By Fred Kammer, SJ

Presented at the Archdiocesan Social Ministry Renewal, Indianapolis, IN on October 1, 2009

In his letter of introduction to this conference, Archbishop Daniel writes that SHINE, this archdiocesan social ministry renewal “is the opportunity to focus the lens of our pastoral work on charity, and its relationship to the Eucharist and evangelization.” In keeping with this focus on charity, I would like to take you back a few years to 2005—the first year of the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI—and his first encyclical, entitled Deus Caritas Est or God Is Love. In many ways this encyclical is full of surprises and I would like to highlight three of them.

Deus Caritas Est [2005]

In Pope Benedict’s first encyclical, “God Is Love” (which is what Deus Caritas Est means), he develops the theme of love from the nature of God and its revelation in Jesus Christ to the development of “organized charity” within the Christian community from the earliest days of apostles.  From there he discusses Church’s current works of charity in the context of a larger substantive discussion of the relative duties of State and Church, Catholic laity and Catholic Church organizations, and all people with regard to charity and justice.  It is this discussion on which I want to focus today.  

Pope Benedict begins by affirming that, “the pursuit of justice must be a fundamental norm of the State” [26] and the just ordering of society and the State is “a central responsibility of politics” [28].  In Catholic social teaching, this reflects the proper autonomy of the State, but there are distinct relationships to that role on the part of Catholic laity and Church organizations.  First, for Pope Benedict, the laity (Catholic and otherwise) have a direct duty to work towards a just ordering of society as citizens, with a specific responsibility to take part in public life [29]. “Building a just social and civil order, “ the pope writes, “…is an essential task which every generation must take up anew” [28].

Indirect Role

The Church as institution, however, while respecting the autonomy of the state, has multiple responsibilities set out in different parts of the pope’s first encyclical letter.  First, with regard to the just ordering of society, the Church, in a posture of dialogue with the larger society, has an indirect role with respect to its just ordering.  The Church presents its social doctrine to civic society as “a set of fundamental guidelines offering approaches that are valid even beyond the confines of the Church…” [27].  Within a framework that sees faith as a purifying and liberating force for the work of reason, Benedict writes that Catholic social doctrine is not intended to give the Church power over the State, but “to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just” [28].

Pope Benedict insists that the Church should not take on the political battle to create a more just society, replacing the State. “Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines of the fight for justice” [28].  Besides the Church’s role in the rational public discourse indicated above, “she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper” [28].  By this he means, as we see in the health care debate, that the ability of people to move beyond self-interest to the concern for the common good of the whole society requires a kind of “spiritual energy.”  The pontiff also indicates that the Church as teacher has a role in forming and animating the consciences of the Catholic laity who have a more direct role vis-à-vis the State [29].

Direct Role

The Church also has a more direct role through its charitable organizations to meet the immediate needs of people who are needy and suffering.  That role is always needed, even in the most just civil society, Benedict cautions, because there are always people suffering, people who are lonely, and people with material needs that require a response that extends beyond the material to the care and refreshment of their souls.

That more direct role takes place within the context of an increasingly globalized world, the pope writes.  It also involves a worldwide network of humanitarian assistance made possible by governmental agencies and humanitarian organizations.  For those who think that humanitarian relief can be the work of individuals alone, Benedict notes, “The solidarity shown by civil society thus significantly surpasses that shown by individuals” [30]

Pope Benedict pledges the readiness of the Catholic Church to cooperate with a wide range of charitable agencies, noting their common goal of “a true humanism, which acknowledges that man is made in the image of God…” [30].  In that context he stresses what must remain distinctive about the Church’s own charitable activity.  In this part of the letter, I found five characteristics highlighted by the Holy Father to be consistent with my own thirty years of experience in Catholic Charities agencies within the United States.  These include:

• charity as an immediate response to human need;
• the importance of professional competence and training;
• a heartfelt concern for those in need, including “formation of the heart” to see where love is needed and to act accordingly;
• the refusal to proselytize those who are hungry and poor, forcing faith as the price of care and concern; and
• an openness to speak of God balanced with a sense, Pope Benedict writes, of “when it is better to say nothing and to let love speak” [31]. 

In 2007, his third year as pope, Benedict wrote a second encyclical letter, this one on hope.  There he treats the importance of hope for people of faith, beginning in the scriptures and continuing into the context of contemporary life.  While important in many ways, I will not be discussing this letter today.

Caritas in Veritate [2009]

Two months ago, in July, Pope Benedict released his third encyclical entitled Caritas in Veritate or, in English, Love in Truth.  In a sense this encyclical “implements” the stance explained in his first encyclical regarding the Church in the public square.  The topic is human development in the context of a globalized world.  As I have just explained, Pope Benedict now writes to influence the civic order by teaching Catholics about their role and trying to persuade other people of good will of the importance of his vision for human development.  His style, consistent with his first two encyclicals on charity and hope, is highly theological, as you would expect from a theology professor and professional theologian.  Benedict uses primarily a natural law approach (as distinct from a more Scriptural emphasis taken by other popes); and he relies heavily on the concepts of love, truth, vocation, gratuitousness, and integral human development.

