Posted on 07/10/2009 11:49:37 AM PDT by NYer
Relativists beware. Whether you like it or not, truth matters even in the economy. Thats the core message of Pope Benedict XVIs new social encyclical Caritas in Veritate.
For 2000 years, the Catholic Church has hammered home a trio of presently-unpopular ideas into the humus of human civilization: that there is truth; that it is not simply of the scientific variety; that it is knowable through faith and reason; and that it is not whatever you want or feel it to be. Throughout his entire life, Benedict XVI has underscored these themes, precisely because much of the world, including many Christians, has lost sight of their importance.
Perhaps Caritas in Veritates most important truth-claim about economic life is that the market economy cannot be based on just any value-system. Against all relativists on the left and the right, Benedict maintains that market economies must be underpinned by commitments to particular basic moral goods and a certain vision of the human person if it is to serve rather than undermine humanitys common good: The economy needs ethics in order to function correctly not any ethics whatsoever, but an ethics which is people-centred (CV no.45
Without internal forms of solidarity and mutual trust, the Pope writes, the market cannot completely fulfill its proper economic function (CV no. 35). This surely has been amply confirmed by the recent financial crisis. Americas subprime-mortgage market collapse was at least partly attributable to the fact that literally thousands of people lied on their mortgage application forms. Should we be surprised that mass violation of the moral prohibition against lying has devastating economic consequences? The economic sphere, the pope reminds us, 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 (CV no.36).
Contrary to the pre-encyclical hype of certain American commentators and the ever-unreliable British press, predictions of papal anathemas against global capitalism have as usual been found wanting. In economic terms, the pope describes as erroneous the tired notion that the developed countries wealth is predicated on poor nations poverty (CV no.35) that one hears customarily from the likes of Hugo Chavez and whatevers left of the dwindling band of aging liberation theologians. Thats a pontifical body-blow to a central working assumption of many professional social justice activists.
Nor will they be happy with the popes concerns about the ways in which foreign aid can produce situations of dependency (CV no.58), not to mention Benedicts strictures against protectionism (CV no.42) as well as his stress that no amount of structural change can possibly compensate for people freely choosing the good: 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 no.17).
Nor does Benedict regard the market as morally problematic in itself. In and of itself, the Pope states, the market is not\.\.\. the place where the strong subdue the weak. Society does not have to protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso facto to entail the death of authentically human relations (CV no.36). What matters, Benedict claims, is the moral culture in which markets exists.
At the heart of the economy are human persons. People whose minds are dominated by crassly hedonistic cultures will make crassly hedonistic economic choices. Therefore, Benedict comments, it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals (CV no.36).
The implications of truth for economic life do not, however, stop here. For Benedict, it is a lens through which to assess ideas such as business ethics, ethical investing and corporate social responsibility. The notion that investment and business choices have a moral dimension is hardly new. What matters for Benedict is the understanding of morality underlying these schemes. Merely labeling an investment scheme as ethical, Benedict notes, hardly tells us whether it is moral (CV no.45).
A second major truth underscored by Benedict is the indispensability of a strong civil society for both undergirding and limiting the market and the state. By this, he does not mean a plethora of government-funded NGOs, many of whom Benedict identifies as intent upon imposing some of the very worst aspects of Western lifestyle-libertarianism upon developing nations (CV no.28). Certainly, Benedict believes, there is a need to re-evaluate (CV no.24) how the state regulates different parts of the economy. Ultimately, however, Benedict stresses that the virtue of solidarity, he argues, is about people concretely loving their neighbour; it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State (CV no.38). This is reminiscent of Alexis de Tocquevilles attention to the manner in which the habit of free association both limits the size of government while also discouraging people from retreating into their own little bubbles.
The economist John Maynard Keynes is famous for many things, including the saying that in the long run, were all dead. The horizon of Benedict XVIs perspective on economic life is rather different. The pope asks people to live their economic lives in the short, medium, and long-term as if living in the truth is eternally important, not to mention eternally relevant to their souls salvation.
Thats change we can all believe in.
What is truth?
We all know the response to that question.
"For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice."
John 18: 37
Human nature/natural law is successful 100% of the time.
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.
Excellent! And wow! I’m bookmarking this. Especially poignant in light of the Holy Father’s and Obama’s meeting this week.
I wish people would actually read the thing. There's a lot of sniping going on that's NOT based on truth. It's beyond frustrating.
“I wish people would actually read the thing. There’s a lot of sniping going on that’s NOT based on truth. It’s beyond frustrating.” ~ Desdemona
Post these links whereever you see the sniping going on:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2288576/posts?page=11#11
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Pope’s New Encyclical Speaks Against New World Order
Lifesitenews.com ^ | July 8, 2009 | John-Henry Westen
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09070812.html
Newspapers, blogs, talk-shows on radio and television are full of discussion over Pope Benedict XVI’s supposed call for a “new world order” or a “one-world government.” These ideas are, however, neither based in reality nor a clear reading of the Pope’s latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, the release of which yesterday spawned the heated discussion.
The Pope actually speaks directly against a one-world government, and, as would be expected from those who have read his previous writings, calls for massive reform of the United Nations.
