Union des tudiants catholiques de Lige

Groupe de rflexion sur lthique sociale

Conference

The social thought of Benedict XVI

in the Encyclical Caritas in veritate
Monday, 19th October 2009 Academic Hall of the University of Lige

Union des tudiants catholiques de Lige Groupe de rflexion sur lthique sociale Editeur responsable : Elio Finetti
Quai Orban, 34, (boite 022) e-mail : 4020 Lige info@ethiquesociale.org Tl. : 02 344 25 46 Fax : 02 344 25 48 mobile : 0475 83 61 61 website : http://www.ethiquesociale.org/

Conference on the social thought of Benedict XVI in the Encyclical Caritas in veritate Monday, 19th October 2009. Academic Hall of the University of Lige

HERMAN VAN ROMPUY

President of the European Council1, Former Prime Minister of Belgium

AN ECONOMY AT THE SERVICE OF HUMANITY

I express myself here as a Christian and in a personal capacity. I will not always distinguish between the Encyclical and my own opinions. Teaching is not dogma. A Fresh Vision for Humanity Pope Benedict XVIs third Encyclical follows in a long tradition which began with Leo XIIIs Rerum novarum in 1891. The originality of Caritas in veritate lies in the Popes rather personal reflection on the need for the combined radiance of faith and reason to guide the renewal of the Churchs social teaching in the context of globalization. This refinement enhances the Encyclical as a whole with a novel anthropological vigour. It reminds us how much the social question today - touching on development and globalization, the breakdown of traditional forms of solidarity, the effects of various crises has to be more than just a superficial discussion of procedures and rules. It involves a commitment to a fresh vision for humanity, the very raison dtre for the Churchs interest in socio-economic issues. Why does the Church take an interest in economic questions? Because the Church is interested in the human person in his entirety, body and soul, without separating the material from the immaterial. Contrary to what is often thought, Christianitys vision of the person is not dualist: the dualism that separates body from soul, the soul being all that matters, is not found in the Bible: it comes from Greek philosophy. In the Churchs social teaching, it is the whole person, body and soul, heart and conscience, as well as his place in society and in the natural world that is decisive for the approach taken. In his third Encyclical, Caritas in veritate, Benedict XVI writes: Authentic human development concerns the whole of the person in every single dimension (CV 11). This implies that the Churchs social teaching deals with everything to do with humanity, society and creation: justice, work, liberation, poverty, health, housing, social relations, peace, human rights, economy, ecology This approach finds its justification in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes 23, according to which Christian revelation leads us to a deeper understanding of the laws of social life

The Human Person is not Self-Explanatory But, with Benedict XVI, the Church signals a further qualification. The Church claims not just the competence to contribute to a better understanding of the human condition and to its improvement but in fact claims to hold the only valid key to such an understanding, namely truth. The human person is not self-explanatory. Human life has a deeper, transcendent, meaning which is revealed
1

http://www.european-council.europa.eu/the-institution?lang=en The European Council -is an official institution of the EU which members are the EU heads of state or government.-The European Council defines the general political direction and priorities of the European Union.
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Conference on the social thought of Benedict XVI in the Encyclical Caritas in veritate Monday, 19th October 2009. Academic Hall of the University of Lige