Within this approach, the encyclical consistently affirms many major themes drawn from the tradition of what we call modern Catholic social teaching, which began in the heat of the Industrial Revolution in1891 with an encyclical entitled Rerum Novarum.  I will discuss this new encyclical in two parts—first, four sets of principles that are critical to Catholic thinking and our stance in the public square; and, second, four lines of social analysis and theological reflection that have been common and developing across the last century. At the very end, because of the time constraints, I will simply indicate the array of particular issues which the pope addresses in this encyclical. The two parts I will describe display many continuities in terms of principles, analysis, and reflection.  But, as with every pope, there are particular nuances in message, content, or tone.  However, most of the newness would be captured in the broad inclusiveness with which Pope Benedict paints the “integral” in the term integral human development, which leads him to give special emphasis to such diverse issues as bio-ethics, culture, environment, hunger, migration, spirituality, and technology.

Four Major Points about Principles Reiterated in the Encyclical

Included here would be the centrality of the human person—sacred and social—as well as the common good, the relationship of charity and justice, and the interplay of subsidiarity and solidarity.

1) THE HUMAN PERSON, SACRED AND SOCIAL—Following Pope Paul VI, Benedict emphasizes the openness of every human person to the transcendent beginning with his discussion of both the vocation and capacity to love and ending with his insistence on the inclusion of spiritual and moral growth in any effort at holistic human development [76].  These are all parts of our tradition’s belief in the sacredness of the human person beginning with the words of God in Genesis that we are created in God’s “image and likeness.”  The pope also emphasizes the essentially social nature of the human person in his discussions of the common good, solidarity, human rights and duties, interpersonal relationships, and the unity of one human family [53].

2) THE LINK BETWEEN JUSTICE AND CHARITY—The pope discusses both justice and charity and the interplay of the two in a number of ways.  Early in his letter, the pope emphasizes justice as one of the two criteria by which the principle of “caritas in veritate” (charity in truth) governs moral action in the commitment to human development.  As the letter unfolds, he discusses the interplay of justice and charity in at least six ways:

• charity goes beyond justice;
• justice requires giving the other what is “his own” prior to any giving of what is “mine” (charity);
• justice and charity are inseparable;
• justice is a way of charity and its minimum measure;
• charity demands justice; and
• charity transcends justice and completes it [6]. 

What stands out in Benedict’s approach is the heavy emphasis on caritas—love—that had been the theme of his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est.  He describes caritas as a force for engagement in the field of justice and peace whose origin is in God (who is love and truth).  Benedict writes that this God has a plan for each person in which each of us finds our own truth and the freedom that comes from adherence to that truth or plan for us.  Charity and truth, then, are the vocation of each person, planted in our hearts and minds.

3) THE COMMON GOOD—Before getting into Benedict’s discussion of the common good, a Catholic definition may help.  Two sentences from the recently revised Catechism of the Catholic Church explain the “common good” in these words:

According to its primary and broadly accepted sense, the common good indicates 'the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.'

Belonging to everyone and to each person, it is and remains "common," because it is indivisible and because only together is it possible to attain it, increase it and safeguard its effectiveness, with regard also to the future. {a}

In his new encyclical, Pope Benedict emphasizes the common good as the second key criteria—with justice—to be applied to human development, indicating that it “is a requirement of justice and charity” [7].  The pope also indicates that in this globalized world the duty to seek the common good now extends beyond our own city or country to the whole human family.  The common good is repeatedly invoked by the pope as a duty of individuals, managers, institutions, and governments and as a measure of the justice of the market and the economy.

4) THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN SUBSIDIARITY AND SOLIDARITY—Increasingly, Catholic social teaching has closely linked two principles: subsidiarity and solidarity.  Pope Benedict expressly discusses the principle of subsidiarity, which is drawn from the 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno and emphasizes making decisions at the more local or even personal level in keeping with human dignity.  He emphasizes that subsidiarity “fosters freedom and participation through assumption of responsibility” [57].  It also is well suited to the management of globalization by promoting governance and authority at various levels to enhance freedom and effective results [57].  However, the pope emphasizes what recent commentaries have explained, “…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 which is demeaning to those in need” [58].

So, we now have seen four areas of principle in the encyclical: the human person; justice and charity; the common good; and subsidiarity and solidarity.

Four Lines of Social Analysis and Theological Reflection

It is in light of these fundamental theological and moral principles of Catholic Social Teaching that the Pope follows and further develops certain lines of social analysis and theological reflection that have been common across the last century.  These four areas are: individuals and structures; interdependence; three sectors of society; and integral human development.