Confusion seems to have come from paragraph 67 of the encyclical, which has some choice pull-quotes which have spiced the pages of the world’s news, from the New York Times to those of conspiracy theorist bloggers seeing the Pope as the Anti-Christ.
The key quote which has led to the charge reads: “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.”
However, in paragraph 41, the Holy Father specifically differentiates his concept of a world political authority from that of a one-world government. “We must,” he says “promote a dispersed political authority.” He explains that “The integrated economy of the present day does not make the role of States redundant, but rather it commits governments to greater collaboration with one another. Both wisdom and prudence suggest not being too precipitous in declaring the demise of the State. In terms of the resolution of the current crisis, the State’s role seems destined to grow, as it regains many of its competences. In some nations, moreover, the construction or reconstruction of the State remains a key factor in their development.”
Later in the encyclical (57) he speaks of the opposite concept to one- world government -subsidiarity (the principle of Catholic social teaching which states that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority) - as being essential. “In order not to produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature, the governance of globalization must be marked by subsidiarity,” says the Pope.
Another of the key quotes which is being extracted for shock value from the encyclical is this: “In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth.”
Since long before his papacy, Joseph Ratzinger has vigorously fought the United Nations’ vision of a ‘New World Order’. As early as 1997, and repeated subsequently, Ratzinger took public aim at such a vision, noting that the philosophy coming from UN conferences and the Millennium Summit “proposes strategies to reduce the number of guests at the table of humanity, so that the presumed happiness [we] have attained will not be affected.”
“At the base of this New World Order”, he said is the ideology of “women’s empowerment,” which erroneously sees “the principal obstacles to [a woman’s] fulfillment [as] the family and maternity.” The then-cardinal advised that “at this stage of the development of the new image of the new world, Christians - and not just them but in any case they even more than others - have the duty to protest.”
Benedict XVI in fact repeats those criticisms in the new encyclical. In Caritas in Veritate, the Pope slams “practices of demographic control, on the part of governments that often promote contraception and even go so far as to impose abortion.” He also denounces international economic bodies such as the IMF and World Bank (without specifically naming them) for their lending practices which tie aid to so-called ‘family planning.’ “There is reason to suspect that development aid is sometimes linked to specific health-care policies which de facto involve the imposition of strong birth control measures,” says the encyclical.
Any vision of a proper ordering of the world, of international economics or political cooperation, suggests the Pope, must be based on a “moral order.” That includes first and foremost “the fundamental right to life” from conception to natural death, the recognition of the family based on marriage between one man and one woman as the basis of society and freedom for faith and cooperation among all peoples based on principles of natural law.
I think the sniping is mostly from those who have an extremely restricted — or at least idiosyncratic — interpretation of “love thy neighbor as thyself”!
Russell Kirk once wrote that we're currently living in the "Age of Sentiment", or the "Age of Sentimentality" as Pope Benedict or Richard Weaver would probably put it. Kirk called the preceding era the "Age of Discussion" reflecting liberalism, and the subsequent current age of sentimentality reflecting modernism/relativism.
I was impressed by Michelle Obama at the meeting with the Pope. She actually dressed as if she cared.
I’m still reading about is all. So obviously this is just a first impression.
Yes. There is a dress protocol for women visiting the pope in his private residence that is normally respected. It is optional, not mandatory. The fact that Mrs. Obama chose to follow the protocol, is indicative of her respect for this office.
US first lady Michelle Obama, leaves the Vatican after a meeting Pope Benedict XVI with President Obama, Friday July 10, 2009. The US President sat down with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on Friday for a meeting in which frank but constructive talks were expected between two men who agree on helping the poor but disagree on abortion and stem cell research.
Great quote!
Or is it her upbringing in other religions in which the woman is secondary to the man. In the pictures I saw this morning she was about two steps in back of the Pope and her husband. Mindeast protocol? Judaisn protocol? Not like the pictures of Laura Bush. Made me wonder.
CWR Round-Table: Caritas in Veritate (Web exclusive)
Editorial: Pope's New Encyclical Speaks Against, not for One-World Government and New World Order
Caritas in Veritate: language in paragraph 67 [Vanity]
Why does Pope Benedict talk about Humanae vitae in the new encyclical? [Catholic Caucus]
[Caritas in Veritate] Father Fessio: A New Framework for Social Justice [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
A Capitalist or Anti-Capitalist Encyclical? [Caritas in Veritate]
Caritas In Veritate (Pope Benedict XVI Encyclical)-Full Text
Pope's New Encyclical Speaks Against New World Order [Catholic Caucus]
On the 3rd Encyclical (Catholic/Orthodox Caucus)
Best Pro-Life Quotes from Pope Benedict XVI's New Encyclical
Encycli-bites for reading Caritas in veritate
In new encyclical Pope Benedict slams population control, urges openness to life
The New Encyclical [Cairtas in Veritate -- Love and Truth] {Ecumenical]
AP, Reuters Go Full Tilt in Spinning Latest Writing of Pope
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Supreme Knight criticizes use of Pope's encyclical for political agendas
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Excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI New Encyclical "CARITAS IN VERITATE" (CHARITY AND TRUTH)
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