by truth (not the truth of how but the truth of why). This truth is the love incarnate in Christ and expressed in the Trinity. Humanity is willed by God and created by love. The human person is called to return Gods love by loving his neighbour. Humanity is not, then, the product of chance or necessity but the fruit of love. The human person is accountable for what happens in the world, for there is nothing fatalistic about technology or globalization, but he is also dependent on his circumstances. He is subject to this law of love. Responsible but weak, he is a sinner: he has to make an effort to be good. Love (and so truth too) is a constant effort of rediscovery. Love can never be complacent. Because human beings are weak, perfection will never be achieved in this world. The world will always be in need of further improvement. In fact any quest for the definitive form of social organization is dangerous. Such a quest would force human beings to become what they are not and what they can never become. Man is neither angel nor beast; and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the beast (Blaise Pascal). Love is a commandment. In other words, as an ethical critique, Christian faith applies its basic tenets to the situation and unmasks the errors of a purely economic way of thinking. It contrasts the conventional values of the commonly accepted laws of economics with the ultimate purpose of the economy, namely the happiness of the individual and the well-being of society. For the Christian, the economy can never be an end in itself and profit can never be the chief good. The economy is at the service of humanity and not the other way round. The Pope emphasizes this point: 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 (CV 25). All human constructs are transient. They can have no ultimate claim on humanity. No political regime, no social organization and no economic system can ever claim to have achieved definitive salvation. John Paul II, in his Encyclical Centesimus annus (1991) exposes the danger of this claim: When people think they possess the secret of a perfect social organization which makes evil impossible, they also think that they can use any means, including violence and deceit, in order to bring that organization into being. Politics then becomes a secular religion which operates under the illusion of creating paradise in this world (CA 25). In his third Encyclical the present Pope amplifies these ideas: 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 (CV 11). The types of messianism which give promises but create illusions, to use the words of John Paul II that Benedict XVI here makes his own, also deprive the human person of his responsibilities and thereby of his dignity too. Integral human development presupposes the responsible freedom of the individual and of peoples: no structure can guarantee this development over and above human responsibility (CV 17). The Religious Evaluation of the Economy It is in terms of the service it performs that the economy is to be assessed. The religious criteria for this assessment are: human dignity, the human vocation to brotherhood, the demands of justice and peace. It is on these criteria that the Church bases her moral judgment of economic and social realities. And she is moved to make such a judgment whenever the fundamental rights of a person or the salvation of souls require it, according to the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes 76. This is indeed the very raison dtre of the whole series of social Encyclicals.
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The Church regards her social teaching as an integral part of her mission to evangelize. Her social doctrine is a particular dimension of this proclamation: it is a service to the truth which sets us free, writes Benedict XVI (CV 9). It is in the light of the humanist message of the Gospel that the Church claims competence in this area. Nevertheless, this competence is limited to the moral dimension. The Church does not intervene in technical issues any more than she expresses a view on the various models of social organization. Benedict XVIs words make this plain: The Church does not have technical solutions to offer and does not claim to interfere in any way in the politics of States (CV 9). In fact the Churchs social teaching is in no sense an ideology. Its subject matter belongs rather to theology, to moral theology in particular. Benedict XVI draws our attention to a variety of concrete points but always within a theological framework that challenges us about the meaning of the human person and about our allegiances. Following his usual practice the Pope keeps himself in fact above the fray. It is as a theologian that Benedict XVI discusses the economy and so his Encyclical is something akin to a treatise on economic morality. The Churchs social teaching, on the other hand, does indeed engage in a dialogue with philosophy and the social sciences. The Churchs social teaching was born - or, to be more precise, entered upon the beginning of its development - at the end of the 19th century both as a response to the economic realities of the time, in particular the disastrous social consequences of industrialization, and as a reaction to the radical Marxist responses to the same issues. Based on respect for human dignity, which implies in equal measure both freedom and justice, and on the need for social solidarity and reconciliation, the Churchs social teaching rejects both the liberal vision of the free market and the socialist option for class struggle. The former neglects social justice, the latter disrupts social relations. Both these extremes constitute, besides, an infringement of human dignity: the profit motive, pure and simple, reduces the human person (specifically, the worker) to a means of production, the class theory denies the human person his uniquely individual personality. The evolution of the Churchs social teaching since 1891 can be seen as a continual updating of the initial premises adapted to the ever changing circumstances of the economic, social and political situation. The title of the first social Encyclical from 1891, Rerum novarum, still today and more than other social Encyclical, expresses the continuity of this development: the Churchs social teaching is always about new things: industrialization in 1891, globalization in 2009. Just as Leo XIII, in Rerum novarum, did not reject industrialization as such, Benedict XVI, in Caritas in veritate, does not reject globalization: Globalization, a priori, is neither good nor bad. It will be what people make of it (CV 42). Each new social Encyclical is, in some way, a reading of the signs of the times. Each new social Encyclical revisits the concepts used in religious reflection in the light of the new circumstances in which society and the world are evolving. We thus encounter, from encyclical to encyclical, the systematic reappraisal of the same concepts: solidarity, personalism, subsidiarity, social justice. Subsidiarity and Solidarity Benedict XVI too refers to these principles, in particular to the principle of subsidiarity. This is no accident for the principle of subsidiarity first appeared after the great financial crisis of 1929, the Wall Street crash, in the social Encyclical Quadragesimo anno of 1931. Against the background of the present financial crisis Benedict XVI writes: 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 of those in need (CV 58).