1) ATTENTION TO INDIVIDUALS AND STRUCTURES—The encyclical emphasizes the critical importance of the responsible freedom of individuals and peoples for integral human development [17].  No social structures, he writes, can guarantee this development without such freedom.  At the same time, the pope acknowledges the importance of economic and social institutions and structures.  We see this duality, for example, in his discussions of world hunger.  First Benedict emphasizes human responsibility—“…the peoples in hunger are making a dramatic appeal to the peoples blessed with abundance.” {b}  Then, in further treatment of hunger, he shifts to the structural by emphasizing at least five points: 

• the need for “a network of economic institutions capable of guaranteeing regular access to sufficient food and water,”
• “eliminating the structural causes” of food insecurity,
• “promoting the agricultural development of poorer countries,”
• “involvement of local communities in choices and decisions,” and
• the necessity “to cultivate a public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination” [27].

2) INTERDEPENDENCE—The “multiplication of social relationships” {c} has become even more intense in a world which Pope Benedict describes as more progressively and pervasively globalized.  “The risk for our time,” the pope writes, “is that the de facto interdependence of people and nations is not matched by ethical interaction of consciences and minds that would give rise to truly human development” [9].  Mere technical progress and utilitarian relationships, he says, cannot guarantee the sharing of goods and resources basic to authentic development.  That can only be accomplished by love which overcomes evil with good.

3) THREE SECTORS—Pope Benedict follows the analysis of Pope John Paul II when he highlights the need of every society to have a system with three subjects or sectors: “the market, the State and civil society” [38].  Let me briefly discuss these three sectors and then the pope’s introduction of a relatively new trends which blend the market and civil society together.

THE MARKET

The pope affirms the importance of the economic marketplace as the institution that permits persons, inasmuch as they are economic subjects, to use contracts to regulate their relations as they exchange goods and services to satisfy their needs and desires [38].  Economic life requires contracts, he writes; and this is the point where commutative justice is most applicable to regulate exchanges.  But the pope notes that “the social doctrine of the Church has unceasingly highlighted the importance of distributive justice and social justice for the market economy…” [35].  Benedict also makes it clear at various points that in a globalized economy, it is access to international and other markets that is most needed by the poor and by underdeveloped nations.

THE STATE

The second sector in society is political authority, which Pope Benedict promotes as ideally “dispersed” and “effective on different levels” [41], including the international.  It is “the political community” which has responsibility for directing economic activity towards the common good [36].  Grave imbalances are produced, he writes, “when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution” [36].  The pope concedes that nation-states now have more limited sovereignty in the new context of international trade and finance … [24].  This has altered the political power of States, he writes, and it calls for a reevaluation of the role of the States.  But, rather than “being too precipitous in declaring the demise of the State,” Benedict suggests that in the current world economic crisis the nation-state’s role seems destined to grow in working towards resolution of this crisis [41].

CIVIL SOCIETY

Traditionally, in this country, this sector is what we call the “voluntary sector” or “non-profit sector.”  Pope Benedict is in continuity with his predecessors as well in emphasizing the importance of civil society which Pope John Paul II saw “as the most natural setting for an economy of gratuitousness and fraternity…” [38].  This emphasis is very consistent with the principle of subsidiarity, and in Catholic social thought this sector is critical to offset the absorbing tendencies of centralizing governments such as fascism or communism.  Civil society and its organizations and activities also have been important to cushioning the worst aspects of the so-called free market.  For Benedict, this sector also is essential to preserving important aspects of human society and promoting integral human development.  In his words:

When both the logic of the market and the logic of the State come to an agreement that each will continue to exercise a monopoly over its respective area of influence, in the long term much is lost: solidarity in relations between citizens, participation and adherence, actions of gratuitousness, all of which stand in contrast with giving in order to acquire (the logic of exchange) and giving through duty (the logic of public obligation, imposed by State law) [39].

Thus, civil society is a key counter-balance to both the market and the State.

NOW TO THE NEW PART: BLENDING THE MARKET AND CIVIL SOCIETY

In keeping with his theme of love, Benedict emphasizes the importance of “gift” or “gratuitousness” explaining that, “The human being is made for gift, which expresses and makes present his transcendent dimension” [34].  It is in giving, we might say, that we are most like God—loving freely, loving spontaneously without reward.  In terms of economic, social, and political development, the pope writes that all development must “make room for the principle of gratuitousness as an expression of fraternity” [34].  He first describes this in terms of the mutual trust essential even to the operation of the market itself.  Without solidarity and trust, the pope writes, as the current economic crisis attests, “the market cannot completely fulfill its proper economic function” [35].  So he starts this line of reasoning by emphasizing that virtuous behavior is essential even to the operation of the economic market.

