecological health; above all it is required by the cultural and moral crisis of man, the symptoms of which have been evident for some time all over the world.

33. More than forty years after Populorum Progressio, its basic theme, namely progress, remains an open question, made all the more acute and urgent by the current economic and financial crisis. If some areas of the globe, with a history of poverty, have experienced remarkable changes in terms of their economic growth and their share in world production, other zones are still living in a situation of deprivation comparable to that which existed at the time of Paul VI, and in some cases one can even speak of a deterioration. It is significant that some of the causes of this situation were identified in Populorum Progressio, such as the high tariffs imposed by economically developed countries, which still make it difficult for the products of poor countries to gain a foothold in the markets of rich countries. Other causes, however, mentioned only in passing in the Encyclical, have since emerged with greater clarity. A case in point would be the evaluation of the process of decolonization, then at its height. Paul VI hoped to see the journey towards autonomy unfold freely and in peace. More than forty years later, we must acknowledge how difficult this journey has been, both because of new forms of colonialism and continued dependence on old and new foreign powers, and because of grave irresponsibility within the very countries that have achieved independence.

The principal new feature has been the explosion of worldwide interdependence, commonly known as globalization. Paul VI had partially foreseen it, but the ferocious pace at which it has evolved could not have been anticipated. Originating within economically developed countries, this process by its nature has spread to include all economies. It has been the principal driving force behind the emergence from underdevelopment of whole regions, and in itself it represents a great opportunity. Nevertheless, without the guidance of charity in truth, this global force could cause unprecedented damage and create new divisions within the human family. Hence charity and truth confront us with an altogether new and creative challenge, one that is certainly vast and complex. It is about broadening the scope of reason and making it capable of knowing and directing these powerful new forces, animating them within the perspective of that “civilization of love” whose seed God has planted in every people, in every culture.

go to Chapter Three

Endnotes
[55] Cf. Encyclical Letter, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 28: loc. cit., 548-550.
[56] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 9: loc. cit., 261-262.
[57] Cf. Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 20: loc. cit., 536-537.
[58] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 22-29: loc. cit., 819-830.
[59] Cf. nos. 23, 33: loc. cit., 268-269, 273-274.
[60] Cf. loc. cit., 135.
[61] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 63.
[62] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 24: loc. cit., 821-822.
[63] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor (6 August 1993), 33, 46, 51: AAS 85 (1993), 1160, 1169-1171, 1174-1175; Id., Address to the Assembly of the United Nations, 5 October 1995, 3.
[64] Cf. Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 47: loc. cit., 280-281; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 42: loc. cit., 572-574.
[65] Cf. Benedict XVI, Message for the 2007 World Food Day: AAS 99 (2007), 933-935.
[66] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae, 18, 59, 63-64: loc. cit., 419-421, 467-468, 472-475.
[67] Cf. Benedict XVI, Message for the 2007 World Day of Peace, 5.
[68] Cf. John Paul II, Message for the 2002 World Day of Peace, 4-7, 12-15: AAS 94 (2002), 134-136, 138-140; Id., Message for the 2004 World Day of Peace, 8: AAS 96 (2004), 119; Id., Message for the 2005 World Day of Peace, 4: AAS 97 (2005), 177-178; Benedict XVI, Message for the 2006 World Day of Peace, 9-10: AAS 98 (2006), 60-61; Id., Message for the 2007 World Day of Peace, 5, 14: loc. cit., 778, 782-783.
[69] Cf. John Paul II, Message for the 2002 World Day of Peace, 6: loc. cit., 135; Benedict XVI, Message for the 2006 World Day of Peace, 9-10: loc. cit., 60-61.
[70] Cf. Benedict XVI, Homily at Mass, Islinger Feld, Regensburg, 12 September 2006.
[71] Cf. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est, 1: loc. cit., 217-218.
[72] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 28: loc. cit., 548-550.
[73] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 19: loc. cit., 266-267.
[74] Ibid., 39: loc. cit., 276-277.
[75] Ibid., 75: loc. cit., 293-294.
[76] Cf. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est, 28: loc. cit., 238-240.
[77] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 59: loc. cit., 864.
[78] Cf. Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 40, 85: loc. cit., 277, 298-299.
[79] Ibid., 13: loc. cit., 263-264.
[80] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (14 September 1998), 85: AAS 91 (1999), 72-73.
[81] Cf. ibid., 83: loc. cit., 70-71.
[82] Benedict XVI, Address at the University of Regensburg, 12 September 2006.
[83] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 33: loc. cit., 273-274.
[84] Cf. John Paul II, Message for the 2000 World Day of Peace, 15: AAS 92 (2000), 366.

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Caritas in Veritate - Charity in Truth
Chapter One

Caritas in Veritate
Encyclical Letter of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI

on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth
Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul, June 29, 2009

go to Introduction

Chapter One
The Message of Populorum Progressio


10. A fresh reading of Populorum Progressio, more than forty years after its publication, invites us to remain faithful to its message of charity and truth, viewed within the overall context of Paul VI's specific magisterium and, more generally, within the tradition of the Church's social doctrine. Moreover, an evaluation is needed of the different terms in which the problem of development is presented today, as compared with forty years ago. The correct viewpoint, then, is that of the Tradition of the apostolic faith[13], a patrimony both ancient and new, outside of which Populorum Progressio would be a document without roots — and issues concerning development would be reduced to merely sociological data.

11. The publication of Populorum Progressio occurred immediately after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, and in its opening paragraphs it clearly indicates its close connection with the Council[14]. Twenty years later, in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, John Paul II, in his turn, emphasized the earlier Encyclical's fruitful relationship with the Council, and especially with the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes[15]. I too wish to recall here the importance of the Second Vatican Council for Paul VI's Encyclical and for the whole of the subsequent social Magisterium of the Popes. The Council probed more deeply what had always belonged to the truth of the faith, namely that the Church, being at God's service, is at the service of the world in terms of love and truth. Paul VI set out from this vision in order to convey two important truths. The first is that the whole Church, in all her being and acting — when she proclaims, when she celebrates, when she performs works of charity — is engaged in promoting integral human development. She has a public role over and above her charitable and educational activities: all the energy she brings to the advancement of humanity and of universal fraternity is manifested when she is able to operate in a climate of freedom. In not a few cases, that freedom is impeded by prohibitions and persecutions, or it is limited when the Church's public presence is reduced to her charitable activities alone. The second truth is that authentic human development concerns the whole of the person in every single dimension[16]. 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 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. Only through an encounter with God are we able to see in the other something more than just another creature[17], 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.”[18]

12. The link between Populorum Progressio and the Second Vatican Council does not mean that Paul VI's social magisterium marked a break with that of previous Popes, because the Council constitutes a deeper exploration of this magisterium within the continuity of the Church's life[19]. In this sense, clarity is not served by certain abstract subdivisions of the Church's social doctrine which apply categories to Papal social teaching that are extraneous to it. 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[20]. 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[21]. Coherence does not mean a closed system: on the contrary, it means dynamic faithfulness to a light received. The Church's social doctrine illuminates with an unchanging light the new problems that are constantly emerging[22]. This safeguards the permanent and historical character of the doctrinal “patrimony”[23] which, with its specific characteristics, is part and parcel of the Church's ever-living Tradition[24]. Social doctrine is built on the foundation handed on by the Apostles to the Fathers of the Church, and then received and further explored by the great Christian doctors. This doctrine points definitively to the New Man, to the “last Adam [who] became a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45), the principle of the charity that “never ends” (1 Cor 13:8). It is attested by the saints and by those who gave their lives for Christ our Savior in the field of justice and peace. It is an expression of the prophetic task of the Supreme Pontiffs to give apostolic guidance to the Church of Christ and to discern the new demands of evangelization. For these reasons, Populorum Progressio, situated within the great current of Tradition, can still speak to us today.

13. In addition to its important link with the entirety of the Church's social doctrine, Populorum Progressio is closely connected to the overall magisterium of Paul VI, especially his social magisterium. His was certainly a social teaching of great importance: he underlined the indispensable importance of the Gospel for building a society according to freedom and justice, in the ideal and historical perspective of a civilization animated by love. Paul VI clearly understood that the social question had become worldwide [25] and he grasped the interconnection between the impetus towards the unification of humanity and the Christian ideal of a single family of peoples in solidarity and fraternity. In the notion of development, understood in human and Christian terms, he identified the heart of the Christian social message, and he proposed Christian charity as the principal force at the service of development. Motivated by the wish to make Christ's love fully visible to contemporary men and women, Paul VI addressed important ethical questions robustly, without yielding to the cultural weaknesses of his time.

14. In his Apostolic Letter Octogesima Adveniens of 1971, Paul VI reflected on the meaning of politics, and the danger constituted by utopian and ideological visions that place its ethical and human dimensions in jeopardy. These are matters closely connected with development. Unfortunately the negative ideologies continue to flourish. Paul VI had already warned against the technocratic ideology so prevalent today[26], fully aware of the great danger of entrusting the entire process of development to technology alone, because in that way it would lack direction. Technology, viewed in itself, is ambivalent. If on the one hand, some today would be inclined to entrust the entire process of development to technology, on the other hand we are witnessing an upsurge of ideologies that deny in toto the very value of development, viewing it as radically anti-human and merely a source of degradation. This leads to a rejection, not only of the distorted and unjust way in which progress is sometimes directed, but also of scientific discoveries themselves, which, if well used, could serve as an opportunity of growth for all. The idea of a world without development indicates a lack of trust in man and in God. It is therefore a serious mistake to undervalue human capacity to exercise control over the deviations of development or to overlook the fact that man is constitutionally oriented towards “being more”. 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.

15. Two further documents by Paul VI without any direct link to social doctrine — the Encyclical Humanae Vitae (25 July 1968) and the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (8 December 1975) — are highly important for delineating the fully human meaning of the development that the Church proposes. It is therefore helpful to consider these texts too in relation to Populorum Progressio.

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[27]. 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[28]. 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.”[29]

The Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, for its part, is very closely linked with development, given that, in Paul VI's words, “evangelization would not be complete if it did not take account of the unceasing interplay of the Gospel and of man's concrete life, both personal and social.”[30] “Between evangelization and human advancement — development and liberation — there are in fact profound links”[31]: on the basis of this insight, Paul VI clearly presented the relationship between the proclamation of Christ and the advancement of the individual in society. Testimony to Christ's charity, through works of justice, peace and development, is part and parcel of evangelization, because Jesus Christ, who loves us, is concerned with the whole person. These important teachings form the basis for the missionary aspect[32] of the Church's social doctrine, which is an essential element of evangelization[33]. The Church's social doctrine proclaims and bears witness to faith. It is an instrument and an indispensable setting for formation in faith.

16. In Populorum Progressio, Paul VI taught that progress, in its origin and essence, is first and foremost a vocation: “in the design of God, every man is called upon to develop and fulfil himself, for every life is a vocation.”[34] This is what gives legitimacy to the Church's involvement in the whole question of development. If development were concerned with merely technical aspects of human life, and not with the meaning of man's pilgrimage through history in company with his fellow human beings, nor with identifying the goal of that journey, then the Church would not be entitled to speak on it. Paul VI, like Leo XIII before him in Rerum Novarum[35], knew that he was carrying out a duty proper to his office by shedding the light of the Gospel on the social questions of his time[36].

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. Not without reason the word “vocation” is also found in another passage of the Encyclical, where we read: “There is no true humanism but that which is open to the Absolute, and is conscious of a vocation which gives human life its true meaning.”[37] This vision of development is at the heart of Populorum Progressio, and it lies behind all Paul VI's reflections on freedom, on truth and on charity in development. It is also the principal reason why that Encyclical is still timely in our day.

17. A vocation is a call that 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. The “types of messianism which give promises but create illusions”[38] always build their case on a denial of the transcendent dimension of development, in the conviction that it lies entirely at their disposal. This false security becomes a weakness, because it involves reducing man to subservience, to a mere means for development, while the humility of those who accept a vocation is transformed into true autonomy, because it sets them free. Paul VI did not doubt that obstacles and forms of conditioning hold up development, but he was also certain that “each one remains, whatever be these influences affecting him, the principal agent of his own success or failure.”[39] This freedom concerns the type of development we are considering, but it also affects situations of underdevelopment which are not due to chance or historical necessity, but are attributable to human responsibility. This is why “the peoples in hunger are making a dramatic appeal to the peoples blessed with abundance”[40]. This too is a vocation, a call addressed by free subjects to other free subjects in favour of an assumption of shared responsibility. Paul VI had a keen sense of the importance of economic structures and institutions, but he had an equally clear sense of their nature as instruments of human freedom. Only when it is free can development be integrally human; only in a climate of responsible freedom can it grow in a satisfactory manner.

18. 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”[41]. But herein lies the problem: what does it mean “to be more”? Paul VI answers the question by indicating the essential quality of “authentic” development: it must be “integral, that is, it has to promote the good of every man and of the whole man”[42]. Amid the various competing anthropological visions put forward in today's society, even more so than in Paul VI's time, the Christian vision has the particular characteristic of asserting and justifying the unconditional value of the human person and the meaning of his growth. The Christian vocation to development helps to promote the advancement of all men and of the whole man. As Paul VI wrote: “What we hold important is man, each man and each group of men, and we even include the whole of humanity”[43]. In promoting development, the Christian faith does not rely on privilege or positions of power, nor even on the merits of Christians (even though these existed and continue to exist alongside their natural limitations)[44], but only on Christ, to whom every authentic vocation to integral human development must be directed. The Gospel is fundamental for development, because in the Gospel, Christ, “in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals humanity to itself”[45]. Taught by her Lord, the Church examines the signs of the times and interprets them, offering the world “what she possesses as her characteristic attribute: a global vision of man and of the human race”[46]. Precisely because God gives a resounding “yes” to man[47], man cannot fail to open himself to the divine vocation to pursue his own development. The truth of development consists in its completeness: if it does not involve the whole man and every man, it is not true development. This is the central message of Populorum Progressio, valid for today and for all time. Integral human development on the natural plane, as a response to a vocation from God the Creator[48], demands self-fulfilment in a “transcendent humanism which gives [to man] his greatest possible perfection: this is the highest goal of personal development”[49]. The Christian vocation to this development therefore applies to both the natural plane and the supernatural plane; which is why, “when God is eclipsed, our ability to recognize the natural order, purpose and the ‘good' begins to wane”[50].