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The principle of subsidiarity is necessarily restrictive given that each individual needs to have the opportunity to make his own personal contribution to the general welfare and prosperity. The difficult question is, however, to know how we can, today, put this principle into practice within a united Europe and a globalized world where increasingly decisions are made at a high level inaccessible to the average person even though, as we are fully aware, such decisions can have a decisive influence on each individuals environment, work and responsibility. The Pope may not address this issue directly but he does take the view that 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, if it is not to infringe upon freedom and if it is to yield effective results in practice (CV 57). The objective to be attained is a humanism satisfying the precepts of Gods loving purpose, an integral, interdependent humanism, capable of creating a new social, economic and political order founded on the dignity and freedom of the individual and achieved in peace, justice and solidarity. Benedict XVI writes: Through the systematic 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 (CV 32). In this perspective, the Churchs social teaching recognizes in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights a milestone in the advance of moral progress (John Paul II). Human rights, moreover, arise from the dignity of the human person as a unique individual endowed with responsibilities, a dignity which belongs to all universally and equally. This implies that such rights are matched by corresponding duties. This is why Benedict XVI, on the occasion of his address to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences on 4th May 2009, deplored the flagrant contrast between the equal attribution of rights and the unequal access to the means of attaining those rights and added, For Christians who regularly ask God to give us this day our daily bread, it is a shameful tragedy that one-fifth of humanity still goes hungry. These duties can be summed up in one word: solidarity. Solidarity is a duty arising from the right of every human being to equal dignity, a shared dignity. Added to the individual freedom satisfying our personal dimension solidarity satisfies the properly social dimension of our social organization, The Churchs social teaching places solidarity at the heart of its reflections, for such solidarity expresses the social nature of the human person and needs to be articulated in appropriate structures. The Raison dtre of Political Power It is here that the world of politics, whether at national or international level, has an important role to play. In fact, there is a strong link between solidarity and the general welfare, between solidarity and the overall distribution of goods, between solidarity and peace. Consequently, the general welfare, the reason and purpose that justifies the fact that the human person has not only rights but also duties, represents for the Churchs social teaching more than the totality of the welfare of individuals. It is the good of all of us, suggests the Pope (CV 7). The general welfare does not spontaneously take shape where each individual pursues his own
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welfare. (The Invisible Hand of the Market simply does not exist.) This means that responsibility for the general welfare falls both to the individual and to the State. The Church indeed considers the general welfare to be the raison dtre of political power. It is why the State has the mission and the duty to create an adequate juridical structure to regulate economic affairs in the pursuit of the general welfare. And even the general welfare is not an end in itself: it is at the service of human dignity and of our stewardship of creation. Politics ought to guarantee a structured and civilized community existence respecting both the independence of the individual and the requirements of the general welfare. More than his predecessor John Paul II who, as a Pole, had experienced the massive and destructive impact the State can have on the economy and was rather hesitant about a greater role for the State, Benedict XVI argues in favour of state intervention in the market. He recognises nevertheless that nowadays the States possibilities are limited: 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 (CV 24) Participation and co-responsibility are essential. The social Encyclical Centesimus annus (1991) explicitly addressed the concept of democracy. Authentic democracy is possible only in a State ruled by law, and on the basis of a correct conception of the human person (CA 46). The Church regards as one of the greatest threats to modern democracies the ethical relativism which supposes that there are neither objective criteria nor universal criteria underpinning the hierarchy of values. According to the Churchs social teaching, the political community is born of civil society and at its service. Civil society represents the totality of relationships and goods, both cultural and communitarian, which are relatively independent of politics and the economy. The State the political community is to ensure a juridical structure allowing the social actors (societies, associations, organizations, etc.) to exercise their activities in complete freedom. The State must be ready to intervene, in case of necessity and respecting the principle of subsidiarity, so that the interaction between freedom of association and the democratic process is directed towards the general welfare. In regard to the general welfare, the Church mentions the universal destination of goods (which does not mean that private property ought to be forbidden but certainly that it is subordinate to, and meant to contribute to, the general welfare). God has, in fact, entrusted the Earth to the whole of the human race, namely to the present generations and the generations of tomorrow. Whence the principle of stewardship: the Earth does not belong to us, creation has been entrusted to us on loan. This universal destination of goods, the fact that the Earth and its resources are for the advantage of all, suggests the elaboration of an economic vision focussed on justice and solidarity and offering every human being the opportunity of an integral development. In this sense, everyone has the right to private property since it ensures the necessary freedom and autonomy for personal liberation and fulfilment. This right to private property is, of course, matched by a duty, private property being secondary to the universal destination of goods, the general claim on the Earths resources that belongs to humanity as a whole. The wealthy must not only take account directly of the poor and the needy. Private wealth fulfils its properly economic function when it is invested in the market. Riches fulfil their function of service
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to man when they are destined to produce benefits for others and for society, according to the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (no. 329). Freedom and enterprise are basic values and inalienable rights which ought to be promoted precisely in order to make their benefits more widely available to others. This implies furthermore that for the Catholic Church private property is not an end in itself but an incentive encouraging both personal independence and social solidarity. Profit is a legitimate objective for any economic enterprise. While it does indicate that a business is in a good state of health, taken on its own it is not a guarantee that that business is serving society as well as it might. Profit must always be weighed against due protection of the human dignity of everyone involved. The free market, the most effective instrument for the production and delivery of goods and services, cannot be divorced from the relevant social objectives. The Economic Sphere is not Ethically Neutral This is as far as market thinking can go in economics. In Caritas in veritate we read: 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. () 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. () 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 behaviour, 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 of both charity and truth (CV 36). This Christian premise involves, consequently, a pointed criticism, indeed a condemnation, of the virtual economics of the financial market in recent years which, by no longer seeing money as a means to an end but purely and simply as an end in itself, plunged us into the current crisis. Here the Church is not condemning the international financial market as such, for without an adequate system we would never have experienced either the economic growth or the massive investments of these last decades. The globalization of the economy, in any case, presses individual countries into international collaboration. The target of the Churchs criticism is the financial economy become an end in itself offering neither services nor products. Meant as a means to an end the financial economy had become an end in itself and was as such heading for the crisis that has since come to pass. In Sollicitudo rei socialis (1987) John Paul II warned of the coming crisis:A financial economy that is an end unto itself is destined to contradict its goals, since it is no longer in touch with its roots and has lost sight of its constitutive purpose. In other words, it has abandoned its original and essential role of serving the real economy and, ultimately, of contributing to the development of people and the human community (SRS 369). It was for this reason that John Paul II felt that the international community should play a decisive role in the area of finance in order to regulate its procedures in keeping with this purpose and the general welfare. He argued for an effective international political dimension: The sphere of politics too, just like that of the economy, must be in a position to extend its range of action beyond national boundaries, quickly taking on an operative worldwide dimension which alone will permit it
