Reviewing Caritas in Veritate

Posted on | July 7, 2009 | 3 Comments

After much speculation about its contents, the new papal encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, was released earlier today. You can read the full text here. I’m curious how orthodox capitalists like Michael Novak are going to respond to this text. My notes after a first read-through:

Benedict advances the argument that love and truth must be linked together as we pursue economic justice. In good Augustinian fashion, he writes: “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.”

Love, however, must be not emptied of truth, or it loses its power to transform: “Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way.”

When applied to our concept of economic justice, caritas in veritate must not be construed as some contradictory force to justice, since “justice is inseparable from charity.” Charity both supports justice, and also extends beyond earthly justice into future grace: “It strives to build the earthly city according to law and justice. On the other hand, charity transcends justice and completes it in the logic of giving and forgiving.” Our labors toward charity have a real effect on the earthly city, he argues, and help to build the common good even now in a fallen world.

Benedict follows this with a warning that technology and “relationships of utility” are not sureties for the preservation of the common good. The increasing globalization of the marketplace must be answered by “the potential of love that overcomes evil with good.” Utopian visions offer false promises of autonomy — false freedom. In answer to this messianic idea of progress, the Christian vision emphasizes the human element of vocation, which must encompass “the whole man and every man, [or] it is not true development.”

In his second chapter, Benedict suggests that the recent economic crisis has offered us a chance to pause and discern a “new vision for the future.” He points out that even as overall wealth continues to grow globally, inequality has marked our monetary progress:

Among those who sometimes fail to respect the human rights of workers are large multinational companies as well as local producers. International aid has often been diverted from its proper ends, through irresponsible actions both within the chain of donors and within that of the beneficiaries…. On the part of rich countries there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care. At the same time, in some poor countries, cultural models and social norms of behaviour persist which hinder the process of development.

Benedict returns to the themes of Catholic social teaching, emphasizing the need to protect the rights of common workers, the need for greater public involvement (perhaps contra the centralized State), and the re-centering of the interests of man over mammon (“the primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man, the human person in his or her integrity”). Our concern for true human development should reveal itself in protecting basic human needs, including: access to food and water and the ability to secure a livelihood. We should guard against the moral problem of an ever increasing income disparity between the rich and the poor. In fact, Benedict argues, every economic decision is ultimately a moral decision. And as such, “justice must be applied to every phase of economic activity.”

All of this requires a “profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise.” The old order has fallen under its own weight. The prioritization of holders of capital over actual laborers has led to greed. We must work to re-center our values locally:

The so-called outsourcing of production can weaken the company’s sense of responsibility towards the stakeholders — namely the workers, the suppliers, the consumers, the natural environment and broader society — in favour of the shareholders, who are not tied to a specific geographical area and who therefore enjoy extraordinary mobility.

Businesses must be held morally and socially accountable. The common collaboration of the State and big business has disengaged the laborer from his labor. Instead, “every worker should have the chance to make his contribution knowing that in some way ‘he is working for himself.’”

In the following chapters, Benedict draws out both our responsibility to consider the natural (ecological) world, and the deeper human relationships across national and economic boundaries. We do not live in a zero-sum world. And the way to restore these charitable relationships with nature and our fellow men begins with a realization of the public nature of faith. Christians as citizens are uniquely motivated to work toward justice, since they have a transcendent allegiance to the world. Public life is a life of faith.

As the world grows smaller, globalization requires a Christian response. Benedict acknowledges that globalization needs an authority structure, but prefers the traditional Catholic idea of having it “organized in a subsidiary and stratified way,” rather than in a centralized bureaucracy. And as we re-prioritize the global common good, we must remember our less fortunate brothers: “development aid for poor countries must be considered a valid means of creating wealth for all.”

In his conclusion, Benedict calls for increased engagement with the political and economic order. Love motivates God’s people to “move beyond the limited and the ephemeral,” to work toward economic justice and the common good, even if the results are always less than we had hoped.

Comments

3 Responses to “Reviewing Caritas in Veritate”

  1. Austin Storm
    July 9th, 2009 @ 1:44 pm

    Sounds pretty good to me!

  2. The Pope’s Very Political Encyclical « Everyday Thomist
    July 18th, 2009 @ 1:27 pm

    [...] a lengthy encyclical but if you choose, you can read the full text here. Or you can just peruse this very useful [...]

  3. Post Right » Re: Caritas in Veritate
    February 6th, 2010 @ 1:05 am

    [...] defense as these dissenters attack him!) at Theopolitical has his thoughts on Caritas here and a few comments on Weigel’s and Michael Novak’s thoughts (the latter of which I have [...]

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Theopolitical is the weblog of Davey Henreckson, a graduate student in theology at the University of Notre Dame. Topics of conversation are political and historical theology, with semi-frequent forays into literature, economics, localism, and the divine American sport -- baseball.

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