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Encyclical breaks new ground, commentators say |
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By Nancy Frazier O'Brien - Catholic News Service
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Wednesday, 15 July 2009 |
Pope Benedict XVI’s new encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate” (“Charity in Truth”), breaks new ground on such topics as microfinancing, intellectual property rights, globalization and the concept of putting one’s wealth at the service of the poor, according to Catholic scholars and church leaders.
In interviews with Catholic News Service and in statements about the
encyclical released July 7 at the Vatican, commentators said the more
than 30,000-word document takes on a variety of issues not previously
addressed in such a comprehensive way.
“I was surprised . . . at how wide-ranging it is,” said Kirk Hanson, a
business ethics professor at Santa Clara University in California and
executive director of the Jesuit-run university’s Markkula Center for
Applied Ethics. “It’s not just an updating of ‘Populorum Progressio’”
(“The Progress of Peoples”), the 1967 social encyclical by Pope Paul
VI, he added.
Hanson said he also was struck by Pope Benedict’s concept of
“gratuitousness” or “giftedness,” which reminds people “not to consider
wealth ours alone” and asks the wealthy to “be ready to put [their
money] in service for the good of others.”
The encyclical is “a plea for the wealthiest on the planet to put their wealth toward the development of peoples,” he said.
Terrence W. Tilley, who chairs the theology department at Jesuit-run
Fordham University in New York and is immediate past president of the
Catholic Theological Society of America, said one unique aspect of the
encyclical is Pope Benedict’s “vision that all flows from the love of
God.”
“It’s unusual as a theological reflection on social justice,” he said. “But that’s what holds it all together.”
Tilley said the encyclical makes a “pedagogical attempt to get people
out of the mindset that charity is just giving money to those poor
people over there.”
The Fordham professor also said he was “delighted to see the strength
with which [Pope Benedict] supports labor organizations.” But the pope
also stresses “the responsibility of both management . . . and labor to
take care of and be responsible to other than their own
constituencies,” he added.
The current president of the Catholic Theological Society of America,
Father Bryan N. Massingale, called the encyclical “a welcome
contribution to the discussion of how Christians should think and act
in a global economy.”
An associate professor of theological ethics at Marquette University in
Milwaukee, Father Massingale said the encyclical’s “most challenging
insight . . . is its repeated criticism of the short-term thinking and
profit-making that has dominated our financial markets and political
discussions on the economy.”
Pope Benedict’s “support for the longer view, as well as for active
participation in the political process to ensure that financial markets
serve the needs of all, and not simply those with access to wealth,
will definitely challenge the usual political discourse in this
country, if we have the courage to take his call seriously,” he added.
Developing a broader perspective
Father Massingale, a Milwaukee archdiocesan priest, also said that,
although the pope’s support for the labor movement “is hardly
surprising to those familiar with Catholic social teaching, the force
with which Benedict reaffirms the role of labor unions in the pursuit
of economic justice is unmistakable.”
Father Massingale noted that the encyclical also “calls upon unions to
adopt a more international perspective in light of the global mobility
of labor” — a call that the theologian said “could spur creative
thought in revitalizing movements for worker justice.”
Bishop Michael P. Driscoll of Boise, Idaho, said the encyclical will be
particularly helpful in these “difficult times for the poor in Idaho or
anywhere around the world.”
“The Holy Father, who has seen the terrible toll these times have
taken, has given us a new vision on which to build a just economy,
where all can thrive, not merely the rich and powerful,” he said. “We
cannot achieve true prosperity unless it is built upon a foundation of
justice and care for all, including the poor.”Archbishop Donald W.
Wuerl of Washington said the encyclical is “very welcome and
particularly timely as our political and economic leaders struggle to
address the devastating global economic crisis.”
The document also notes that “responsibility does not stop at a nation’s borders nor does it fall solely to political leaders,” the archbishop said. “Universal human truths about human dignity transcend geographic, economic and political boundaries.”
Guidance in search for truth
Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the encyclical provides helpful guidance for finding answers to the social, economic and moral questions of the contemporary world in a search for truth.
The document offers sound reflections on the vocation of human development as well as on the moral principles on which a global economy must be based, he added.
“This encyclical offers a powerful warning to the modern world — especially the West,” said Steve Schneck, director of the Life Cycle Institute at The Catholic University of America in Washington. “It speaks to the dangers of commerce, popular culture and technology unhinged from a vision for the common good informed by charity.”
Vincent Miller, associate professor of theology at Georgetown University in Washington, said Pope Benedict “rejects the dominant vision of economics as abstract, technological efficiency” and “calls for a revisioning of economics as an essentially moral undertaking.”
Andrew Abela, an associate professor of marketing who chairs the department of business and marketing at Catholic University, said the pope’s main message is “that spiritual development is essential to development, and that ‘even in the most difficult and complex times, besides recognizing what is happening, we must above all else turn to God’s love.’”
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