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to direct the processes now underway not only according to economic parameters but also according to moral criteria (SRS 372). Against the background of the present crisis Benedict XVI goes even further: He argues for a new political authority at world level. At the end of his Encyclical he repeats to this effect the call launched by John XXIII (Pacem in terris, 1963) for an urgent reappraisal of the workings of the United Nations: 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(CV 67). The Biblical Duty to Cultivate and Care for the Earth The whole of modern economic life is a contemporary dimension of the Biblical duty to cultivate and care for the earth (Cfr. Gen 2, 15). This Biblical precept implies, firstly, that work is neither a punishment nor a curse but rather a means to acceptable living conditions and, secondly, that work enjoys a certain priority over capital. Work is a duty the fulfilment of which enhances humanity. Work strengthens human identity and so advances human mastery of the earth. The duty to work entails, consequently, the employers corresponding duty to ensure a just wage and acceptable working conditions so that every individual might exercise this mastery of the earth to an appropriate extent and lead a suitably comfortable life. The Pope requests, more particularly, that emphasis be put on the family, already an important concern in the first social Encyclical Rerum novarum (1891). Family life may not be sacrificed on the altar of the economy: the economy must be at all times at the service of the family. The Churchs insistence on a proper balance between work and family was already the leitmotiv of the first social Encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) and needs to be reformulated in the changed circumstances of the world economy today. We think, for example, of new work-related challenges around relocation, immigration, mechanization, computerization, flexibilization, etc. In all these areas the State has the duty and the responsibility to engage in a pro-active employment policy. Likewise, in a globalized world, it is important to emphasize the human person as the subject and measure of work. Work should never be considered as a mere commodity or an impersonal component of the manufacturing process. Today even more than yesterday work assumes a social dimension. More than ever work now involves collaboration: we work with and for others. Mostly we are now no longer working directly for our own immediate survival. Humanitys Principal Resource is the Human Individual Himself Because of its subjective and personal character work takes precedence over every other component of the economy and productivity. It takes precedence over capital in particular. It is precisely at this time of flexibilization and globalization that we must hold fast to the idea that humanitys principal resource is the human individual himself. The new situation created by the globalized economy poses new challenges for solidarity and for the social question, the current res novae: new forms of production, flexibilization, redeployment, a different organization of work - all consequences of the transition from an industrial economy to a service-based and knowledge-based economy. There is a great risk that much of what has traditionally been understood as work will no longer find a place in the new economy. The subjective dimension of work may get lost altogether as further advances in technology make human work ever less necessary. At the finish there may no
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longer be much respect for human work as such and the individual human person, as a result, may find himself less valued than the technology on which he has come to depend so entirely. Benedict XVI writes: Technology enables us to exercise dominion over matter, to reduce risks, to save labour, to improve our conditions of life. It touches the heart of the vocation of human labour: 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 whose origin and raison dtre 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. () 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, 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 (CV 69-70). Likewise, in the context of globalization, we need to develop an adequate hierarchy of values ensuring that economic activity and material progress continue to serve the human person and society guided by an integral humanism based on solidarity. The present Pope is against a fatalistic approach to globalization as if the dynamics involved were the product of anonymous impersonal forces or structures independent of the human will. In this regard it is useful to remember that while globalization should certainly be understood as a socio-economic process, humanity itself is becoming increasingly interconnected; it is made up of individuals and peoples to whom this process should offer benefits and development, 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 (CV 42). Respect for nature finds its place here too. Humanity may be master of nature but should not exploit it in an arbitrary fashion. Nature cannot be reduced to its utilitarian value to humanity but there can be no question either of placing it above the human person and making it an absolute value. Benedict XVI does not hesitate to throw a stone into the ecologists garden when he stresses that it is contrary to authentic human development to view nature as something more important than the human person (CV 48). The protection of the environment is a challenge facing the whole of humanity for it is the shared property of the generations of today and tomorrow. The future of our planet and of humanity depends on what we do today. The Swiss writer Denis de Rougement remarked in his book Lavenir est notre affaire (1977): Yesterday we could still start from the past when judging the present and even the future Today we must start from the future. Protecting Human Life is a Fundamental Dimension of Ecology The Churchs social teaching as a whole is closely linked to the Churchs commitment to the protection of human life, in other words to the protection of the creation in general and of humanity in particular. For the Pope, concern for the human person (including respect for life and opposition to genetic manipulation) is inseparable from concern for the environment and the future of creation. This is an urgent human responsibility. In this sense Benedict XVI continues the teaching of John Paul II in Centesimus annus that when human ecology is respected within society,
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environmental ecology also benefits (CV 51). In the end everything depends on the human person and his acts. The final end of the Churchs social teaching is the promotion of a civilization of love. Here the Encyclical Caritas in veritate takes up afresh earlier thinking on the integral and authentic development of the human individual. The notion owes much to the philosopher Jacques Maritain, who argued for a Christian philosophy based on experience and reason, and to the Dominican Louis-Joseph Lebret, a pioneer in development theory. Pope Paul VI enlarged upon it in his Encyclical Populorum progressio (1967) which, according to the present Pope, deserves to be considered the Rerum novarum of the present age (CV 8). Benedict XVI makes abundant reference to Populorum progressio and other writings of Paul VI for the light they shed on his own study of the new questions of globalization, the protection of the environment, sustainable development, the financial system and the economic and social consequences of globalization. Moreover, writes Benedict XVI, an evaluation is needed of the different terms in which the problem of development is presented today, as compared with forty years ago (CV 10). The human being, the personalist principle, is at the heart of this reflection but in full awareness that the human being is a sinner called to salvation. The Churchs social teaching looks beyond feasibility to perfectibility. The difference resides in the fact that in the case of feasibility an elite or an authority can determine what is to be expected of a human individual whereas in the case of perfectibility it is the human conscience that is challenged. In essence, nothing is bad in itself. Not finance, not the market, not globalization. Perversity resides only in the passions that press us to privilege this or that mechanism in the naked pursuit of profit. Conversely, nothing can be genuinely good that does not lead to integral human development. Even more forcefully than his predecessors the present Pope appeals to personal conscience and calls for personal conversion. In his view no social or economic justice is possible independently of the personal morality of the individual. Where the individual is wanting in inward equilibrium, so his thesis runs, there can be no social stability either. This is implicit in the concept of caritas, charity, which Benedict XVI places at the core of his teaching. This can seem strange at first glance for we are more used, when discussing social problems, to employ the concept of justice. Charity has to do especially with our personal lives and relationships. Benedict XVI applies it no less to the macro-relationships of politics and economics. He is convinced that it is in principle a failure of charity that has led us to the present economic and financial crisis: selfishness has uncoupled the achievement of profit from the other purposes of the economy, thus destroying prosperity and creating poverty. The Illusion of Autonomy and the Vanity of Feasibility The Pope finds this self-centred attitude not just in the lack of charity but also in the illusion of autonomy and the vanity of feasibility. He writes that modern man goes astray when he imagines that he can, on his own, make a success of his life and of society. Whoever has to, or wants to, achieve absolutely everything by himself loses sight of the common good of society, of the world, of nature and of the human family. Where economic, social or political systems are built on notions of feasibility and autonomy genuine human freedom suffers. The Pope writes, Truth which is itself gift, in the same way as charity is greater than we are. 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
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fraternal communion transcending every barrier, is called into being by the word of God-who-islove (CV 34). Having sought his inspiration in Saint Augustine, Benedict XVI comes across, more than any of his predecessors in the earlier social Encyclicals, as a theologian. By adopting this markedly theological, and at times very spiritual, tone this Encyclical runs the risk of carrying less weight politically. Perhaps, though, this spiritual tone is just what the world needs at present. We must acknowledge that the only convincing option is a new humanist synthesis equal to the complexity and gravity of the situation to which the planet is now at last waking up. This Encyclical is a contribution towards that new synthesis. I have tried to offer a synthesis of the tentative papal synthesis that is Caritas in veritate. oOo

