caritas inveritate background

Caritas in Veritate

Opening our minds to love,

Opening our love to truth

Prepared by: Ysabel Alexandra Herrera

What is it?

Encyclical, Pope Benedict XVI Second social encyclical Deus est Caritas

June 29, 2009 Continues tradition from Rerum Novarum Commemorates 40th Anniversary of Paul

VI’s Populorum Progressio (1967)

What is it?

THEME

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

Integral Human Development

Integral Human Development

Integral human development implies the advance towards the true good of every individual, community and society, in every single dimension of human life: social, economic, political, intellectual, spiritual and religious.

MESSAGE FOR THE FEAST OF DEEPAVALI 20093, , Pontifical Council

Integral Human Development

“Development of the whole man and of all men" (PP, 42, Paul VI)

”From less human conditions to those which are more human" (PP, 20, Paul VI).

”Integral human development presupposes the responsible freedom of the individual and of peoples" (Caritas, 17).

Background: Populorum Progressio

Affirms the right of poor nations to full human development. Decries economic structures promoting inequality. Calls for

new international organizations and agreements

Background: Populorum Progressio

Poor nations --> current economic crisis Full human development --> caritas Structures of inequality --> sin, truth New international organizations -->

globalization based on caritas in veritate That is, love in the truth that we are all

interdependent

Recap

Caritas in Veritate: truth in love Recalls the global vision of Populorum

Progressio Three Ideas of Catholic Social Teaching

Common Good, Subsidiarity, Solidarity Option for the poor Integral Human Development

Caritas in Veritate: Content

God’s plan for us is to love our sisters and brothers Knowing the plan is Truth Natural Law

Knowledge and Praxis

Caritas in Veritate: Content

Everything is shaped by love Everything is directed toward love (2)

Caritas in Veritate: Content

A rejection of cultural relativism and ethical subjectivism

90% of Americans accept, at least in word, some form of relativism

Caritas in Veritate: Content

To love is to desire the person’s good and to take steps to secure it

Defines our common good

Cannot fail to assume the whole human family as a way to shape the earthly city (7)

Caritas in Veritate: Content

The risk for our time is that the de facto interdependence of people and nations is not matched by ethical interaction of conscience 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 (9)

Caritas in Veritate: Content

Progress is a vocation

“In the design of God, every man is called upon to develop and fulfill himself, for every life is a vocation” (16, quot. PP)

Caritas in Veritate: Content

VISION 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 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 mean the consolidation of democratic regimes capable of ensuring freedom and peace. (21)

Primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man, the human person in his or her integrity (25) Profit has a role, but a limited role (21) States ability to safeguard the poor has been

compromised by global economy Two-edge sword of outsourcing

Charity in truth combats the superdevelopment in economics, technology, and practical atheism

Integral human development fosters the interaction of the different levels of knowledge in order to promote the authentic development of peoples (30)

Moral evaluation and scientific research go hand in hand (31)

Human being is made for gift: transcendent dimension

Presumption of Original Sin:

Modern man sees himself as the sole author of himself, his life, and society (34)

Individualism of modernity

The economy has been included for some time in the list of areas where the effects of sin are most evident (34)

Market, in a climate of mutual trust, permits encounters between persons

While the market is subject to commutative justice (giving and receiving between parties in a transaction) the Church emphasizes that it is subject to distributive and social justice (35)

The logic of gift must find a place in market relations

Consider Bob’s Red Mill foods

Without gratuitousness there is no justice. Markets must permit free operation of

enterprises in conditions of equal opportunity Alongside profit, we allow mutualist enterprises and

pursuit of social ends

Profound new way of understanding business enterprises (40) Stakeholders: any one with a stake in the

success of the company• Not just stockholders

Globalization is not a fatalistic process of anonymous impersonal forces

Humanity is becoming increasingly interconnected as a cultural event with causes and effects (42) Should offer benefits Not victims but protagonists

Human solidarity imposes duties

Reality sees an acclimation for rights non-essential in nature while elementary and basic rights are being unacknowledged and violated A right to excess in advanced societies linked

to lack of food and water in poorer societies

Economy needs ethics to function correctly (45)

Man is created in the image of God

The economy is a human activity Not an anonymous process outside our

control

Development programmes must be based on the centrality of the human person as the subject primarily responsible for development (47)

Development must go hand in hand with a relationship to the environment (48) When viewed as the result of pure chance,

our sense of responsibility wanes

Nature expresses a design of love and truth Requires solidarity with developing countries

The way humanity treats the environment influences the way it treats itself and vice versa

The decisive issue of the overall moral tenor of society (51)

Thomas Aquinas St. Francis of Assissi

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 fundamental values of justice and peace (54)

As a spiritual being, human beings are defined through interpersonal relations Rejects modern individualism

The development of peoples requires the recognition that the human race is a single family (53)

The unity of the human race in Christian revelation relies on a metaphysical interpretation of the human as relational (55)

But to offer this contribution there must be a place for God in the public realm Reason and faith purify each other (56)

Solutions to current economic crisis

Development aid for poor countries creates wealth for all (60)

Greater solidarity means greater access to education (61)

An ability to address migration (62) Full employment: right to work (63) Labour unions (64) Finance must be directed toward wealth

creation and development (65)

Globalization

Consumer has specific social responsibility Positive growth: consumers and their

associations (66)• Cooperative purchasing• Requires Market transparency

Globalization

A reform of the United Nations with real teeth To protect and give voice to poorer nations in

effective decision-making

Urgent need for a world political authority

Technology

Challenge of development is linked to technological progress (69) A profound human reality But must remember the hegemony of the

spirit over matter When efficiency and utility are the sole

criterion of truth then development is denied (70)

Technology

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. (74)

Technology

The social question has become a radically anthropological question:

How is life conceived? How is it manipulated as bio-technology

places human life increasingly under man’s control (75)

Is man the product of his own labor or does he depend on God? (74)

Technology

There cannot be holistic development and universal common good unless people’s spiritual and moral welfare is taken into account, considered in their entirety as body and soul (76)

Resurrection of the body

Conclusion

Christian humanism: Enkindles charity Takes lead from truth Both are lasting gifts from God

The End