19. 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. Hence, in the pursuit of development, there is a need for “the deep thought and reflection of wise men in search of a new humanism which will enable modern man to find himself anew”[51]. But that is not all. Underdevelopment has an even more important cause than lack of deep thought: it is “the lack of brotherhood among individuals and peoples”[52]. Will it ever be possible to obtain this brotherhood by human effort alone? As society becomes ever more globalized, it makes us neighbors but does not make us brothers. Reason, by itself, is capable of grasping the equality between men and of giving stability to their civic coexistence, but it cannot establish fraternity. This originates in a transcendent vocation from God the Father, who loved us first, teaching us through the Son what fraternal charity is. Paul VI, presenting the various levels in the process of human development, placed at the summit, after mentioning faith, “unity in the charity of Christ who calls us all to share as sons in the life of the living God, the Father of all”[53].

20. These perspectives, which Populorum Progressio opens up, remain fundamental for giving breathing-space and direction to our commitment for the development of peoples. Moreover, Populorum Progressio repeatedly underlines the urgent need for reform[54], and in the face of great problems of injustice in the development of peoples, it calls for courageous action to be taken without delay. This urgency is also a consequence of charity in truth. It is Christ's charity that drives us on: “caritas Christi urget nos” (2 Cor 5:14). The urgency is inscribed not only in things, it is not derived solely from the rapid succession of events and problems, but also from the very matter that is at stake: the establishment of authentic fraternity.

The importance of this goal is such as to demand our openness to understand it in depth and to mobilize ourselves at the level of the “heart”, so as to ensure that current economic and social processes evolve towards fully human outcomes.

go to Chapter Two

Endnotes
[13] Cf. Benedict XVI, Address at the Inauguration of the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean (Aparecida, 13 May 2007).
[14] Cf. nos. 3-5: loc. cit., 258-260.
[15] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (30 December 1987), 6-7: AAS 80 (1988), 517-519.
[16] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 14: loc. cit., 264.
[17] Cf. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est (25 December 2005), 18: AAS 98 (2006), 232.
[18] Ibid., 6: loc cit., 222.
[19] Cf. Benedict XVI, Christmas Address to the Roman Curia, 22 December 2005.
[20] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 3: loc. cit., 515.
[21] Cf. ibid., 1: loc. cit., 513-514.
[22] Cf. ibid., 3: loc. cit., 515.
[23] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens (14 September 1981), 3: AAS 73 (1981), 583-584.
[24] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 3: loc. cit., 794-796.
[25] Cf. Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 3: loc. cit., 258.
[26] Cf. ibid., 34: loc. cit., 274.
[27] Cf. nos. 8-9: AAS 60 (1968), 485-487; Benedict XVI, Address to the participants at the International Congress promoted by the Pontifical Lateran University on the fortieth anniversary of Paul VI's Encyclical “Humanae Vitae”, 10 May 2008.
[28] Cf. Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae (25 March 1995), 93: AAS 87 (1995), 507-508.
[29] Ibid., 101: loc. cit., 516-518.
[30] No. 29: AAS 68 (1976), 25.
[31] Ibid., 31: loc. cit., 26.
[32] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 41: loc. cit., 570-572.
[33] Cf. ibid.; Id., Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 5, 54: loc. cit., 799, 859-860.
[34] No. 15: loc. cit., 265.
[35] Cf. ibid., 2: loc. cit., 258; Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum (15 May 1891): Leonis XIII P.M. Acta, XI, Romae 1892, 97-144; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 8: loc. cit., 519-520; Id., Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 5: loc. cit., 799.
[36] Cf. Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 2, 13: loc. cit., 258, 263-264.
[37] Ibid., 42: loc. cit., 278.
[38] Ibid., 11: loc. cit., 262; cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 25: loc. cit., 822-824.
[39] Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 15: loc. cit., 265.
[40] Ibid., 3: loc. cit., 258.
[41] Ibid., 6: loc. cit., 260.
[42] Ibid., 14: loc. cit., 264.
[43] Ibid.; cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 53-62: loc. cit., 859-867; Id., Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis (4 March 1979), 13-14: AAS 71 (1979), 282-286.
[44] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 12: loc. cit., 262-263.
[45] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 22.
[46] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 13: loc. cit., 263-264.
[47] Cf. Benedict XVI, Address to the Participants in the Fourth National Congress of the Church in Italy, Verona, 19 October 2006.
[48] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 16: loc. cit., 265.
[49] Ibid.
[50] Benedict XVI, Address to young people at Barangaroo, Sydney, 17 July 2008.
[51] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 20: loc. cit., 267.
[52] Ibid., 66: loc. cit., 289-290.
[53] Ibid., 21: loc. cit., 267-268.
[54] Cf. nos. 3, 29, 32: loc. cit., 258, 272, 273.
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Caritas in Veritate - Charity in Truth
Introduction

Caritas in Veritate
Encyclical Letter of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI

on Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth
Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul, June 29, 2009

To the bishops, priests and deacons, men and women religious, the lay faithful, and all people of good will:

Introduction

1. 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. Love — caritas — is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force that has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth. Each person finds his good by adherence to God's plan for him, in order to realize it fully: in this plan, he finds the truth, and through adherence to this truth he becomes free (cf. Jn 8:22). To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity. Charity, in fact, “rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor 13:6). All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically: love and truth never abandon them completely, because these are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of every human person. The search for love and truth is purified and liberated by Jesus Christ from the impoverishment that our humanity brings to it, and he reveals to us in all its fullness the initiative of love and the plan for true life that God has prepared for us. In Christ, charity in truth becomes the Face of his Person, a vocation for us to love our brothers and sisters in the truth of his plan. Indeed, he himself is the Truth (cf. Jn 14:6).

2. Charity is at the heart of the Church's social doctrine. Every responsibility and every commitment spelt out by that doctrine is derived from charity which, according to the teaching of Jesus, is the synthesis of the entire Law (cf. Mt 22:36-40). It gives real substance to the personal relationship with God and with neighbour; it is the principle not only of micro-relationships (with friends, with family members or within small groups) but also of macro-relationships (social, economic and political ones). For the Church, instructed by the Gospel, charity is everything because, as Saint John teaches (cf. 1 Jn 4:8, 16) and as I recalled in my first Encyclical Letter, “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.

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.

3. Through this close link with truth, charity can be recognized as an authentic expression of humanity and as an element of fundamental importance in human relations, including those of a public nature. Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing-space. In the truth, charity reflects the personal yet public dimension of faith in the God of the Bible, who is both Agápe and Lógos: Charity and Truth, Love and Word.

4. Because it is filled with truth, charity can be understood in the abundance of its values, it can be shared and communicated. Truth, in fact, is lógos which creates diá-logos, and hence communication and communion. Truth, by enabling men and women to let go of their subjective opinions and impressions, allows them to move beyond cultural and historical limitations and to come together in the assessment of the value and substance of things. Truth opens and unites our minds in the lógos of love: this is the Christian proclamation and testimony of charity. 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. A Christianity of charity without truth would be more or less interchangeable with a pool of good sentiments, helpful for social cohesion, but of little relevance. In other words, there would no longer be any real place for God in the world. Without truth, charity is confined to a narrow field devoid of relations. It is excluded from the plans and processes of promoting human development of universal range, in dialogue between knowledge and praxis.

5. 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. It is creative love, through which we have our being; it is redemptive love, through which we are recreated. Love is revealed and made present by Christ (cf. Jn 13:1) and “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5). As the objects of God's love, men and women become subjects of charity, they are called to make themselves instruments of grace, so as to pour forth God's charity and to weave networks of charity.

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. This doctrine is a service to charity, but its locus is truth. Truth preserves and expresses charity's power to liberate in the ever-changing events of history. It is at the same time the truth of faith and of reason, both in the distinction and also in the convergence of those two cognitive fields. Development, social well-being, the search for a satisfactory solution to the grave socio-economic problems besetting humanity, all need this truth. What they need even more is that this truth should be loved and demonstrated. 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.

6. Caritas in veritate” is the principle around which the Church's social doctrine turns, a principle that takes on practical form in the criteria that govern moral action. I would like to consider two of these in particular, of special relevance to the commitment to development in an increasingly globalized society: justice and the common good.

First of all, justice. Ubi societas, ibi ius: every society draws up its own system of justice. 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[1], and intrinsic to it. Justice is the primary way of charity or, in Paul VI's words, “the minimum measure” of it[2], 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[3]. 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.

7. Another important consideration is the common good. To love someone is to desire that person's good and to take effective steps to secure it. Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good. It is the good of “all of us”, made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society[4]. 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. To take a stand for the common good is on the one hand to be solicitous for, and on the other hand to avail oneself of, that complex of institutions that give structure to the life of society, juridically, civilly, politically and culturally, making it the pólis, or “city”. The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbours, the more effectively we love them. 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. This is the institutional path — we might also call it the political path — of charity, no less excellent and effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbour directly, outside the institutional mediation of the pólis. When animated by charity, commitment to the common good has greater worth than a merely secular and political stand would have. Like all commitment to justice, it has a place within the testimony of divine charity that paves the way for eternity through temporal action. Man's earthly activity, when inspired and sustained by charity, contributes to the building of the universal city of God, which is the goal of the history of the human family. In an increasingly globalized society, the common good and the effort to obtain it cannot fail to assume the dimensions of the whole human family, that is to say, the community of peoples and nations[5], in such a way as to shape the earthly city in unity and peace, rendering it to some degree an anticipation and a prefiguration of the undivided city of God.

8. In 1967, when he issued the Encyclical Populorum Progressio, my venerable predecessor Pope Paul VI illuminated the great theme of the development of peoples with the splendour of truth and the gentle light of Christ's charity. He taught that life in Christ is the first and principal factor of development[6] and he entrusted us with the task of travelling the path of development with all our heart and all our intelligence[7], that is to say with the ardour of charity and the wisdom of truth. It is the primordial truth of God's love, grace bestowed upon us, that opens our lives to gift and makes it possible to hope for a “development of the whole man and of all men”[8], to hope for progress “from less human conditions to those which are more human”[9], obtained by overcoming the difficulties that are inevitably encountered along the way.

At a distance of over forty years from the Encyclical's publication, I intend to pay tribute and to honour the memory of the great Pope Paul VI, revisiting his teachings on integral human development and taking my place within the path that they marked out, so as to apply them to the present moment. This continual application to contemporary circumstances began with the Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, with which the Servant of God Pope John Paul II chose to mark the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Populorum Progressio. Until that time, only Rerum Novarum had been commemorated in this way. Now that a further twenty years have passed, I express my conviction that Populorum Progressio deserves to be considered “the Rerum Novarum of the present age”, shedding light upon humanity's journey towards unity.

9. Love in truth — caritas in veritate — is a great challenge for the Church in a world that is becoming progressively and pervasively globalized. The risk for our time is that the de facto interdependence of people and nations is not matched by ethical interaction of consciences and minds that would give rise to truly human development. 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[10] and does not claim “to interfere in any way in the politics of States.”[11] 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. This mission of truth is something that the Church can never renounce. Her social doctrine is a particular dimension of this proclamation: it is a service to the truth which sets us free. Open to the truth, from whichever branch of knowledge it comes, the Church's social doctrine receives it, assembles into a unity the fragments in which it is often found, and mediates it within the constantly changing life-patterns of the society of peoples and nations[12].

Go to Chapter One

Endnotes
[1] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio (26 March 1967), 22: AAS 59 (1967), 268; Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 69.
[2] Address for the Day of Development (23 August 1968): AAS 60 (1968), 626-627.
[3] Cf. John Paul II, Message for the 2002 World Day of Peace: AAS 94 (2002), 132-140.
[4] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 26.
[5] Cf. John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris (11 April 1963): AAS 55 (1963), 268-270.
[6] Cf. no. 16: loc. cit., 265.
[7] Cf. ibid., 82: loc. cit., 297.
[8] Ibid., 42: loc. cit., 278.
[9] Ibid., 20: loc. cit., 267.
[10] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 36; Paul VI, Apostolic Letter Octogesima Adveniens (14 May 1971), 4: AAS 63 (1971), 403-404; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus (1 May 1991), 43: AAS 83 (1991), 847.
[11] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 13: loc. cit., 263-264.
[12] Cf. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 76.
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Sunday, July 05, 2009

The Spilt Blood of Man and the Most Precious Blood of Christ

Angelus Address of Pope Benedict XVI
St. Peter's Square

July 5, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters!

In the past, the first Sunday of July was characterized by devotion to the most precious Blood of Christ. In the last century, some of my venerable predecessors confirmed this tradition and Blessed John XXIII, with his apostolic letter "Inde a Primis" (June 30, 1960), explained its meaning and approved its litanies.

The theme of blood linked to that of the Paschal Lamb is of primary importance in sacred Scripture. In the Old Testament, the sprinkling of the blood of sacrificed animals represented and established the covenant between God and the people, as one reads in the Book of Exodus: "Then Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people saying: ‘This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you on the basis of all these words of his'" (Exodus 24:8).