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ROCCO BUTTIGLIONE
Vice-President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies President of the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC) Professor of Politics at the Saint Pius V University, Rome Founding Member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences

AN ALTERNATIVE FOUNDATION FOR THE WORLD ECONOMY.

I would like, first of all, to thank you for the honour you have accorded me in inviting me to present Benedict XVIs Encyclical Caritas in veritate in your country. Belgium has been one of the countries in which the Catholic movement has been the most strongly engaged in remedying the human sufferings caused by industrialisation and in building new forms of life more worthy of man. The Encyclical Rerum novarum likewise, with which we habitually begin the history of Christian social teaching, was born in large measure of the concerns arising, at the period, from the experiences of lively solidarity conducted in your country and of reflection on these experiences. What is Love? The Encyclical we are considering has as its title: Caritas in veritate, Love in the Truth. Let us pause for a moment to reflect on this title which anticipates, in a sense, the entire content of the Encyclical. It concerns the essence of love. What is love? How many different things have passed and pass every day under the heading of love! Sigmund Freud has taught us that all human feelings are ambiguous, even the purest of them; and Oscar Wilde, in The Ballad of Reading Gaol, has written that each man kills the thing he loves. Is the murderers love love? Is it the love of the other that is murdered or is it the love of oneself and of the image one has constructed of the other, to such a point as not to tolerate the failure of the illusion one had made of him? There is true love and false love, and there is no true love without truth. True love knows the truth of the other, the authentic vocation of the other and commits ones own life in order that this vocation may be realised. It is no part of love to be complicit in the illusions the other entertains about himself, it is no part of love to pretend to believe in an image of the other that does not correspond to the truth. The dominant mentality of our times often requires a love without truth, a complicity useful for avoiding conflicts. But can a father asked by a son: Give me money to buy drugs, simply reply: Here is the money, go and drug yourself? Would true love not be rather that of the father who refuses to cooperate with his sons self-destruction and who tries, instead, to press him to take care of himself and live? There is no true love without an ability to say no. True love says yes when it is yes and no when it is no. In his introduction, Benedict XVI tells us that his lesson will be a lesson on true love in the framework of social and economic relations, on true love in contemporary history which is
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unfolding today before our eyes, on love for the common good of nations and of all humanity. I have said that contemporary history is unfolding before our eyes. It would be appropriate to add that this history which is unfolding before our eyes is at the same time the work of our hands. We are not simply spectators but actors in this history and responsible for the good and the evil that happen in it. Too often we think that the worlds misfortunes are always and only the responsibility of others. On the contrary, we too are responsible by our actions and by our omissions, by what we do and by what we refuse to do. We are history. And so there is no isolated salvation for each one of us that is not also salvation for others, that does not equally contain within itself the effort to construct the salvation and advantage of others. Technology in the Service of Humanity The first chapter of the Encyclical is devoted to the message of Paul VIs Populorum progressio. Let us try to evoke afresh the climate of hope and expectation within which Paul VI wrote his Populorum progressio. Those were the years in the course of which humanity became aware for the first time of the extraordinary development of modern science and technology. At the same time, an awareness also developed of the situation of degradation and despair in which the greater part of humanity was living: condemned to underdevelopment, hunger, sickness and early death. It was of course true that vast continents had always lived in these conditions and Europe too had only recently emerged from them. Previously, however, these conditions had been seen as an inevitable necessity inviting resignation. Now, in contrast, we disposed of the technical means to feed all the hungry of the earth. We could do it and yet we did not do it. It is there that a moral responsibility arose. The social question had become worldwide. Those who believed in the power of technology expected (and expect) technology to solve all the problems and had a tendency to consider the problem of development too as an eminently technical problem. Someone has called the twentieth century the century of technology: some have made a divinity of it, others a sort of monster that destroys and consumes all values. The Churchs judgment has always been different. Technology is an instrument at the service of man. If technology comes to dominate and consumes the world of values, it is because philosophy and theology have committed suicide and in the vacuum created technology has inherited their functions without being, however, capable of exercising them. In this spirit Paul VI tells us that the problem of hunger is not principally a technological problem but a moral problem. Technology can do everything but does not know what ought to be done. It is the human heart that must tell technology what has to be done. That is why Paul VI says that the Church has not technological solutions to propose but that she is an expert in humanity, she speaks from the human heart to the human heart. A renewed heart will use all things differently and will renew all things. The Economy Needs Truth In 1989, over twenty years ago, communism collapsed, the gigantic ideological system which claimed to have solved the human problem through its understanding of society. Decisive in its fall was the great witness of faith and culture of the Polish nation inspired and guided by John Paul II and the Catholic Church. Nevertheless there were many who considered that communism did not give way before the unarmed challenge of the witnesses of truth but rather before the overwhelming strength of the capitalist system. In the years since we have seen a development more cultural than social in which the answer to every question seems to be: the market, ever more the market. The current enormous crisis has awoken us all from this infatuation and today we face the failure of this model too. What are the deeper reasons that have precipitated this crisis? I believe that the most truthful answer is: a lack of truth. The economy needs truth just as morality needs truth. We have instead created a virtual economy ever further and further away from the real economy.