“Commercial logic” alone, he continues, cannot solve social problems; and grave imbalances are produced in society locally and worldwide, he writes, when economic action—conceived of solely for wealth creation—is separated from the political action that should pursue justice.  The market, he continues, is neither ethically neutral nor inherently inhuman; but, as human activity, “it must be structured and governed in an ethical manner” [36].  This begins with traditional social ethics in the marketplace like transparency, honesty, and responsibility.  In addition, the pope writes, the Church’s social doctrine “has always maintained that justice must be applied to every phase of economic activity” and “every economic decision has a moral consequence” [37].

What seems most novel in the encyclical, however, is the introduction of new forms of “commercial entities based on mutualist principles and pursuing social ends” [38].  As examples, Benedict notes with approval the overlap and the shifting and sharing of competencies between the “non-profit world” and the “for-profit” world [41], as well as the ethical investor movement, micro-credit programs, and micro-finance—all areas where ethics and the economy blend together.

Pope Benedict breaks the most new ground, however, in this discussion when he endorses a broad intermediate area which has emerged recently between profit-based companies and non-profit organizations.  This evolving sector, he writes:

It is made up of traditional companies which nonetheless subscribe to social aid agreements in support of underdeveloped countries, charitable foundations associated with individual companies, groups of companies oriented towards social welfare and the diversified world of the so-called “civil economy” and the “economy of communion.”  This is not merely a matter of a “third sector,” but of a broad new composite reality embracing the private and public spheres, one which does not exclude profit, but instead considers it a means for achieving human and social ends.

For many readers, the example of something called the “economy of communion” probably left them mystified.

Discussed at the Vatican press conference on the release of the encyclical, the Economy of Communion model is rooted in the Italian lay Catholic movement named focalare that began after Vatican II.  The model, now operating in 700 businesses on every continent (but only 45 in the US), envisions profit-making businesses wherein the “profits could be divided in three equal parts and used for direct aid for the poor, educational projects which could help further a culture of communion, and development of the business.” {d}

4) INTEGRAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT— Within this framework for understanding and promoting the just society, Pope Benedict focuses the encyclical on human development that is integral, concerns the whole person, and weaves together the Church’s life ethics and social ethics.

Benedict follows Pope Paul VI in envisioning development that has three facets: economic (active participation of the poor “on equal terms in the international economic process”), social (“evolution into educated societies marked by solidarity”), and political (“consolidation of democratic regimes capable of ensuring freedom and peace”) [21].  The pope maintains that, “authentic human development concerns the whole of the person in every single dimension” [11].  Thus, “progress of a merely economic and technological kind is insufficient” [23].  True development, then, involves a variety of elements and a number of “layers” or issues: action by public authorities [24]; systems of social security [25]; promotion of trade unionism [25]; the protection of the human person as laborer in a mobile world economy [25]; the importance of culture to human identity [26]; the ethical imperative to feed the hungry [27]; the right of religious freedom in the face of fundamentalism and atheism [29]; the need for inter-disciplinary and multi-level analysis and responses [30], including the interaction of faith, theology, metaphysics, and science [31]; prioritization of access to steady employment for everyone [32]; a focus on long-term, rather than short-term, economic and sociological considerations [32]; elimination of high tariffs on the products of poorer nations [33]; and an end to new and continued forms of colonialism [33].

If these were not enough issues for you, this 30,000-plus word document also discusses at some length the necessary connection between life ethics and social ethics; work and workers; super-development and under-development; inequality; international migration; redistribution of wealth; outsourcing; energy and the environment; and international relations, including the need to strengthen the United Nations.

In conclusion, Pope Benedict is both a faithful heir to the traditions of Catholic Social Teaching and a contributor who continues to enrich the development of its understanding of reality and its application to a changing world.  The pope does this by both his synthetic theological approach and his concern for integral human development in an increasingly globalized world.  He builds upon the tradition, but he does so in ways that expand the concept of human development while addressing increasingly important issues of technology, the environment, and global justice and redistribution.

When the pope engages in this discourse and invites people of good will to consider these key questions, he is continuing a tradition of modern Catholic social teaching which insists that the Church has a rightful place in the public square—along with a wide range of other people and institutions.  He is offering these principles and values and the insights of this faith tradition within a framework of rational discourse and concepts that invite dialogue, hopefully, and that—again hopefully—will be open to the concerns and reflections of people of good will in this society and across the world.

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[a] Ibid., no. 164, quoting Gaudium et Spes, no. 26 (emphasis in original).

[b] Pope Paul VI

[c] Pope John XXIII, in his encyclical Mater et Magistra (Mother and Teacher, No. 59).

[d] Luigino Bruni and Amelia J. Uelmen, Religious Values and Corporate Decision Making: The Economy of Communion Project, Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law, 2006, Vol. XI, pp 645-680, at 650.