Jesus explicitly repeats this formula at the Last Supper, when, offering the chalice to His disciples, He says: "This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:28). And, from the scourging, to the piercing of His side after His death on the cross, Christ has really shed all of His blood as the true Lamb immolated for universal redemption. The salvific value of His blood is expressively affirmed in many passages of the New Testament.

In this Year for Priests, one need only cite the beautiful lines of the Letter to the Hebrews: "Christ ... entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of a heifer's ashes can sanctify those who are defiled, so that their flesh is cleansed, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God?" (9:11-14)

Dear brothers, it is written in Genesis that the blood of Abel, killed by his brother Cain, cried out to God from the earth (4:10). And, unfortunately, today as yesterday, this cry does not cease, since human blood continues to run because of violence, injustice and hatred.

When will men learn that life is sacred and belongs to God alone? When will men understand that we are all brothers?

To the cry of the blood that goes up from many parts of the earth, God answers with the blood of His Son, who gave His life for us. Christ did not answer evil with evil, but with good, with His infinite love. The blood of Christ is the pledge of the faithful love of God for humanity. Looking upon the wounds of the Crucified, every man, even in conditions of extreme moral misery, can say: God has not abandoned me, He loves me, He gave his life for me -- and in this way rediscover hope.

May the Virgin Mary, who beneath the Cross, together with the apostle John, witnessed the testament of Jesus' blood, help us to rediscover the inestimable riches of this grace, and to feel profound and perennial gratitude for it.
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Saturday, July 04, 2009

The Acceptable Sacrifice

The Bible speaks again and again of sacrifices. Indeed, early on, we read of the sacrifices offered by Cain and Abel. We read of Abraham's offer to sacrifice Isaac, at which time God made it clear that He was against human sacrifice (at a time and place in human history when human sacrifice was well known, if not expected). We read of the various requirements, rules, and regulations that were instituted for making sacrifices after the Exodus from Eqypt.

And yet, on multiple occasions, we read that God does not, in fact, delight in holocausts. He neither needs nor wants animal sacrifices, He neither needs nor wants grain (cereal) sacrifices, even though He had provided certain regulations for both types of sacrifice. What use has God for burnt animal flesh or grain? So why this history of sacrifice?

It would appear that the long history of animal and grain sacrifice were merely preparatory for the real sacrifice that is desired by God -- He who is Love. The history of animal and grain sacrifice is a part of Salvation History. What the God of Love desires is love -- we were made by love, out of love, for love. And love, true and complete love, is necessarily sacrificial -- one sacrifices himself for the sake of the other, one gives of himself and puts the other before him and his wants. In short, he sacrifices himself.

This is the sacrifice that God desires. The sacrifice He desires is not that of an animal's life, but of our own; the blood sacrifice He desires is not the blood of an animal, but our "blood," that is, our own life, that is, our spirit -- a sacrifice of love. Just as He sacrificed His own Precious Blood and poured out His Spirit upon us, so too does He ask this of us. God desires it, but does not command it, because love, by it's very nature, is something that must be freely given.

The sacrifice that is desired by God and is acceptable to Him is the sacrifice of self, the sacrifice of a pure and contrite heart, renouncing prior infidelities and giving one's life back to Him who made it, placing one's self at the service of God. That is, loving the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind and all thy strength, and loving one another as He has loved us.

A Sacrifice to God is a Contrite Spirit
from a sermon by Saint Augustine, bishop


I acknowledge my transgression, says David (Ps 51). If I admit my fault, then you will pardon it. Let us never assume that if we live good lives we will be without sin; our lives should be praised only when we continue to beg for pardon. But men are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins, the more interested they become in the sins of others. They seek to criticise, not to correct. Unable to excuse themselves, they are ready to accuse others. This was not the way that David showed us how to pray and make amends to God, when he said: I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me. He did not concentrate on others’ sins; he turned his thoughts on himself. He did not merely stroke the surface, but he plunged inside and went deep down within himself. He did not spare himself, and therefore was not impudent in asking to be spared.

Do you want God to be appeased? Learn what you are to do that God may be pleased with you. Consider the psalm again: If you wanted sacrifice, I would indeed have given it; in burnt offerings you will take no delight. Are you then to be without sacrifice? Are you to offer nothing? Will you please God without an offering?

If you wanted sacrifice, I would indeed have given it; in burnt offerings you will take no delight. But continue to listen, and say with David: A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; God does not despise a contrite and humble heart. Cast aside your former offerings, for now you have found out what you are to offer. In the days of your fathers you would have made offerings of cattle – these were the sacrifices. If you wanted sacrifice, I would indeed have given it. These then, Lord, you do not want, and yet you do want sacrifice.

You will take no delight in burnt offerings, David says. If you will not take delight in burnt offerings, will you remain without sacrifice? Not at all. A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; God does not despise a contrite and humble heart.

You now have the offering you are to make. No need to examine the herd, no need to outfit ships and travel to the most remote provinces in search of incense. Search within your heart for what is pleasing to God. Your heart must be crushed. Are you afraid that it might perish so? You have the reply: Create a clean heart in me, O God. For a clean heart to be created, the unclean one must be crushed.

We should be displeased with ourselves when we commit sin, for sin is displeasing to God. Sinful though we are, let us at least be like God in this, that we are displeased at what displeases him. In some measure then you will be in harmony with God’s will, because you find displeasing in yourself what is abhorrent to your Creator.


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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Virtual Tour of the Tomb of St. Peter and the Vatican Necropolis

Here is a fascinating virtual tour of the scavi (excavations) below St. Peter's Basilica, which includes an ancient Roman cemetery, with both pagan Roman and Christian Roman tombs, and which ends at the tomb of St. Peter.

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The Blood of the Martyrs is the Seed of the Church
Memorial of the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome

Father, you sanctified the Church of Rome with the blood of its first martyrs. May we find strength from their courage and rejoice in their triumph. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Book 15, Annals of Tacitus, Roman historian (c. A.D. 109)

38. [During the reign of Nero, in about A.D. 64, vast areas of the city of Rome were consumed by a great fire.] Whether it was accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor, is uncertain, as authors have given both accounts . . . It was more dreadful than any which have ever happened to this city by the violence of fire. It had its beginning in that part of the circus which adjoins the Palatine and Caelian hills, where, amid the shops containing inflammable wares, the conflagration both broke out and instantly became so fierce and so rapid from the wind that it seized in its grasp the entire length of the circus. For here there were no houses fenced in by solid masonry, or temples surrounded by walls, or any other obstacle to interpose delay. The blaze in its fury ran first through the level portions of the city, then rising to the hills, while it again devastated every place below them, it outstripped all preventive measures; so rapid was the mischief and so completely at its mercy the city, with those narrow winding passages and irregular streets, which characterized old Rome. Added to this were the wailings of terror-stricken women, the feebleness of age, the helpless inexperience of childhood, the crowds who sought to save themselves or others, dragging out the infirm or waiting for them, and by their hurry in the one case, by their delay in the other, aggravating the confusion. Often, while they looked behind them, they were intercepted by flames on their side or in their face. Or if they reached a refuge close at hand, when this too was seized by the fire, they found that, even places, which they had imagined to be remote, were involved in the same calamity. . . . And no one dared to stop the mischief, because of incessant menaces from a number of persons who forbade the extinguishing of the flames, because again others openly hurled brands, and kept shouting that there was one who gave them authority, either seeking to plunder more freely, or obeying orders. . . .

40. At last, after five days, an end was put to the conflagration at the foot of the Esquiline hill, by the destruction of all buildings on a vast space, so that the violence of the fire was met by clear ground and an open sky. . . . And to this conflagration there attached the greater infamy because it broke out on the Aemilian property of Tigellinus, and it seemed that Nero was aiming at the glory of founding a new city and calling it by his name. . . .

42. Nero meanwhile availed himself of his country's desolation, and erected a mansion in which the jewels and gold, long familiar objects, quite vulgarized by our extravagance, were not so marvelous as the fields and lakes, with woods on one side to resemble a wilderness, and, on the other, open spaces and extensive views. . . .

43. [The rest of Rome was rebuilt, not as it had been before, but according to a new plan,] with rows of streets according to measurement, with broad thorough¬fares, with a restriction on the height of houses, with open spaces, and the further addition of colonnades, as a protection to the frontage of the blocks of tenements. . . . Some, however, thought that its old arrangement had been more conducive to health, inasmuch as the narrow streets with the elevation of the roofs were not equally penetrated by the sun's heat, while now the open space, unsheltered by any shade, was scorched by a fiercer glow.

44. Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order [that had been given by Nero himself].

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt [as human torches], to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.


Revelation 6:9-17; 7:1-2, 9-10, 13-17 -

When [the Lamb] broke open the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered because of the witness they bore to the word of God. They cried out in a loud voice, "How long will it be, holy and true master, before you sit in judgment and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?"

Each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to be patient a little while longer until the number was filled of their fellow servants and brothers who were going to be killed as they had been.

Then I watched while he broke open the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; the sun turned as black as dark sackcloth and the whole moon became like blood. The stars in the sky fell to the earth like unripe figs shaken loose from the tree in a strong wind. Then the sky was divided like a torn scroll curling up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place.

The kings of the earth, the nobles, the military officers, the rich, the powerful, and every slave and free person hid themselves in caves and among mountain crags. They cried out to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, because the great day of their wrath has come and who can withstand it?"

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on land or sea or against any tree. Then I saw another angel come up from the East, holding the seal of the living God. . . .

I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ”Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." . . .

Then one of the elders asked me, "These in white robes — who are they, and where did they come from?" I answered, "Sir, you know."

And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they stand before God's throne and worship him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center before the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
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Monday, June 29, 2009

Guardians of Souls, Purified by Obedience to Truth

Homily of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Mass on the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul

June 29, 2009

In the Collect of this solemn day, we ask the Lord "that the Church may always follow the teaching of the Apostles from which she received the first announcement of the faith." The request that we raise to the Lord also poses us questions: Are we following the teaching of the great founding Apostles? Do we really know them?

During the Pauline Year which ended yesterday, we sought to hear him again in a new way - the "teacher of the Gentiles" - and thus to learn anew the alphabet of the faith. We sought to know Christ with Paul and through him, and in so doing, to find the way for correct Christian living.

In the canon of the New Testament, besides the Letters of St. Paul, there are also two Letters under the name of St. Peter. The first of these letters ends explicitly with a greeting from Rome, although it appears under the apocalyptic cover name of Babylon: "The co-elected one at Babylon sends you greeting..." (1 Pet 5:13).

Calling the Church of Rome the "co-elected" places her into the community of all local Churches - the community of all whom God has united so that, in the Babylon of time in this world, they may construct His People and make God enter into history. The first Letter of Peter is a greeting from Rome to all of Christianity of all time. It invites us to listen to "the teaching of the Apostles" which shows us the way to life.

This Letter is a very rich text that comes from the heart and touches the heart. Its center - and how could it be otherwise? - is the figure of Christ, who is described as He who suffers and loves, as the Crucified and Risen One: "When He was insulted, He returned no insult; when He suffered, He did not threaten... By His wounds you have been healed" (1 Pet 2:23ff).

Starting out from the center who is Christ, the Letter also constitutes an introduction to the fundamental Christian sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, and a discourse addressed to priests, in which Peter describes himself as a co-"presbyter" with them. He speaks to the pastors of all generations as he who was personally named by the Lord to pasture His sheep and therefore, received a priestly mandate in a very special way.

What then does St. Peter tell us - appropriately, in the Year for Priests - about the task of the priest? He calls Christ "pastor and guardian of... souls" (2:25). Where the Italian translation uses the word "guardian," the Greek text uses the word episcopus (bishop). Further on, Christ is described as the supreme pastor: archipoimen (5,4).

It is surprising that Peter calls Christ Himself a bishop - bishop of souls. What did he mean by this?

The Greek word episcopos includes the root for "to see" - that is why it has been translated as "guardian," in the sense of "one who oversees." Certainly, what is meant is not external guarding as one would in the context of a prison. Rather, what is meant is watching over, from on high - from God's elevation. Seeing from the perspective of God is seeing with love that wishes to serve another, who wants to help the other become truly himself.

Christ is the "bishop of souls," Peter tells us. This means: He sees us from the perspective of God. Looking from God's perspective, one has a vision of the whole - one sees the dangers as well as the hopes and possibilities. From the perspective of God, one sees the essence, one sees the man within.

If Christ is the bishop (overseer) of souls, the objective is to prevent man's soul from becoming more impoverished, that man may not lose his essence - the capacity for truth and love - that instead, man may come to know God, that he does not lose his way in dead ends, that he does not end up in isolation but remains open altogether
. Jesus, "the bishop of souls," is the prototype of every episcopal and priestly ministry. To be a bishop, to be a priest, means in this context: to assume the position of Christ. To think, see and act from the vantage point of His elevation. And starting from Him, to be at the disposition of all men so that they may find life.

Thus, the word "bishop" is very close to the word "pastor," or rather, the two concepts become interchangeable. It is the task of the pastor to pasture and watch over the flock and lead it to the right pastures. To pasture the flock means to be attentive that the sheep find the right food, that their hunger be satisfied, and that their thirst be slaked. Beyond metaphor, this means: the Word of God is the nutriment which man needs. Always to make present the Word of God and thus give nutriment to men is the task of the correct pastor. He should also be able to resist his enemies, the wolves. He should lead and precede, show the way, and keep his flock together.

Peter, in his discourse to the priests, highlights another very important point: It is not enough to speak. Pastors should make themselves "models for the flock" (1 Pet 5:3).

