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    Charity In Truth
    Charity In Truth
    Charity In Truth
    Ebook119 pages1 hour

    Charity In Truth

    By Pope Benedict XVI

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    Pope Benedict's third encyclical, Charity in Truth (Caritas in Veritate), applies the themes of his first two encyclicals —love and hope (God Is Love, Saved in Hope) — to the world's major social issues. Drawing on moral truths open, in principle, to everyone (the natural law) as well as on the teachings of the gospel (revelation), Pope Benedict addresses Catholics and non-Catholics alike, challenging us all to recognize and then to confront the social evils of our day.

    The first part of the encyclical examines the dynamic teaching of Benedict's predecessors, Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II. Both men contributed greatly to the body of doctrine known as "Catholic social teaching". Both men challenged the simplistic division of political perspectives into conservative and "liberal", and "right" and "left". Both men were convinced that the natural moral law and the teaching of the Gospel were indispensable for a world in desperate search of hope and meaning.

    In the second part Benedict surveys the social issues that confront the human race today—assaults on the dignity of the human person such as the attack on human life, poverty, issues of war and peace, terrorism, globalization, and environmental concerns. Benedict provides sound moral principles to address these social and economic problems, and to promote a culture of life and genuine peace.

    In this outstanding work, Pope Benedict shows us why so many observers regard him as the world's leading moral voice, as well as one of the most insightful and profound social/political thinkers of our day.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIgnatius Press
    Release dateSep 3, 2009
    ISBN9781681490687
    Charity In Truth
    Author

    Pope Benedict XVI

    Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022), born Joseph Alois Ratzinger, served as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from April 2005 through February 2013. Before his papacy, he was Dean of the College of Cardinals, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and President of the International Theological Commission. An outstanding theologian and teacher, he was one of the founders, along with Hans Urs von Balthasar and Henri de Lubac, of the international Catholic journal Communio. He also enjoyed a distinguished teaching career at such universities as Tübingen and Regensburg in his home country of Germany.

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    • 5/5
      Perhaps the most important and well written thing I have read in years. This document has an elegance that helped convince me not only of the critical nature of the issue at hand, but also of the wisdom of the Pope and his Vatican editors. (A side effect of reading this document was realizing how pedestrian the editors at Penguin, Harper, and Simon & Schussler are.) Transcending the right/left boxes that everything else is framed with, Benedict presses forth based on biblical values that if taken seriously, will break American readers out of their current trappings. Poverty, labor, environment, justice, and ultimately meaning and purpose in daily life are given their due, not as topics for talk shows, but as the deepest concerns of the human race.

    Book preview

    Charity In Truth - Pope Benedict XVI

    CHARITY IN TRUTH

    Caritas in Veritate

    ENCYCLICAL LETTER

    CARITAS IN VERITATE

    OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF

    BENEDICT XVI

    TO THE BISHOPS

    PRIESTS AND DEACONS

    MEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUS

    THE LAY FAITHFUL

    AND ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL

    ON INTEGRAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

    IN CHARITY AND TRUTH

    LIBRERIA EDITRICE VATICANA

    IGNATIUS PRESS    SAN FRANCISCO

    Published in 2009 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco

    © 2009 by Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City

    All Rights Reserved

    ISBN 978-1-58617-280-0

    Library of Congress Control Number 2008926716

    Printed in the United States of America

    CONTENTS

    Introduction [1]

    1 The Message of Populorum Progessio [10-20]

    2 Human Development in Our Time [21-33]

    3 Fraternity, Economic Development and Civil Society [34-42]

    4 The Development of People, Rights and Duties, the Environment [43-52]

    5 The Cooperation of the Human Family [53-67]

    6 The Development of Peoples and Technology [68-77]

    Conclusion [78-79]

    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 his 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 neighbor; 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 practiced 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, practicing 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 socioeconomic 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

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