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In the virtual economy pennies - money are like rabbits: they multiply at a vertiginous rate. Ever more sophisticated financial products whose real content is less and less transparent are exchanged at ever increasing prices until somebody asks the question: But, this or that security, how much is it really worth? Pennies are not rabbits. To produce more pennies, to produce profits, they have to be lent to a businessman who uses them to take on workers, to buy equipment and raw materials, to produce goods and services and then to succeed in selling these goods and services at a price higher than the production costs. Finance ought to be at the service of business and the real economy. When this truth is forgotten the economy becomes like a stella nova that shines dramatically for a certain time and then blows out. At present we are all trying to restart the economy and it even seems that, in a way, we are succeeding. It seems to me, nevertheless, that we are trying to restart the old model that has failed. The Encyclical invites us to ask ourselves the following question: Is another model possible? Praise of the Regulated Market Before answering this question let us clarify a possible misunderstanding. The Encyclical is not against the market. In fact it praises the market as a valuable form of human freedom. At the centre of the market economy there is in fact the meeting of two free wills, each with some asset at its disposal, and their interaction. The market however resembles animal instincts (Milton Friedman has spoken of the animal spirits of capitalism); they are positive in themselves but negative per accidens. In fact they can escape the control of reason and be prey to vices, to violence or to sloth. Likewise the energies unleashed by the market can turn against humanity and it is the task of politics to contain these energies. The market needs to be contained (in the double sense of limited and supported) by strong ethical, cultural, political and religious institutions. Every society, besides, lives through exchange of equivalents (the market) but also through disinterested exchange. It is a mistake to contrast disinterestedness with the market and not only because every human society has need of both. A business is not only a company with assets but equally a community of persons who cannot be linked solely by fear and the lure of profit. The more the authenticity and solidarity of human relationships are created in business, the more business will be also economically successful and flexible in adapting to the changing requirements of competition. This opens up once again the discussion on worker participation in management and responsibility for the business. The new model that we need is not a model without the market, much less a model against the market. It is about a model capable of integrating the market in a larger perspective of building a human community. A Different Model for Emerging from the Crisis Let us return to the question that we provisionally left aside. Is a different model from the one that so dramatically led to a crisis possible? In the old model the driving force for development was the overconsumption of the rich countries (especially the U.S.A.) which was being financed by the poor countries who were lending the rich countries the money to continue consuming beyond their means. The poor countries too ultimately derived some advantages from the system in producing the merchandises the rich countries would be buying in their overconsumption. Development was however distorted and unequal and it led to new inequalities. We are used, for example, to talking with admiration about the development of China, but there are probably two Chinas, a country of some hundreds of millions of inhabitants that has come very close to western levels of production and consumption and another China with perhaps a billion inhabitants which has remained totally excluded from this development. Is it possible that the new development could have as its driving force investment in the poor countries in order to improve their living conditions and release their potentials? The poor countries ought to be encouraged to invest their reserves in their own
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development and the great flows of international capital ought to be channelled to the same purpose. Would the developed countries also benefit? But of course: the poor countries would buy from the rich countries the goods and services for better living. Such a project necessitates a different system of global finance which includes, as we have already seen, two points: to bring finance back to the service of the real economy and to direct the great flows of money, as a matter of priority, towards the development of the poor countries. A coordination of the world economy is necessary. The Encyclical places no confidence in a world super-state but seems convinced of the fact that we have need of new and more comprehensive organs of global governance as well as an improvement in the functioning of the existing organs. Globalization has released extraordinary energies for economic development but has weakened our ability to control and direct them. Capital resources move freely, sometimes abandoning countries in which they are subject to more restrictive regulation for the protection of workers or the environment or the public in general. We need to globalise as well our systems regulating finance and protecting workers rights, the right to health, the environment, etc. It might be possible to emerge from the crisis in some different way but to do this we need new people, people renewed in spirit, people renewed by the Spirit. The problems that face us are not technical but above all ethical. They are political problems. It is in fact politics that negotiates between ethics and technology. It is politics that defines the rules of the market (which is not, let us remember, an absence of rules, but a rule). In politics too we need new people, renewed by the Spirit, and not individual personalities but a collective assumption of responsibilities on the part of our peoples. We need to rediscover the taste of a true love. For who, after all, in life, could be satisfied with a false love?