The Word of God is brought from the past to the present when it is lived
. It is marvelous to see how, in the saints, the Word of God becomes a word that is addressed to our time. In figures like St. Francis, and more recently Padre Pio and many others, Christ has become truly contemporary to their generation. He has emerged from the past to enter into the present. This is what it means to be a pastor - a model for the flock: live the Word now, in the great community of the holy Church.

Very briefly I would like now to call attention to two other statements in the First Letter of St. Peter which particularly concern us, in our time.

There is, first of all, the sentence, newly rediscovered today, which was the basis upon which the medieval theologians understood their tasks: "Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope" (1 Pet 3:15).

The Christian faith is hope. It opens the way to the future. And it is a hope that is reasonable - a hope whose reason we can and should explain.

Faith comes from eternal Reason which has entered our world and has shown us the true God. It goes far beyond the native capacity of our own reason, just as love sees more than mere intelligence. But faith speaks to reason, and in the dialectical confrontation, it can hold its own against reason. It does not contradict reason, but keeps step with it, while at the same time, leads far beyond reason - to the greater Reason that is God
.

As Pastors of our time, we have the task to be the first to understand the reason of faith, the task of not leaving faith to be simply a tradition, but to recognize it as the answer to our questions.

Faith demands our rational participation, which is deepened and purified in a sharing of love. It is part of our duty as Pastors to penetrate the faith with our thought in order to be able to show the reason for our hope in the disputes of our time.

Nonetheless, thinking, by itself, is not enough. Just as speaking, by itself, is not enough. In his baptismal and eucharistic catechesis in Chapter 2 of the First letter, Peter refers to the Psalm used by the primitive Church in the context of communion, "Learn to savor how good the LORD is" (Ps 34(33):9).

Only "tasting" (direct experience) leads to seeing. Think of the disciples at Emmaus: it was only during their convivial communion with Jesus, in the breaking of bread, that their eyes were opened. We become capable of seeing only in an authentic experience of communion with the Lord. This goes for all of us: beyond thinking and speaking, we all need the experience of the faith - that vital relationship with Christ.

Faith should not remain a theory: it should be life. If in the Sacraments, we encounter the Lord, if in prayer we talk to Him, if in our day-to-day decisions we adhere to Christ - then we shall always and increasingly "see" how good He is. Then we can experience how good it is to be with Him. From such a lived certainty comes the capacity to communicate the faith to others in a credible way
.

The Curate of Ars was not a great thinker. But he "tasted" the Lord. He lived with Him in the minutiae of every day as in the great demands of the pastoral ministry. This way he became "one who sees." He had "tasted" and so he knew that the Lord is good.

Let us pray the Lord so that He may give us this capacity to "taste" and that we may become credible witnesses for the hope that is in us.

Finally, I wish to note another small but important statement from St. Peter. Soon after the opening of the Letter, he tells us that the goal of our faith is the salvation of souls (cf. 1 Pet 1:9). In the language and thought of Christianity today, this seems like a strange statement, and for some, even outright scandalous.

The word "soul" has fallen into discredit. It is said that its use would lead to the division of man unto spiritual and physical, soul and body, whereas in fact, he is an indivisible unity. Besides, the "salvation of souls" as a goal of the faith would seem to suggest an individualistic Christianity, a loss of responsibility for the world as a whole, in its corporeality and its materiality.

But none of that is found in the letter of St. Peter. Zeal in bearing witness to hope and responsibility for others characterize the entire text. To understand the statement about the salvation of souls being the goal of the faith, we must begin from another side.

It remains true that lack of attention to souls and the progressive impoverishment of the interior man not only destroy the individual, but threaten the destiny of mankind as a whole. Without healing souls, without healing man from within, there cannot be salvation of mankind. The true illness of souls is what St. Peter calls ignorance, that is, non-knowledge of God. He who does not know God, who does not at least seek Him sincerely, remains outside of true life (cf. 1 Pet 1:14).

Yet another sentence from Peter's Letter can be useful to us in order to better understand the expression "salvation of souls": "Purify yourselves by obedience to the truth" (cf. 1:22).

It is obedience to the truth that makes the soul pure. And it is living with lies that contaminates it. Obedience to the truth starts with the small truths of everyday, which may often be difficult and painful.

This obedience extends up to the obedience without reservations to the Truth itself which is Christ. Such obedience does not merely make us pure, but above all, it makes us free to render service to Christ and therefore to the salvation of the world, which must always start from the obedient purification of one's own soul through the truth. We can show the way to truth only if we ourselves - in obedience and patience - allow ourselves to be purified by the truth
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And now let me address myself to you, dear brothers in the Episcopate, who will shortly receive the pallium from my hands. It was woven from the wool of lambs that the Pope blessed on the Feast of St. Agnes. In this way, it recalls Christ's lambs and sheep whom the risen Lord had entrusted to peter with the task of pasturing them (cf. Jn 21:15-16). It recalls the flock of Jesus Christ which you, dear brothers, must pasture in communion with Peter.

We are reminded of this by Christ Himself, who as the Good Shepherd, has taken upon His shoulders the lost sheep, mankind, in order to bring it back home. It reminds us that He, the supreme Pastor, wanted to be the lamb Himself, in order to take charge from within of the destiny of all of us; in order to carry us and heal us from within.

Let us pray the Lord so that He may grant us to follow in His footsteps as just pastors, "not by constraint but willingly, as God would have it...eagerly - examples to the flock" (1 Pet 5:2ff). Amen.
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Caritas in Veritate

Today, June 29, 2009, the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, patrons of Rome, Pope Benedict signed his third encyclical, "Charity in Truth." After praying the Angelus, His Holiness announced,

My third encyclical, which is entitled Caritas in Veritate, will be published soon. Taking up the social themese contained in Populorum Progressio, written by the Servant of God Paul VI in 1967, this document - which carries today's date, June 29, solemnity of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul - aims to analyze in depth some aspects of development that are integral to our time, in the light of love in truth.

I entrust to your prayers this additional contribution that the Church offers mankind in its commitment to sustainable progress in full respect of human dignity aand the real demands of everyone.

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Sunday, June 28, 2009

St. Paul - Transformative Renewal and Adult Faith
Living the Truth in Love

L'Osservatore Romano is reporting the discovery of the oldest known image of St. Paul in the catacombs of St. Tecla on the via Ostiense, a short distance from the burial place of the Apostle to the Gentiles at Basilica di San Paolo Fuori le Mura.

Archaeologists from the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archeology were using laser technology during restoration of various fourth century frescoes when they discovered "the severe and easily recognizable face of St. Paul." The circular portrait of Paul is accompanied by three other portraits that are thought to depict Saints Peter, John, and James, together with a central fresco of the Good Shepherd.

The announcement of the discovery of St. Paul's fresco portrait was accompanied by an announcement by Pope Benedict at First Vespers that bone fragments from below the main altar of the Basilica have been confirmed to belong to St. Paul. In this homily, Pope Benedict also returns to the theme of having an adult faith, which he discussed prior to the conclave in his "dictatorship of relativism" homily.


Homily of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
First Vespers of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul

Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls
June 28, 2009

The year commemorating the birth of St. Paul ends tonight. We are gathered at the tomb of the Apostle, whose sarcophagus, preserved under the papal altar, was recently the object of careful scientific studies.

In the sarcophagus, which has never been opened over so many centuries, a very small hole was drilled in order to introduce a special passage which retrieved traces of a precious purple colored fabric with gold sequins, and an azure fabric with linen threads. Also retrieved were grains of red incense and of protein and bone substances, Moreover, tiny bone fragments subjected to carbon-14 dating by experts, who were not told of their provenance, were shown to be those of a person who lived in the first or second century.

This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that has come to us about the mortal remains of the apostle Paul.

All this fills our hearts with profound emotion. Many persons, during these months, have followed the footsteps of the Apostle - his exterior travels, but more than that, the interior ways that he went through during his life: the road to Damascus and his encounter with the risen Christ; the routes of the Mediterranean world which he traversed with the torch of the Gospel, encountering both contradiction and adherence; and finally, his martyrdom, through which he belongs for always to the Church of Rome. Indeed, he addressed to the Romans his greatest and most important letter.

The Pauline Year ends, but to walk together with Paul, with him and thanks to him, to come to know who Jesus is, as he did, to be illuminated and transformed by the Gospel - this will always be part of Christian existence. Always, going beyond the circle of believers, he remained the "teacher of the Gentiles" who brought the message of the Risen One to all men, because Christ knows and loves everyone - He died and resurrected for all of them. And so we wish to listen to him at this time as we solemnly begin the feast of the two Apostles who were united by a tight bond.

It is part of the structure of Paul's Letters that they - always in reference to a place and a particular situation - explained, first of all, the mystery of Christ - that they teach us the faith. The next part consisted in its application to our lives: what are the consequences of such faith? How does it shape our day-to-day existence?

In the Letter to the Romans, this second part starts with Chapter 12, in whose first two verses the Apostle quickly sums up the essential nucleus of Christian existence.

What does St. Paul tell us in that passage? First of all, he affirms, as a fundamental thing, that a new way of venerating God began with Christ - a new worship. And it consists in the living man himself becoming adoration, a "sacrifice" in his own body. It is no longer things that are offered to God. It is our very existence that should become a praise of God.

But how can this take place? The answer is given to us in the second verse: "Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God..." (Rom 12:2) The two decisive words in this verse are "transform" and "renew." We must become new men, transformed to a new mode of existence.

The world is always in search of something new, because, rightly, it is never satisfied with concrete reality. Paul tells us: the world cannot be renewed without new men. Only when there are new men will there also be a new world, a renewed and better world.

At the beginning must be man's renewal. This goes for each individual. Only if we ourselves become new can the world become new. This also means that it is not enough to adapt oneself to the present situation. We will return to this point when we reflect on the second text that I wish to meditate upon with you tonight.

The Apostle's "no" to the present age is clear and even convincing for those who follow the "schema" of our world. How does one renew oneself? Are we really capable of doing so?

With his words about becoming new, Paul alludes to his own conversion: to his encounter with the risen Christ, of which he says in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, "So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come" (2 Cor 5:17). The meeting with Christ was for him so overwhelming that he said about it: "I died..." (Gal 2,19; cf. Rom 6). He had become a new man, another man, because he no longer lived for himself and for himself, but for Christ and in Him.

In the course of years, however, he also saw that this process of renewal and transformation continues for all of one's life. We become new if we allow ourselves to be possessed and formed by the New Man, Jesus Christ. He is the New Man par excellence. In Him, the new human existence became reality, and we can really become new if we deliver ourselves into His hands and allow ourselves to be formed by Him.

Paul makes this process of "re-fusion" even clearer, saying that we become new if we transform our way of thinking. That which we translate here as "way of thinking" is the Greek term nous. it is a complex word. It can be translated as spirit, sentiment, reason, and precisely, even as "way of thinking."

Our very reasoning should become new. This surprises us. We may perhaps have expected that the renewal would apply to an attitude: something in the way we behave that should be changed, a precept of alteration. But no -- renewal must be through and through. Our way of looking at the world, of comprehending reality, all our thinking should change from its very bases.

The thinking of the old "I," the common way of thinking, is usually concerned with possession, well-being, influence, success, fame and the like. But in this way, it has a very limited bearing, and in the ultimate analysis, it is the "I" who is the center of the world.

We should learn to think more profoundly. And what this means, St. Paul tells in the second part of his sentence: one must learn to grasp the will of God so that it shapes our own will. In order that we ourselves can want what God wants, we must acknowledge that God wants what is good and what is beautiful.

It is a question therefore of a turnabout in our basic spiritual orientation. God must enter into the horizon of our thinking - what He wants and the way He conceived the world and myself. We must learn to take part in the thought and will of Jesus Christ. Then we will be new men among whom the new world will emerge.

The same thought of a necessary renewal of our essence as humans was further illustrated by Paul in two passages from the Letter to the Ephesians, on which let us reflect briefly. In the fourth chapter of the letter, the Apostle tells us that with Christ we should reach adulthood, mature manhood. We can no longer "be infants, tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching..." (4:14).

Paul desired that Christians should have a mature faith, "an adult faith."
The term "adult faith" has become a widespread slogan in recent decades. One often hears to describe the attitude of those who no longer listen to the Church and her Pastors, but autonomously choose that which they want to believe or not to believe - therefore a "do-it-yourself" faith. And to express oneself against the Magisterium of the Church is presented as "courage."

In fact, no courage is needed for this, because one can always be sure of getting public applause. Rather, courage is required to adhere to the faith of the Church even if it contradicts the "schema" of the contemporary world. It is this non-conformism of faith which Paul calls an "adult faith."

On the other hand, he calls it infantile to run with the winds and currents of the time. Therefore, it is part of having "adult faith," for instance, to commit oneself to the inviolability of human life from the very first moment, thus opposing radically the principle of violence, in defense of the most helpless of human creatures.

It is part of adult faith to recognize marriage between a man and a woman for their whole life as the order of Creation, freshly re-established by Christ.

Adult faith does not allow itself to be carried along willy-nilly by any current. It goes against the winds of fashion. It knows that such winds are not the breath of the Holy Spirit! It knows that the Spirit of God is expressed and manifested in communion with Jesus Christ.


Nonetheless, even in this, Paul does not stop at saying "no," but leads us to the great "Yes." He describes adult faith, one that is truly adult in a positive way, with the expression: "living the truth in love" (cf. Eph 4:15).

The new way of thinking, given to us by faith, turns first of all to the truth. The power of evil is lies. The power of faith, the power of God, is truth. The truth about the world and about our own selves becomes visible if we look to God. And God is made visible to us in the face of Jesus Christ.

Looking at Christ, we recognize another thing: truth and love are inseparable. In God, both are inseparably one: this is precisely the essence of God. That is why for Christians, truth and love must go together. Love is the test of truth. We must always be measured anew by this criterion in which truth becomes love, and love makes us truthful.


Yet another important thought appears in St. Paul's verses. The Apostle tells us that by living truth in love, we contribute so that everything - the universe - grows towards Christ.

Paul, on the basis of his faith, was not interested only in our personal rectitude nor with the growth of the Church alone. He is interested in the universe: ta pánta. The ultimate goal of the work of Christ is the universe - the transformation of the universe, of the entire human world, of all creation.

Whoever, with Christ, serves truth in love, contributes to true progress in the world
. It is very clear here that Paul knew the idea of progress.

Christ - His life, suffering and resurrection - was the true great leap of progress for mankind, for the world. Now, however, the universe must grow in like measure. There is true progress in the world wherever the presence of Christ increases - because there, man becomes new and therefore the world itself becomes new.

Paul makes the same thing obvious to us from yet another angle. In the third chapter of the Letter to the Ephesians, he speaks of the need to be "strengthened... in the inner self," (3:16). He picks up here a subject that he dealt with, in a situation of tribulation, in his Second Letter to the Corinthians: "...although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day" (3:16).

The interior man should reinforce himself - it is an imperative that is very appropriate for our time, when men often remain interiorly empty and so they must hold on to promises and drugs, which then have the consequence of further increasing their interior sense of emptiness. This interior void - the weakness of the interior man - is one of the great problems of our time.

Interiorness must be reinforced - the perceptiveness of the heart; the capacity to see and understand the world and man from within, with the heart.

We have need of reason illuminated by the heart, in order to learn to act according to truth in love. But this cannot be realized without an intimate relationship with God, without a life of prayer. We have need of an encounter with God, which is given to us in the Sacraments.

But we cannot speak to God in prayer, if we don't allow Him to speak first, if we don't listen to Him in the words that have been given to us.
In this respect, Paul tells us: "That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge" (Eph 3:17ff).

Love sees much farther than mere reason - that is what Paul is telling us with these words. He also tells us that only in communion with all the saints, that is, only in the great community of all believers - not against or without it - can we know the vastness of the mystery of Christ.

This vastness he circumscribes with words that express the dimensions of the cosmos: breadth, length, height and depth. The mystery of Christ has a cosmic vastness. He does not belong only to a specific group. The crucified Christ embraces the entire universe in all its dimensions. He takes the world in His hands and raises it up to God.

Starting with St. Irenaeus of Lyons - thus, by the end of the second century - the Fathers saw in these words of the breadth, length, height and depth of Christ's love a reference to the Cross. The love of Christ embraced, on the Cross, the lowest depths - the night of death - as well as the supreme height - the altitude of God Himself. And He took into His arms the breadth and vastness of mankind and the world in all their distances. He always embraces the universe - all of us.

Let us pray the Lord so that He may help us to appreciate something of the vastness of His love. Let us pray to Him in order that His love and His truth may move our hearts. Let us ask that Christ may live in our hearts and make us new men who behave according to truth in love. Amen.
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The Nativity of John the Baptist

Today is the Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist, who could be said to be the last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets. He can be said to be an "Old Testament" prophet because he is spoken of in Isaiah and Malachi and elsewhere and because he makes the final preparations for the coming of the New Testament that is Jesus Christ.

In its feast days, the Church normally celebrates the birth of the saint into heaven, that is, the day of his or her death on earth. However, for three persons -- Jesus, Mary, and John the Baptist -- the Church also celebrates their earthly birthdays.

Born into the priestly class, as a descendant of Aaron, whose very birth was announced by God's messenger to his father in the Temple when he was serving as priest, John would have been instructed in priestly duties and would have known the Temple well. However, instead of serving in the Temple, John's ministry was conducted in the desert, where the people of Israel began after being led out of bondage in Egypt and where the Lord appeared to them and made His covenant with them.

There was a reason that John went out into the desert wilderness. In order to see him, the people were required to return to that desert. And there was a reason that John baptized in the Jordan River, the place where the people of Israel had crossed into the promised land, led by Joshua. John's ministry and baptism of repentence was a call for the people to reaffirm their identity, to reaffirm their fidelity to God, by going back into the desert, where they relied totally on God for their very sustenance and survival, so as to symbolically reenter the Promised Land through water, leaving behind sin and death. It was a new Exodus, but instead of bondage in Egypt, they were led out of the bondage of sin and death into new life.

To further manifest his purpose and identity, John wore the same clothing that was worn by the prophet Elijah, a hairy garment with a leather girdle. His food in the desert, locusts and honey, combined the judgment of God on sin (the plague of locusts in Egypt) with His mercy in promising a land of milk and honey. And like Elijah, who was persecuted by the wicked Queen Jezebel and King Ahab, John was persecuted by the wicked Queen Herodias and cowardly King Herod.

The Lord said to the prophet Malachi, "I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me; And suddenly there will come to the temple the LORD whom you seek, And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire. Yes, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. . . . I will send you Elijah, the prophet, Before the day of the LORD comes, the great and terrible day, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with doom."

The people of Israel had waited a long time. It had been hundreds of years since the last of the prophets had revealed to them the word of God. But in John the Baptist, who leapt for joy in the womb when he was filled with the Holy Spirit upon the coming of Jesus, likewise in the womb, "Elijah" had come again. It was the beginning of the new age.


Luke 1:5-17, 57-80
In the time of Herod king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commandments and regulations blamelessly. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren; and they were both well along in years.

Once when Zechariah's division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." . . .

When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.

On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, but his mother spoke up and said, "No! He is to be called John."

They said to her, "There is no one among your relatives who has that name." Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone's astonishment he wrote, "His name is John." Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak, praising God. The neighbors were all filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, "What then is this child going to be?" For the Lord's hand was with him.

Then Zechariah his father, filled with the holy Spirit, prophesied, saying:

"Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
for he has come to his people and brought about their redemption.
He has raised up the sign of salvation
in the house of his servant David,
as he promised through the mouth of the holy ones,
his prophets through the ages:
to rescue us from our enemies
and all who hate us,
to take pity on our fathers,
to remember his holy covenant
and the oath he swore to Abraham our father,
that he would give himself to us,
that we could serve him without fear
– freed from the hands of our enemies –
in uprightness and holiness before him,
for all of our days.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High:
for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his path,
to let his people know their salvation,
so that their sins may be forgiven.
Through the bottomless mercy of our God,
one born on high will visit us
to give light to those who walk in darkness,
who live in the shadow of death;
to lead our feet in the path of peace."

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Monday, June 22, 2009

Calming the Storm of Suffering

Homily of Pope Benedict XVI
Mass at the Church of San Pio de Pietrelcina

San Giovanni Rotondo
June 21, 2009

. . . We have just heard the Gospel of the calmed storm, which was preceded by a short but incisive text of the Book of Job, where God reveals Himself as the Lord of the sea. Jesus threatened the wind and ordered the sea to calm itself; He addresses it as if it was identified with the diabolical power. Indeed, according to what we hear from the first reading and Psalm 106(107), the sea in the Bible is regarded as a threatening, chaotic, and potentially destructive element, that only God, the Creator, can dominate, govern and silence.

But there is another force -- a positive force -- that moves the world, able to transform and renew creation: the strength of the "love of Christ," ἀγάπη τοῦ Χριστοῦ (2 Cor 5:14 ) -- as St. Paul calls it in the Second Letter to the Corinthians -- not in essence a cosmic force, but divine, transcendent. It acts on the universe but also, in itself, the love of Christ is a power that is "other." And this, His transcendent otherness, the Lord has manifested in His Passover, the "sanctity" of the "way" chosen by Him to liberate us from the domination of evil, as was done by the exodus from Egypt, when He brought the Jews out through the waters of the Red Sea.

"O God," says the Psalmist, "holy is your way ... On the sea your way, / your paths over the great waters" (Psalms 77(76), 14:20). In the paschal mystery, Jesus has passed through the abyss of death, since God so willed to renew the world: through the death and resurrection of His Son "slain for all," so that all may live for Him who has died and risen for them" (2 Cor 5, 16).

The solemn gesture of calming the stormy sea is clearly a sign of the lordship of Christ over the negative powers and leads us to think of His divinity: "Who is this -- the disciples ask stupefied and terrified -- that even the wind and the sea obey Him?" (Mk 4:41). Theirs is not yet a strong faith; it is taking shape; it is a mixture of fear and trust; Jesus' trusting abandonment to the Father is, on the contrary, total and pure. Because of this, He sleeps during the storm, completely safe in the arms of God.

Yet a time will come when even Jesus will taste anxiety and fear: When His hour comes, He will feel upon himself the entire burden of the sins of humanity, like a gigantic wave that is about to crash down upon Him. That will truly be a terrible storm, not cosmic, but spiritual. It will be the last, extreme assault of evil against the Son of God.

But in that hour, Jesus did not doubt the power and presence of God the Father, even if He had to experience the full distance of hatred from love, of lies from truth, of sin from grace. He experienced this tragedy in Himself in a lacerating way, especially in the Garden of Gethsemane, before the arrest, and then during the entire Passion, until His death on the cross. In that hour, Jesus was, on the one hand, one with the Father, fully abandoned to Him, and on the other, in as much as He was in solidarity with sinners, He was as one separated from Him and felt abandoned by Him.

Some saints have lived intensely and personally this experience of Jesus. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina is one of them. A simple man of humble origins, "seized by Christ" (Phil. 3:12) -- as the Apostle Paul writes of himself -- to make of him an instrument chosen by the perennial power of His cross: power of love for souls, of forgiveness and of reconciliation, of spiritual paternity, of effective solidarity with those who suffer. The stigmata, which marked his body, united him closely to the Crucified and Risen One.

A true follower of St. Francis of Assisi, he made his own, like the Poverello, the experience of the Apostle Paul which he describes in his letters: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2:20), or: "in us death is at work, but in you life" (2 Cor 5, 12). This does not mean alienation, loss of personality: God never annuls that which is human, but He transforms it with His Spirit and He ordains it to the service of His plan of salvation. Padre Pio kept his natural gifts, and even his own temperament, but he offered everything to God, who has been able to freely use them to extend the work of Christ: to proclaim the Gospel, forgive sins and heal the sick in body and spirit.

As it was for Jesus, the real struggle, the radical combat Padre Pio had to sustain, was not against earthly enemies, but against the spirit of evil (cf. Ephesians 6, 12). The biggest "storms" that threatened him were the assaults of the devil, against which he defended himself with "the armor of God" with "the shield of faith" and "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Ephesians 6:11,16,17). Remaining united to Jesus, he always kept in mind the depths of the human drama, and because of this, he offered himself and offered his many sufferings, and he knew how to spend himself in the care and relief of the sick, a privileged sign of God's mercy, of His kingdom which is coming, indeed, which is already in the world, of the victory of love and life over sin and death. Guide souls and relieve suffering: thus we can sum up the mission of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, as the servant of God, Pope Paul VI said about him: "He was a man of prayer and suffering" (To the Capuchin Chapter Fathers, 20 February 1971).

Dear friends, Capuchin Friars Minor, members of prayer groups and all the faithful of San Giovanni Rotondo, you are the heirs of Padre Pio, and the inheritance that he left for you is holiness. In one of his letters he writes: "It seems that Jesus has no need for your hands other than to sanctify your soul" (Epist. II, p. 155). That was always his first concern, his priestly and fatherly concern: that people return to God, that they would experience His mercy, and, inwardly renewed, that they would rediscover the beauty and joy of being a Christian, of living in communion with Jesus, of belonging to His Church and of practicing the Gospel. Padre Pio attracted others to the path of holiness by his own testimony, showing by example the "track" that leads to it: prayer and charity.

First of all prayer. Like all great men of God, Padre Pio had himself become prayer, soul and body. His days were a living rosary, that is, a continuous meditation and assimilation of the mysteries of Christ in spiritual union with the Virgin Mary. This explains the unusual presence within him of supernatural gifts and of human existence. And everything had its climax in the celebration of Holy Mass: there he joined himself fully to the crucified and risen Lord.

From prayer, as from an ever-living source, love flowed. The love that he bore in his heart and transmitted to others was full of tenderness, always attentive to the real situations of individuals and families. Especially towards the sick and suffering, he cultivated the predilection of the Heart of Christ, and precisely from this origin the form of a great work dedicated to the "relief of suffering" took shape. One cannot understand or properly interpret this institution divorced from its inspirational source, which is evangelical charity, which in turn, is inspired by prayer.

All this, my beloved brothers and sisters, Padre Pio today puts before our eyes. The risks of activism and secularization are always present; because of this, my visit has also the purpose of confirming you in your fidelity to the mission you inherited from your beloved father. Many of you, men and women religious and laity, are so taken by the complex duties required by the service to pilgrims, or to the sick in the hospital, that you run the risk of neglecting that which is truly needed: to listen to Christ to do the will of God.

When you see that you are close to running this risk, look to Padre Pio: to his example, to his sufferings; and invoke his intercession, so that he obtain from the Lord the light and strength that you need to continue his mission permeated with love for God and fraternal love. And from heaven may he continue to pursue the exquisite spiritual fatherhood that has distinguished his earthly existence; may he continue to accompany his confreres, his spiritual children and the entire work that he has begun.