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MICHEL SCHOOYANS
Prelate of Honour of His Holiness Professor Emeritus of the Catholic University of Louvain Founder Member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life Member of the Mexican Academy of Bioethics Consultor of the Pontifical Council for the Family

A General Presentation of Pope Benedicts Third Encyclical Caritas in Veritate

Caritas in veritate (Charity in truth) published in 2009 is the third panel of the triptych Caritas in veritate (Charity in truth) published in 2009 is the third panel of the triptych of Encyclicals given us thus far by Pope Benedict XVI. His first Encyclical, Deus caritas est [God is love] appeared in 2005 followed by Spe salvi [Saved in hope] in 2007. In these three major texts, Benedict XVI returns, without ever repeating himself, to a central theme already present in his writings before he became Pope. This key theme can be summed up in one sentence: It is only in being open to God that the human being reaches his full potential. This holds true for our personal activity and for all forms of social activity as well. Without God the individual stumbles into relativism and loses the beacons indispensible for human action. Love, its origin in God, is the principle of micro-relations no less than macro-relations. To shine forth love needs to be rooted in truth: that truth whose fragile flame burns always in the human heart, that truth God offers us in revealing himself to us, in speaking to us, in coming to share our existence. In a culture without truth, love faces a deadly peril: it risks becoming an empty shell ready to be filled by anything that comes along. Love without truth ends in sentimentality; truth without love ends in a soulless technicity. Such, in essence, is the content of this Encyclical. What is an Encyclical? An Encyclical is a circular letter addressed by the Pope to all the Faithful and often intended for all people of goodwill as well. In their letters recent Popes have taken up such topical questions as education, marriage, liturgy, contemporary ideologies, etc. Since Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), some twenty encyclicals have dealt with social questions. Particular mention should be made of the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, entitled The Church in the Modern World, promulgated by the Second Vatican Council in 1965. In preparing an encyclical the Popes always have recourse to advisors of their own choosing. At the behest of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) two dicasteries (corresponding to permanent commissions) are the privileged advisers of the Holy Father in the preparation of social encyclicals, namely the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (the present structure of which
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was redefined in 1988) and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences founded in 1994 and presided over by Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. The Pope also seeks the advice of experts. The preparation of an encyclical is often spread over several years. Continuity Like all the social encyclicals, Caritas in veritate has its own historical context. Benedict XVI is careful to show how much the Church owes to Paul VIs well-known encyclical Populorum progressio [The Development of Peoples] of 1967, thus emphasizing the continuity of the Churchs social teaching. It is however constantly necessary to revisit this teaching, for in the course of time human societies evolve, the international scene changes, analytic techniques improve, theological reflection moves on. Thus continuity is never mere repetition. Benedict XVI makes his own the underlying intention of his predecessors but without repeating what they may have written, for example, on remuneration for work: he looks afresh at the same issues as they arise today. New Light The problems already touched upon by previous popes now need to be seen in a new light. A few examples will suffice to highlight the original approach developed in Caritas in veritate in regard to questions already treated in preceding encyclicals. 1. Since 1968 we have somehow advanced in our awareness of humanity as one single community. The interdependence of individuals and of societies has strengthened; it is now better understood; in particular, it is now closer than it ever has been. Wars, natural disasters, the recent financial crisis to mention only these examples have led to a revision of our analysis of globalization. 2. As a consequence, the Pope explains, relationships between States are evolving rapidly. The role of national States is changing ad extra, i.e., on the international scene, and ad intra, i.e., in relations between the State and civil society. 3. The encyclical also draws attention to the evolution of the role played by economic decisionmaking instances in international life and in the life of nations. This new role is not without its influence on politics. 4. Since Paul VIs well-known encyclical, Populorum progressio, freedom of religion has often been eroded and indeed flouted. Benedict XVI insists that through the act of faith the human person finds fulfilment, for the most intimate interpersonal relationship we can freely develop is that which unites us to God. Where this freedom is flouted human beings risk being stunted in their humanity. 5. The Pope also takes a new approach to the right to life, a theme so often treated by John Paul II. Together with the questions grouped under the heading of bioethics, the right to life is dealt with as a problem of social morality. Where the right to life is challenged, the institution of the family risks being undermined. And challenging the family risks in turn depriving society of its natural foundation. Hence the need for a more serious consideration of the limits to the right of the state, and international organisations and NGOs, to intervene in these matters. Hence also the need to work towards new measures insuring a better protection of human life from conception to natural death.
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Some New Problems The Encyclical Caritas in Veritate also identifies some new problems to which it devotes sustained attention. 1. Benedict XVI notes firstly the decline of the ideologies that were dominant in the course of the twentieth century. This decline however often gives way to the rise of a new form of ideology whose roots go back to positivist scientism. Just as in that view then science was going to answer every possible question regarding human life and destiny, so today many take the view that the advances of technology generally and of some technologies in particular are going to allow us to resolve every problem we encounter. Here we are thinking, in first place, of the technological mastery of biological life, eugenics, the management of death, etc. 2. We think too of our new relationship with nature, that is to say, with our environment. In its original manifestations, the ecological movement appealed to the responsibility of all for avoiding the waste of material resources, the emission of toxic gases, the extinction of threatened species, etc. In certain of its current expressions the ecologist movement diverges into two worrying tendencies. On the one hand, we notice one trend tending to concede to bio-medical researchers the right to intervene on the human being without worrying too much about the consequences these interventions could involve in the short or long term. On the other hand, another trend would have us surrender to Mother Earth, Gaa, considering humanity to be nothing more than one expression among others of a purely material evolution. 3. Among the new problems we find likewise the issue of respect for the cultural identity of individual human societies. In many countries this identity is frequently threatened by certain perverse effects of globalization in its political and economic dimensions. This cultural levelling is furthered by the sometimes abusive use of the new technologies of communication. 4. The Encyclical also addresses a problem that few moralists and bio-ethicists have considered up to now, namely the aging of the population. This is a problem which affects all the countries of Europe, but which is beginning also to affect other countries of the world. In a third of these countries the birth rate has fallen so low that the population is no longer replacing itself. 5. Another of the Encyclicals key points emphasizes that, in a business enterprise, the pursuit of social welfare can be compatible with the pursuit of profit. Trade and profit, however legitimate, do not of themselves fully honour the just requirements of social morality. Whence the place to be made, in social relationships, for the logic of gift upon which the Pope insists at length. 6. Much noted also is the Popes attention to small businesses benefitting from micro-credits. The Holy Father thus encourages the many successful projects in the developing countries that are confirmed by experience and encouraged by world-class economists. 7. Beyond the problems we have mentioned numerous others are touched upon in the Encyclical. Poverty, ignorance, corruption, injustices, contempt for or perversion of the law, violence: none of all this is inevitable provided people take seriously their moral responsibilities. The Choice of the Star In order that people might be able to face up to the many social problems that arise today, Benedict XVI sets before them a message full of hope. This message can be set out in a few