Along with St. Francis, and the Blessed Virgin, who he loved so much and made others love in this world, may he watch over you all and protect you always. And then, even in the storms that can suddenly rise up, you can experience the breath of the Holy Spirit that is stronger than any contrary wind and which pushes the boat of the Church and each of us. That is why we must always live in serenity and cultivate joy in our hearts, giving thanks to the Lord. "His love is forever" (Psalm resp.). Amen!
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"Those who suffer must live the love of God through the wise acceptance of their pain, through serene meditation on their destiny to Him"

Address of Pope Benedict XVI
Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza

San Giovanni Rotondo
June 21, 2009

. . . Each time one enters a place of care, one's thoughts turn naturally to the mystery of disease and pain, to the hope of healing and to the inestimable value of health, which is often only recognized when it is lost. In hospitals one touches with one's hands the preciousness of our existence, but also its fragility. Following the example of Jesus, who traveled throughout Galilee, "healing every disease and every infirmity among the people" (Mt 4:23), the Church, from its very beginnings, moved by the Holy Spirit, has considered it her duty and privilege to stand beside those who suffer, cultivating a preferential attention for the sick.

Sickness, which manifests itself in many forms and strikes in different ways, raises disturbing questions: Why do we suffer? Can the experience of pain be considered positive? Who can liberate us from suffering and death?

Existential questions that often remain humanly unanswered since suffering is an unfathomable mystery for our human reason. Suffering is part of the very mystery of the human person. As I emphasized in the encyclical letter Spe Salvi, "it follows, on the one hand, from our finitude, and on the other hand, from the mass of guilt that has accumulated throughout history and even at present continues its unstoppable growth." And I added that "certainly we must do everything we can to reduce suffering ... but to eliminate it completely from the world is not in our possibilities simply because ... none of us is able to eliminate the power of evil ... continually the source of suffering" (see n.36).

Only God can remove the power of evil. Precisely due to the fact that Jesus Christ came into the world to reveal the divine plan of our salvation, faith helps us to penetrate the meaning of all things human and therefore also of suffering. There is, therefore, an intimate relationship between the Cross of Jesus -- the supreme symbol of the pain and the price of our freedom -- and our pain, which is transformed and transcended when it is lived in the awareness of the closeness and solidarity of God.

Padre Pio had understood this profound truth and, on the first anniversary of this work, said that in it "those who suffer must live the love of God through the wise acceptance of their pain, through serene meditation on their destiny to Him" (Meeting of May 5, 1957). He noted further that in the Casa Sollievo "the recovering, doctors, priests will be reserves of love, which in as much as it abounds in one, the more it will be communicated to others" (ibid.).

Be "reserves of love": This, dear brothers and sisters, is the mission that this evening our saint refers you to, who each in his own way form the great family of this Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza. May the Lord help you bring to fruition the project initiated by Padre Pio with the support of all: doctors and scientific researchers, health care professionals and the employees of various departments, volunteers and benefactors, the Capuchin friars and other priests. Without forgetting the prayer groups that "attached to the house of relief, are the advanced positions of this citadel of charity, nurseries of faith, outbursts of love" (Padre Pio, Speech, May 5, 1966).

On each and every one I invoke the intercession of Padre Pio and the maternal protection of Mary, Health of the Sick. Thank you again for your welcome and, while I assure you of my prayers for each of you, I cordially bless you all.
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Friday, June 12, 2009

"This is my body, this is my blood."

Homily of Benedict XVI, Bishop of Rome
Solemnity of Corpus Christi

Basilica of St. John in the Lateran
June 11, 2009

"This is my body, this is my blood."

Dear brothers and sisters,

These words which Jesus pronounced at the Last Supper are repeated every time that the Eucharistic Sacrifice is renewed.

We heard it just now in the Gospel of Mark and they resound with singular evocative power today, the Solemnity of Corpus Domini. They lead us ideally to the Cenacle - they make us relive the spiritual atmosphere of that night when, celebrating Passover with His own people, the Lord anticipated in the mystery the sacrifice which would be consummated the following day on the Cross.

The institution of the Eucharist thus seems to us like the anticipation and acceptance of His death on the part of Jesus. St. Ephrem the Syrian writes about this: "During the supper, Jesus immolated Himself; on the Cross, He was immolated by others" (cf. Hymn on the Crucifixion 3,1).

"This is my blood."

The reference to the sacrificial language of Israel is clear here. Jesus presents Himself as the true and definitive sacrifice in which is realized the expiation of sins, which in the rites of the Old Testament, was never totally fulfilled.

Above all, Jesus says that His blood is "shed for many," with an understandable reference to the songs of the Servant which are found in the book of Isaiah (cf. Chap. 53).

Dear brothers and sisters - whom I greet with affection, starting with the Cardinal Vicar and the other cardinals and bishops present - like the Chosen People gathered together in Sinai, tonight we, too, wish to reaffirm our fidelity to the Lord. A few days ago, in opening the annual diocesan convention, I recalled the importance of remaining, as a Church, in attentive listening to the Word of God in prayer and reading Scripture, especially with the practice of lectio divina, the meditated and worshipful reading of the Bible.

I know that in this regard, so many initiatives have been promoted in the parishes, in seminaries, in the religious communities, and within confraternities, associations and apostolic movements which enrich our diocesan community. To the members of these multiple ecclesial organisms, I address my fraternal greeting. Your presence in large numbers at this celebration, dear friends, highlights that our community, characterized by a plurality of cultures and different experiences, is formed by God as "His" people, as the one Body of Christ, thanks to our participation in the double meal of the Word and the Eucharist.

Nourished by Christ, we, His disciples, receive the mission of being "the soul" of this city ( cf. Letter to Diogneto, 6: ed. Funk, I, p. 400; see also Lumen Gentium, 38), a ferment for renewal, bread "broken" for all - above all for those who are in situations of need, poverty and physical and spiritual suffering. We become witnesses of His love.

I address myself particularly to you, dear priests, whom Christ has chosen, so that, together with Him, you may live your life as a praiseworthy sacrifice for the salvation of the world.
Only from union with Jesus Christ will you be able to draw that spiritual fruitfulness which generates hope in your pastoral ministry.

St. Leo the Great reminds us that "our participation in the body and blood of Christ does not aim at anything other than to become that whom we receive" (Sermo 12, De Passione 3,7, PL 54). If this is true for every Christian, it is all the more true for us priests
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To be, to become the Eucharist! May this be precisely our constant desire and effort, so that our offering of the Body and Blood of the Lord that we make on the altar may be accompanied by the sacrifice of our own existence. Every day, we draw from the Body and Blood of Christ that free and pure love which makes us worthy to be ministers of Christ and witnesses to His joy.

This is what the faithful expect of priests: the example of authentic devotion for the Eucharist. They want to see him spend long moments of silence and adoration before Jesus as did the holy Curate of Ars, whom we will remember particularly during the imminent Year of the Priest.

St. Jean Marie Vianney liked to tell his parishioners: "Come to communion... It is true that you are not worthy, but you have need of it" (Bernard Nodet, Le curé d’Ars. Sa pensée – Son coeur, éd. Xavier Mappus, Paris 1995, p. 119). With the consciousness that we are inadequate because of sin, but needful of nourishing ourselves from the love that the Lord offers us in the Eucharistic sacrament, let us renew our faith tonight in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. We cannot take this faith for granted.

Today, there is the risk of creeping secularization even within the Church, which can translate itself to formal and empty Eucharistic worship, in celebrations devoid of that participation of the heart that is expressed in veneration and respect for the liturgy. The temptation is always strong to reduce prayer to superficial and hurried moments, allowing oneself to be overwhelmed by earthly activities and concerns.

When shortly we shall recite the Our Father, the prayer par excellence, we will say: "Give us today our daily bread," thinking naturally of the everyday bread for us and for all men. But this request contains something more profound.

The Greek term epioúsios, which is translated as "daily," can also refer to the bread that is "supra-substantial," to the bread of "the world to come." Some Fathers of the Church saw in it a reference to the Eucharist, the bread of eternal life, of the new world, which is given to us in the Holy Mass, so that from this moment on, the future world can begin in us.

With the Eucharist, then, heaven comes down to earth, God's tomorrow comes into the present, and it is as though time is embraced by divine eternity.

Dear brothers and sisters, as it is every year, the end of this Holy Mass will lead into the traditional Eucharistic procession, and we will raise, with prayers and songs, a choral imploration to the Lord who is present in the consecrated Host. We will say in the name of the entire city: "Stay with us, Jesus, make us a gift of yourself, and give us the bread that will nourish us for eternal life! Free this world from the poison of evil, of violence and hate which pollutes consciences, purify it with the power of your merciful love. And you, Mary, who were the 'eucharistic' lady all your life, help us to walk united towards the heavenly goal, nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ, bread of eternal life and the elixir of divine immortality."

Amen!

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Monday, June 08, 2009

The Trinity -- One God Who is Love

Address of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Regina Caeli Prayer

Trinity Sunday, June 7, 2009

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

Following Eastertide, which culminates with the feast of Pentecost, the liturgy foresees these three solemnities of the Lord: today, the Most Holy Trinity; on Thursday, that of Corpus Christi, which, in many countries, Italy among them, is celebrated next Sunday; finally, on Friday in two weeks, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Each one of these liturgical observances manifests a perspective from which the whole mystery of the Christian faith is embraced: respectively, the reality of God one and three, the sacrament of the Eucharist and the divine-human center of the Person of Christ. They are in truth aspects of the one mystery of salvation, which, in a certain sense, summarize the whole path of the revelation of Jesus, from the incarnation to the death and resurrection to the ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Today we contemplate the Most Holy Trinity as it was made know to us by Jesus. He revealed to us that God is love “not in the unity of a single person, but in the Trinity of a single substance” (Preface): the Trinity is Creator and merciful Father; Only Begotten Son, eternal Wisdom incarnate, dead and risen for us; it is finally the Holy Spirit, who moves everything, cosmos and history, toward the final recapitulation.

Three Persons who are one God because the Father is love, the Son is love, the Spirit is love. God is love and only love, most pure, infinite and eternal love. The Trinity does not live in a splendid solitude, but is rather inexhaustible font of life that unceasingly gives itself and communicates itself.

We can in some way intuit this, whether we observe the macro-universe: our earth, the planets, the stars, the galaxies; or the micro-universe: cells, atoms, elementary particles. The “name” of the Most Holy Trinity is in a certain way impressed upon everything that exists, because everything that exists, down to the least particle, is a being in relation, and thus God-relation shines forth, ultimately creative Love shines forth.

All comes from love, tends toward love, and is moved by love, naturally, according to different grades of consciousness and freedom. “O Lord, our Lord, / how wondrous is your name over all the earth!” (Psalm 8:2) -- the Psalmist exclaims.

In speaking of the “name” the Bible indicates God himself, his truest identity; an identity that shines forth in the whole of creation, where every being, by the very fact of existing and by the “fabric” of which it is made, refers to a transcendent Principle, to eternal and infinite Life that gives itself, in a word: to Love.

“In him,” St. Paul says, on the Areopagus in Athens, “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). The strongest proof that we are made in the image of the Trinity is this: only love makes us happy, because we live in relation, and we live to love and be loved. Using an analogy suggested by biology, we could say the human “genome” is profoundly imprinted with the Trinity, of God-Love.

The Virgin Mary, in her docile humility, made herself the handmaid of divine Love: she accepted the will of the Father and conceived the Son by the work of the Holy Spirit. In her omnipotence made a temple worthy of himself, and made her the model and image of the Church, mystery and house of communion for all men. May Mary, mirror of the Most Holy Trinity, help us to grow in the faith of the Trinitarian mystery.
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Monday, June 01, 2009

Missionary Children

Remarks of Pope Benedict in Meeting with Children
Special Audience with Pontificia Opera per L'Infanzia Missionaria

(Pontifical Work for Childhood Mission)
May 30, 2009

Question: My name is Anna Filippone, I am 12 and a ministrant from Calabria, diocese of Oppido Mamertina-Palmi. Papa Benedetto, my friend Giovanni has an Italian grandfather and an Ecuadorian grandmother and is very happy. Do you think that the different cultures can live together one day without fighting in the name of Jesus?

Pope Benedict: I think you want to know what we ourselves, as children, did in order to live together, to help each other.

I must say that I lived the years of my elementary schooling in a small town of 400 residents, quite far from the great centers. Therefore, we were a bit naive. And in this town, there were, on the one hand, very rich farmers and some who were not as rich but well-off, and on the other hand, poor employees and artisans. Our family arrived from another town, so we were somewhat strangers to them, and even their dialect was different. In our school, then, many different social aspects were reflected.

Nonetheless, there was a beautiful communion among us. The other children taught me their dialect which I did not know then. We worked together well, and I must say, of course, sometimes, we quarrelled, but afterwards, we made up and forgot what had happened.

I think this is important. Sometimes in human life, it seems inevitable to quarrel. But what remains important is to know how to reconcile with each other, to forgive, to start over and not to leave any bitterness in one's heart.

I recall thankfully how we all worked together - we helped each other and stayed together along the way. We were all Catholics, and this, naturally, was a great help. So we learned together from the Bible, starting with the creation up to the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross and the beginnings of the Church. We learned catechism together, we learned to pray together, we prepared together for our first confession and our first Communion - that was a splendid day! We understood that Jesus Himself comes to us, that He is not a distant God: He enters my own life, into my own soul. And if the same Jesus comes into each of us, we are brothers, sisters, friends - and we should therefore behave as such.

For us, that preparation - for the first confession as a purification of our conscience, of our life, and then for first Communion as a concrete encounter with Jesus who comes to me, who comes to us all - was a factor that contributed to form our community. It helped us to walk together, to learn together and to reconcile with each other when necessary. And we worked together, for instance, to put on small presentations: it is important to be able to work together and look after each other.

In those days, there were no altar girls yet, even if the girls read better than we did. So they read the lectures in the liturgy while we became altar boys. In those days, there was quite a lot of Latin texts to learn, so each of us had quite a bit to do. But as I said, we were not saints - we had our share of quarreling - but nonetheless, it was a beautiful communion with each other, in which the differences between rich and poor, intelligent and less intelligent, counted for nothing.

It was a communion with Jesus along the path of a common faith and common responsibility, whether at play or doing our common work in school. We found the capacity to live together and be friends, and although by 1937, more than 70 years ago, I no longer lived there, we have remained friends.

What we learned was to accept each other, bear each other's burdens. I think this is important: despite our weaknesses, to accept each other, and with Jesus Christ, in the Church, we can find together the path of peace and we learn to live as good persons.


Question: My name is Letizia and I wanted to ask you: Dear Pope Benedict XVI, what did the saying, "Children help each other' mean for you as a child? And did you ever think of becoming Pope?

Pope Benedict: To tell you the truth, I would never have thought of becoming Pope because, as I said earlier, I was a rather naive boy in a small town, in a forgotten province. We were happy to be there and we did not think of other things.

Of course, we knew, venerated and loved the Pope - it was Pius XI then - but for us, he was at an unreachable height, almost in another world - a father to us, but nonetheless, someone much more superior to us.

And I must say that even today, I find it difficult to understand how the Lord could have thought of me and destine me for this ministry. But I accept it from His hands, even if it is a surprising thing that seems very much beyond my powers. But the Lord helps me.


Question: Dear Papa Benedetto, I am Alessandro. I wanted to ask you - you are the first missionary. How can we children help you to announce the Gospel?

Pope Benedict: I would say this: in the first place, to be part of the Pontifical Children's Missionary Work. Thus you are part of a great family which is promoting the Gospel around the world. Thus you belong to a large network, in which we can see how different peoples are reflected in this great family.

You are in this great family - where everyone does his own part, and together, you are missionaries, you are bearers of the Church's missionary work. And you have a beautiful program as your spokesman described it: to listen, to pray, to know, to share, and to bond together. These are the essential elements for being a missionary, to promote the growth of the Church and the presence of the Gospel in the world.

I would like to emphasize some of these points: First of all, prayer.

Prayer is a reality: God listens to us, and when we pray, God enters our life, He becomes present among us, present and "at work." Praying is something very important that can change the world because it makes the power of God present. And it is important that we help each other when praying: we pray together in the liturgy, we pray together in the family.

And I would say it is important to start the day with a little prayer and finish the day with another little prayer - and remember your parents in prayer. Pray before lunch, pray before supper, and in the communal celebration of Sunday Mass. A Sunday without going to Mass - the great communal prayer of the Church - is not a true Sunday: it lacks the very heart of Sunday and thus, the light for the whole week.

And you can help others - particularly those who perhaps do not pray at home, or do not know how to pray - teach others to pray: Pray with them and thus, introduce others to communion with God.

Then, listen. And that means to truly learn what Jesus is telling us. And to get to know Sacred Scripture, the Bible. In the story of Jesus, as the cardinal said, we get to know the face of God, we learn how God is. It is important to know Jesus deeply, personally, so that He enters into our life, He enters the world.

Also, sharing. Not to want things for oneself alone but for everyone. Share with others. If we see someone who perhaps is in need, less blessed with gifts, we should help and thus make God's love present, even without words, in our own small world which is part of the great world.

So we become a family together, where we respect each other, support others in their otherness, accept even those whom we dislike, not allow anyone to be left aside but help them to become part of the community.

All this simply means to live in the great family of the Church, this great missionary family. To live together the essential points - like sharing, knowing Jesus, prayer, listening to each other, and brotherliness - is missionary work because it helps to make the Gospel become real in our world.


More Information --
Pontificia Opera per L'Infanzia Missionaria in Italy
The Holy Childhood Association (POIM in the United States)

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Sunday, May 31, 2009

Wind and Fire

Homily of Pope Benedict XVI
Solemnity of Pentecost

May 31, 2009

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

Every time that we celebrate the Eucharist we experience in faith the mystery that is accomplished on the altar, that is, we participate in the supreme act of love that Christ realized with his death and resurrection. The one center of the liturgy and of Christian life -- the paschal mystery -- then assumes specific "forms," with different meanings and particular gifts of grace, in the different solemnities and feasts.

Among all the solemnities, Pentecost is distinguished by its importance, because in it, that which Jesus himself proclaimed as being the purpose of his whole earthly mission is accomplished. In fact, while he was going up to Jerusalem, he declared to his disciples: "I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish for it to be kindled!" (Luke 12:49).

These words find their most obvious realization 50 days after the resurrection, in Pentecost, the ancient Jewish feast that, in the Church, has become the feast of the Holy Spirit par excellence: "There appeared to them parted tongues as of fire ... and all were filled with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:3-4).

The Holy Spirit, the true fire, was brought to earth by Christ. He did not steal it from the gods -- as Prometheus did according to the Greek myth -- but he became the mediator of the "gift of God," obtaining it for us with the greatest act of love in history: his death on the cross. God wants to continue to give this "fire" to every human generation, and naturally he is free to do this how and when he wants. He is spirit, and the spirit "blows where he wills" (cf. John 3:8).

However, there is an "ordinary way" that God himself has chosen for "casting fire upon the earth": Jesus is this way, the incarnate only begotten Son of God, dead and risen. For his part, Jesus constituted the Church as his mystical body, so that it prolongs his mission in history. "Receive the Holy Spirit" -- the Lord says to the Apostles on the evening of his resurrection, accompanying those words with an expressive gesture: he "breathed" upon them (cf. John 20:22). In this way he showed them that he was transmitting his Spirit to them, the Spirit of the Father and the Son.

Now, dear brothers and sisters, in today's solemnity Scripture tells us how the community must be, how we must be to receive the Holy Spirit. In his account of Pentecost the sacred author says that the disciples "were together in the same place." This "place" is the Cenacle, the "upper room," where Jesus held the Last Supper with his disciples, where he appeared to them after his resurrection; that room that had become the "seat," so to speak, of the nascent Church (cf. Acts 1:13). Nevertheless, the intention in the Acts of the Apostles is more to indicate the interior attitude of the disciples than to insist on a physical place: "They all persevered in concord and prayer" (Acts 1:14). So, the concord of the disciples is the condition for the coming of the Holy Spirit; and prayer is the presupposition of concord.

This is also true for the Church today, dear brothers and sisters. It is true for us who are gathered together here. If we do not want Pentecost to be reduced to a mere ritual or to a suggestive commemoration, but that it be a real event of salvation, through a humble and silent listening to God's Word, we must predispose ourselves to God's gift in religious openness.

In order that Pentecost may be renewed in our time, it is perhaps necessary - without taking away anything from the freedom of God - that the Church be less "concerned" with activity and more dedicated to prayer. Mary Most Holy, the Mother of the Church and Bride of the Holy Spirit, teaches us this.

This year Pentecost occurs on the last day of May, when the Feast of the Visitation is customarily celebrated. This event was also a little "Pentecost," bringing forth joy and praise from the hearts of Elizabeth and Mary -- the one barren and the other a virgin -- who both became mothers by an extraordinary divine intervention (cf. Luke 1:41-45).

The music and singing that is accompanying our liturgy, also help us to be united in prayer, and in this regard I express a lively recognition of the choir of the Cologne cathedral and the Cologne Chamber Orchestra. Joseph Haydn's "Harmoniemesse," the last of the Masses composed by this great musician, and a sublime symphony for the glory of God, was chosen for today's Mass. The Haydn Mass was a fitting choice given that it is the bicentennial of the composer's death. I address a cordial greeting to all those who have come for this.

To indicate the Holy Spirit, the account in the Acts of the Apostles uses two great images, the image of the tempest and the image of fire. Clearly, St. Luke had in mind the theophany of Sinai, recounted in Exodus (19:16-19) and Deuteronomy (4:10-12:36).

In the ancient world, the tempest was seen as a sign of divine power, in whose presence man felt subjugated and terrified. But I would like to highlight another aspect: the tempest is described as an "impetuous wind," and this brings to mind the air that distinguishes our planet from others and permits us to live on it.

What air is for biological life, the Holy Spirit is for the spiritual life; and as there is air pollution, which poisons the environment and living things, there is also pollution of the heart and the spirit, that mortifies and poisons spiritual existence. In the same way that we should not be complacent about the poisons in the air -- and for this reason ecological efforts are a priority today -- we should also not be complacent about that which corrupts the spirit. But instead it seems that our minds and hearts are menaced by many pollutants that circulate in society today -- the images, for example, that make pleasure a spectacle, violence that degrades men and women -- and people seem to habituate themselves to this without any problem.

It is said that this is freedom, but it is just a failure to recognize all that which pollutes, poisons the soul, above all of the new generations, and ends up limiting freedom itself. The metaphor of the impetuous wind of Pentecost makes one think of how precious it is to breathe clean air, be it physical air without lungs, or spiritual air -- the healthy air of the spirit that is love -- with our heart.

Fire is the other image of the Holy Spirit that we find in the Acts of the Apostles. I compared Jesus with the mythological figure of Prometheus at the beginning of the homily. The figure of Prometheus suggests a characteristic aspect of modern man. Taking control of the energies of the cosmos -- "fire" -- today human beings seem to claim themselves as gods and want to transform the world excluding, putting aside, or simply rejecting the Creator of the universe. Man no longer wants to be the image of God but the image of himself; he declares himself autonomous, free, adult. Obviously that reveals an inauthentic relationship with God, the consequence of a false image that has been constructed of him, like the prodigal son in the Gospel parable who thought that he could find himself by distancing himself from the house of his father.

In the hands of man in this condition, "fire" and its enormous possibilities become dangerous: they can destroy life and humanity itself, as history unfortunately shows. The tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in which atomic energy, used as a weapon, ended up bringing death in unheard of proportions.

We could of course find many examples, less grave and yet just as symptomatic, in the reality of everyday life. Sacred Scripture reveals that the energy that has the ability to move the world is not an anonymous and blind power, but the action of the "spirit of God that broods over the waters" (Genesis 1:2) at the beginning of creation. And Jesus Christ "cast upon the earth" not a native power that was already present but the Holy Spirit, that is, the love of God, who "renews the face of the earth," purifying it of evil and liberating it from the dominion of death (cf. Psalm 103(104): 29-30). This pure "fire," essential and personal, the fire of love, descended upon the Apostles, gathered together with Mary in prayer in the cenacle, to make the Church the extension of Christ's work of renewal.

Finally, a last thought also taken from the Acts of the Apostles: the Holy Spirit overcomes fear. We know that the disciples fled to the Cenacle after the Master's arrest and remained there out of fear of suffering the same fate. After Jesus' resurrection this fear did not suddenly disappear. But when the Holy Spirit descended upon them at Pentecost, those men went out without fear and began to proclaim the good news of Christ crucified and risen. They had no fear, because they felt that they were in stronger hands.

Yes, dear brothers and sisters, where the Spirit of God enters, he chases out fear; he makes us know and feel that we are in the hands of an Omnipotence of love: whatever happens, his infinite love will not abandon us. The witness of the martyrs, the courage of the confessors, the intrepid élan of missionaries, the frankness of preachers, the example of all the saints -- some who were even adolescents and children -- demonstrate this. It is also demonstrated by the very existence of the Church, which, despite the limits and faults of men, continues to sail across the ocean of history, driven by the breath of God and animated by his purifying fire. With this faith and this joyous hope we repeat today, through Mary's intercession: "Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth!"
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The Descent of the Holy Spirit

The Fiftieth Day
The name “Pentecost” comes from the Greek word meaning “fiftieth.” Like Easter, it is tied to a Jewish feast. The 50th day of Easter, being 49 days (7 weeks, or “a week of weeks”) after the second day of Passover, the Jews celebrated the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot).

Passover celebrates the freeing of the Jews from slavery; Shavuot celebrates their becoming God’s holy people by the gift and acceptance of the Law; and the counting of the days to Shavuot symbolises their yearning for the Law. From a strictly practical point of view, Shavuot was a very good time for the Holy Spirit to come down and inspire the Apostles to preach to all nations because, being a pilgrimage festival, it was an occasion when Jerusalem was filled with pilgrims from many countries.

Symbolically, the parallel with the Jews is exact. We are freed from the slavery of death and sin by Easter; with the Apostles, we spend some time as toddlers under the tutelage of the risen Jesus; and when He has left, the Spirit comes down on us and we become a Church.

-- universalis.com




Come, Holy Spirit, come!
And from Thy celestial home
Shed a ray of light divine!

Come Father of the poor!
Come source of all our store!
Come within our bosoms shine!

Thou, of comforters the best;
Thou, the soul's most welcome guest;
Sweet refreshment here below;

In our labor, rest most sweet;
Grateful coolness in the heat,
Solace in the midst of woe.

O most blessed Light divine
Shine within these hearts of Thine.
And our inmost being fill!

Where you are not, man has naught,
Nothing good in deed or thought,
Nothing free from taint of ill.

Heal our wounds, our strength renew;
On our dryness pour Thy dew;
Wash the stains of guilt away:

Bend the stubborn heart and will;
Melt the frozen, warm the chill;
Guide the steps that go astray.

On the faithful who adore
And confess you, evermore
In your sev'nfold gift descend;

Give them virtue's sure reward;
Give them Thy salvation, Lord;
Give them joys that never end.
Amen. Alleluia




Address of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Regina Caeli Prayer

Pentecost, May 31, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters!

The Church spread throughout the whole world relives today, on the Solemnity of Pentecost, the mystery of its own birth, its own "baptism" in the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 1,5), which took place in Jerusalem 50 days after Easter, on the Jewish feast of Pentecost itself.