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fundamental points, several of which have already been addressed in other of the Popes texts. What is new is that in Caritas in veritate, Benedict XVI returns to these points to give an altogether original impetus to the Churchs social teaching. The Pope reinvigorates the natural sociability of the human being. We are naturally inclined to be well disposed towards our fellow human beings. Human society has no future if the principle of brotherhood is overlooked or misunderstood. But Benedict XVI gives the Churchs social teaching a status and an importance which had not up to now been revealed. Before I conclude I would like to explain briefly this essential point which will permit a glimpse of some of the developments that the Encyclical will not fail to inspire. Let us return to the reflection we initiated at the beginning of this communication. Man, we were saying, following Benedict XVI, only fully becomes himself if he opens himself to God. But how is this opening experienced? As Avital Wohlman(1), Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has brilliantly demonstrated, according to the Jews, we are saved by our efforts to respect the Law. For Jesus, as Saint Paul teaches in Romans and Galatians, it is God who makes us righteous, i.e., saints. God makes us righteous, sanctifies us, in coming close to us through grace, and God expects of us that we freely respond, through faith, to his intervention in our history. This is also what Saint John writes in the Prologue to his Gospel. Whether Jews or pagans, human beings are justified by God alone. Even the Jews have need of God to be truly righteous, to open themselves to perfect righteousness, to holiness. As for the pagans, - and we are almost all in a certain fashion pagans their situation is different from that of the Jews on a fundamental point: God has revealed himself to them only after manifesting himself to the Jews. He is however present in their conscience and some of them have acknowledged his imprint in nature or in humanity. But this human quest, however praiseworthy, when left to its own devices, leads, for many, only to failure. For while the Law has been given by God to the Jews, and this Law has contained, with them, idolatry and immorality(2), the pagans, to whom the Law and the divine Word have been offered only very much later, have been abandoned to the idolatry of the elements of the world and to their carnal passions, which their reason has not been able to restrain. The pagans have been able to arrive at a limited knowledge of God that has not been sufficient to keep them from sinning. A fortiori, when human beings reject the light shining in their heart that would give God, so to speak, a chance to be able to reveal himself, then, having decided to deprive themselves of God, they are left open, as Saint Paul explains (Romans 1), to all sorts of errors about themselves and others, about society and nature. In the preceding Encyclicals the Popes mentioned this doctrine, central to Saint Paul, showing the unhappy consequences of misunderstandings about God in the lives of individual human beings. Caritas in veritate goes further still by showing the unhappy consequences of misunderstandings about God in the life of societies. From time immemorial there have always been people who expected nothing from God. Today there are entire societies which expect nothing of God and thus abandon themselves to all kinds of shameful behaviours by the very fact of their methodical rejection of God. The pagans of yesterday and today are exposed, as Saint Paul says, to the wrath of God(3) for by their impiety and indecencies they keep Truth the hostage of injustice and imprison the human capacity for love. In Caritas in veritate, as in his well-known Regensburg lecture(4) and other documents, Benedict XVI wants to preserve human reason and reconcile it with the revealed Word. The Pope acknowledges, with the First Vatican Council (1869-1870), that God can be known through human
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reason and can be discovered in creation. He invites all the people of today Jews, pagans, Christians not to lapse into any of the irrational idolatries of the present day: for example, the idolatry in which the world around us is no longer recognized as a gift offered by God to responsible human knowledge and action; or another example the idolatry in which the human being is sacrificed because he is no longer acknowledged as brother or as the image of God. For Benedict, a society that aborts its children is a society that aborts its future. Benedict XVI invites the Jews to remember that the Law was only given to Moses so that they might be converted and accept, in a purified heart, the Word made flesh foretold by the Prophets and pointed out by John the Baptist. The Pope invites the pagans to realise that by resenting God, or ignoring him in theory or in practice, they are left in thrall to the idols of modernity and pleasure and allow themselves to be overly impressed by death. The Pope invites the Church to proclaim, in a world in radical upheaval, that human beings have received an intelligence equal to grasping the imprint of God and loving in truth. Benedict XVIs Encyclical thus offers everyone Jew, pagan, Christian an immense message of hope. All the social problems that confront us can be solved on condition that we overcome the ideological distortions of human reason. For many, this rehabilitation of reason begins with the revival of the flame flickering in the depths of their heart. For everyone, at a given moment, this rehabilitation of human reason depends on a decisive choice: the choice of Herod or the choice of the Magi from the East. Dear friends, may we, like those ancient wise men, make the right choice and follow the star that leads to Bethlehem! Michel Schooyans <michel.schooyans@uclouvain.be>
See Avital WOHLMAN, Thomas dAquin et Mamonide. Un dialogue exemplaire, avec une prface dIsaac Leibowitz, Paris, ditions du Cerf, 1988. 2 Cf. Mk 10, 2-12. 3 Rm 1, 17 and this whole passage; see also Rom 3 and Rom 8, 1ff. th 4 The official English version of Pope Benedicts lecture given at Regensburg on 12 September 2006 can be found at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_benxvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html
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Bibliography
Benedict XVIs Encyclical Caritas in veritate of 29th June 2009 can be found at : http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-inveritate_en.html I have made use of a number of particularly authoritative commentaries on the Encyclical published in Osservatore Romano: Giampaolo Crepaldi, Jean-Yves Naudet, Cardinal Andr Vingt-Trois (OR, 21st July 2009), Stefano Magnani, Giuseppe Tamburrano (OR, 28th July 2009), Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Xavier Darcos (OR, 4th August 2009), etc. Among the numerous dossiers already devoted to Caritas in veritate I would mention in particular that published in Libert politique, 46, September 2009, under the title Caritas in veritate, Une anthropologie du don; see pages 3382. oOo

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