The resurrected Jesus had told His disciples: "Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high" (Lk 24,49).

This took place in sensible form in the Cenacle, while everyone was gathered in prayer with Mary, the Virgin Mother. As we read in the Acts of the Apostles, suddenly the place was filled with an impetuous wind, and tongue-like flames settled on each one present. The Apostles went forth thereafter and started to proclaim in various languages that Jesus is the Christ, Son of God, who died and was resurrected (cf. Acts 2,1-4).

The Holy Spirit, who with the Father and the Son, created the universe, who guided the history of the people of Israel and who spoke through the prophets, and who in the fullness of time cooperated in our redemption, descended on Pentecost on the nascent Church and made her missionary, sending her forth to announce to all peoples the victory of divine love over sin and death.

The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church. Without Him, what would she be reduced to?

It would certainly be a great historical movement, a complex and solid social institution, perhaps a kind of humanitarian agency. In fact, that is how it is thought of by those who consider her without the eyes of faith. However, in reality, in her true nature and even in her most authentic historical presence, the Church is ceaselessly formed and led by the Spirit of her Lord. She is a living body, whose vitality is precisely the fruit of the invisible divine Spirit.

Dear friends, this year, the Solemnity of Pentecost falls on the last day of the month of May, on which we normally celebrate the beautiful Marian Feast of the Visitation.

This fact invites us to allow ourselves to be inspired and instructed by the Virgin Mary, who was a protagonist in both events. At Nazareth, she received the annunciation of her singular motherhood, and, shortly after, conceived Jesus by the action of the Holy Spirit by the same Spirit of love that urged her to go assist her aged relative Elizabeth, who was in the sixth month of a pregnancy that was itself miraculous.

The young Mary, who carried Jesus in her womb, oblivious of herself, ran in aid to her neighbor, is the stupendous icon of the Church in the perennial youthfulness of the Spirit, of the missionary Church of the incarnate Word, called to bring it to the world and to bear witness to it, especially in the service of charity.

Let us invoke therefore the intercession of the Most Blessed Mary, so that she may obtain for the Church of our time that it may be powerfully reinforced by the Holy Spirit.

In a particular way, may the ecclesial communities who suffer persecution in the name of Christ feel the comforting presence of the Paraclete participating in their sufferings, so that they may receive the Spirit of glory in abundance (cf. 1 Pt4,13-14).
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Thursday, May 28, 2009

Laity in the Church: From Collaboration to Co-Responsibility in the Mission of the Church as the People of God and Body of Christ

Address of Benedict XVI, Bishop of Rome
Opening of the Ecclesial Convention of the Diocese of Rome

"Church Membership and Pastoral Co-Responsibility"
Basilica of St. John Lateran
May 26, 2009

. . . I extend to all the parishes my cordial greeting, with the words of the Apostle Paul: "To all the beloved of God in Rome, called to be holy. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom 1,7). . . .

We have just been reminded that in the course of the past decade, the attention of the Diocese was focused in the first three years on the family; then for the next three years, on educating the new generations in the faith, seeking to respond to that "educative emergency" which is, for everyone, not an easy challenge; and lastly, also with regard to education, and spurred by the encyclical Spe Salvi, you chose the issue of education in hope.

Even as, with you, I thank the Lord for so much good that he has allowed us to do so far - I think particularly of the parish priests and other protests who do not spare themselves in leading the communities entrusted to them - I wish to express my appreciation for the pastoral choice to dedicate time to verifying what has been done, with the purpose of putting them to the proof, in the light of some fundamental aspects of regular pastoral work, in order to better identify them and share them better.

At the basis of this commitment, which has already engaged you in all the parishes and other diocesan organisms for some months, there should be a renewed awareness of our being a Church and of the pastoral co-responsibility which, in the name of Christ, we are all called on to exercise. It is precisely this aspect that I wish to dwell on.

The Second Vatican Council, wishing to transmit purely and integrally the doctrine on the Church that had matured in the course of two thousand years, gave a "more thought out definition" of the Church, illustrating above all its mystical nature, namely as "a reality impregnated with the divine presence, therefore, always capable of new and more profound explorations" (Paul VI, Address at the Opening of the Second Session, September 29, 1963).

Thus, the Church, which originates in the Trinitarian God, is a mystery of communion. As such, it is not simply a spiritual reality, but it lives in history, in flesh and blood, so to speak.

The Second Vatican Council describes it as "like a sacrament, or sign and instrument of intimate union with God and the unity of the entire human species" (Lumen Gentium, 1). And the essence of sacrament is precisely that it can be felt both in the visible as well as the invisible, and that which is visible and tangible opens the door to God himself.

The Church, as we have said, is a communion of persons who, by the action of the Holy Spirit, make up the People of God, which is at the same time the Body of Christ. Let us reflect a bit on these two key expressions.

The concept "People of God" was born and developed in the Old Testament: To enter into the reality of human history, God chose a specific people, the people of Israel, to be his people. The intention of this particular choice was to arrive, through a few, to the many, and from the many, to all. Through the agency of this people, God truly entered history in a concrete way. The opening to universality was realized on the Cross and in the resurrection of Christ.

On the Cross, St. Paul says, Christ brought down the wall of separation. Giving us his body, he reunites us in this Body to make us into one. In the communion of the "Body of Christ," we all become one people, the People of God, where - to cite St. Paul again - everyone is just one, and there is no longer any distinction, or difference "between Greek and Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, slave, Jew, But Christ is everything in everyone." He brought down the wall of distinction among peoples, races and cultures: we are all united in Christ.

So we see that the two concepts - "People of God" and "Body of Christ" - complete each other and together form the New Testament concept of the Church. While "People of God" expresses the continuity of the Church's history, "Body of Christ" expresses the universality that was inaugurated on the Cross and in the resurrection of our Lord.

For us, Christians, then, "Body of Christ" is not just an image, but a true concept, because Christ makes us a gift of his real Body, not only of an image. Resurrected, Christ unites us all in the Sacrament to make us one body only. Therefore, the concept "People of God" and "Body of Christ" complete each other: In Christ, we become truly the People of God. So "People of God" means everyone, from the Pope to the last baptized baby.

The first Eucharistic prayer, the so-called Roman Canon written in the fourth century, distinguishes between servi - "we who are your servants" - and plebs tua sancta (your sacred people). Therefore, if one must distinguish, there are servants who are holy people, whereas the term "People of God" expresses the idea of everyone together in their common being, the Church.

Immediately following Vatican-II, this ecclesiological doctrine found a vast acceptance, and thank God, so much good fruit has matured in the Christian community. But we must also remember that the reception of this doctrine in practice and its consequent assimilation into the fabric of the ecclesial conscience, has not happened always and everywhere without difficulty and according to a correct interpretation.

As I had the occasion to clarify in an address to the Roman Curia on December 22, 2005, a current interpretation, citing a presumed "spirit of the Council," has intended to establish a discontinuity and even outright contraposition between the Church before the Council and the Church after the Council, sometimes going beyond the limits that objectively exist between the hierarchical ministry and the responsibility of laymen in the Church.

The notion of the "People of God," in particular, has some interpretations that come from a purely sociological viewpoint, with an almost exclusively horizontal direction, excluding any vertical reference to God. These are positions in open contradiction to the word and spirit of the Council, which did not intend a rupture, another Church, but a true and profound renewal in the continuity of the one subject Church which grows in time and develops, but remains always the identical single subject of the People of God in pilgrimage.


In the second place, it must be acknowledged that the reawakening of spiritual and pastoral energies in these past years has not always produced the desired increment and development. In fact, it must be observed that, in some ecclesial communities, a period of fervor and initiative was followed by one of weakened commitment, a situation of tiredness, almost a stalemate, and even resistance and contradiction between the conciliar doctrine and various concepts formulated in the name of the Council, but in reality, opposed to its spirit and its letter.

If only for this reason, the ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 1987 was dedicated to the question of vocation and mission of the laity in the Church and the world. This tells us that the luminous pages dedicated by the Council to the laity had not yet been adequately translated and realized in the consciousness of Catholics and in pastoral practice.

On the one hand, there still exists the tendency to identify the Church unilaterally with the hierarchy, forgetting the common responsibility, the common mission, of the People of God that all of us are in Christ. On the other hand, the tendency also persists to think of the "People of God," as I mentioned, according to a purely sociological or political angle, forgetting the novelty and specificity of that people which become a people only in communion with Christ.

Dear brothers and sisters; it is now time to ask: At what point is our Diocese in? To what degree is the pastoral co-responsibility of everyone, particularly of laymen, recognized and promoted?

In past centuries, thanks to the generous testimony of so many baptized ones who spent their lives to educate new generations in the faith, to heal the sick and help the poor, the Christian community announced the Gospel to the residents of Rome. This same mission is entrusted to us today, in different situations, in a city where not a few baptized Christians have lost the way to the Church, while non-Christians do not know the beauty of our faith.

The Diocesan Synod which was called by my beloved predecessor John Paul II was an effective reception of the Conciliar doctrine, and the Book of the Synod committed the Diocese to become ever more a Church that is alive and functioning in the heart of the city, through the coordinated responsible action of all its components. The mission of the city, which followed the Synod in preparation for the Grand Jubilee of 2000, allowed our ecclesial community to take note of the fact that the mandate of evangelization does not only concern some, but all baptized Christians.

It was a salutary experience which contributed to mature in the parishes, religious communities, associations and movements the consciousness of belonging to the one People of God, who - according to the words of the Apostle Peter - are "a chosen race... a people of his own, so that you may announce his praises" (1 Pt 2,9). And we wish to give thanks for that tonight.

There is still a long way to go. Too many baptized Christians do not feel part of the ecclesial community and live at its margins, turning to the parishes only in some circumstances to receive religious services. In proportion to the number of residents in each parish, there are still too few laymen who, professing to be Catholic, are ready to make themselves available to work in various fields of apostolate.

Certainly, there is no lack of cultural and social difficulties, but to be faithful to the mandate of the Lord, we cannot resign ourselves to conserving the status quo. Confident in the grace of the Spirit, that the resurrected Christ assured us of, we must resume the way with renewed vigor.

What path can we take? First of all, we must renew efforts for a more attentive and specific formation, according to the view of the Church that I have just described, on the part of the priests and of the religious and laymen. To understand even better what this Church is, this People of God in the Body of Christ.

It is necessary at the same time to improve the pastoral setting with respect to vocations and to the roles of those in consecrated life and laymen, promoting gradually the co-responsibility all together of all the members of the People of God. This requires a change in mentality particularly among laymen, who must pass from considering themselves "collaborators" of the clergy to recognize that they are really "co-responsible" for what the Church is and how it acts, thus promoting the consolidation of a mature and committed laity.

This common consciousness among all baptized persons of being a Church does not diminish the responsibility of parish priests. It falls on you, particularly, dear parish priests, to promote the spiritual and apostolic growth of those who are already assiduously committed in the parishes: they are the nucleus of the community who will be the ferment for others.

In order that such communities, even if sometimes numerically small, do not lose their identity and vigor, it is necessary that they be educated in prayerful listening to the Word of God through the lectio divina, which was ardently recommended by the recent Bishops' Synod assembly. Let us nourish ourselves by this listening and meditation on the Word of God.

These communities should not be any less conscious that they are "Church" because Christ, the eternal Word of the Father, calls them together and makes them his people. Faith, in fact, is one part of a profoundly personal relationship with God, but it possesses an essential communitarian component, and the two dimensions are inseparable.

Thus, the faithful can experience the beauty and the joy of being and feeling themselves Church - even the young people, who are most exposed to the growing individualism of contemporary culture, which brings the inevitable consequence of weakening inter-personal ties and the sense of belonging. In our faith in God, we are united in the Body of Christ, and we all become one in the same Body, and thus, believing profoundly, we can experience communion among ourselves and overcome the solitude of individualism.

If it is the Word that calls the community together, it is the Eucharist that makes them one Body: "Because the loaf of bread is one," St. Paul writes, "we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf" (1 Cor 10.17).

The Church therefore is not the result of a sum of individuals, but a unity among those who are united by the one Word of God and of the only Bread of Life. The communion and unity of the Church, which are born from the Eucharist, are a reality of which we must have an ever greater awareness, even when we receive Holy Communion, to be ever more aware that we are entering into union with Christ, in order to become, among ourselves, one thing only.

We should always learn anew how to guard and defend this unity from rivalry, contestations and jealousies which can arise within and among ecclesial communities. In particular, I wish to ask the movements and the communities that emerged after Vatican-II, who are a precious gift within our Diocese for which we must thank the Lord, to be always careful that their formative itineraries lead their members to mature a true sense of belonging to the parish community.

The center of parish life, as I mentioned, is the Eucharist, particularly the Sunday Mass. If the unity of the Church arises from the encounter with the Lord, it is not then secondary that the adoration and celebration of the Eucharist be very attentively done, allowing those who participate to experience the beauty of Christ's mystery.

Since the beauty of the liturgy "no mere aestheticism, but the concrete way in which the truth of God's love in Christ encounters us, attracts us and delights us" (Sacramentum Caritatis n. 35), it is important that the Eucharistic celebration manifests and communicates divine life, through sacramental signs, and reveals the true face of the Church to the men and women of the city.

The spiritual and apostolic growth of the community leads to widening it through convincing missionary activity. Do your best then to bring back to life in your parishes, as during the period of the city mission, those small groups or centers of listening for the faithful to listen to the announcement of Christ and his Word, places where it is possible to experience the faith, exercise charity, organize hope. This articulation of the large urban parishes through the multiplication of small communities allows a wider missionary breadth which takes into account the density of the population, and its social and cultural physiognomy, often remarkably diversified.

It would be important