Saint Frances Cabrini Parish

Father Kleppner - August 2, 2009

Much has been said and written about our Holy Father’s latest encyclical on social justice, entitled Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth). I share with you some of the Holy Father’s reflections from that beautiful letter.
“Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. ... 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.”
“In the present social and cultural context, where there is a widespread tendency to relativize truth, practicing charity in truth helps people to understand that adhering to the values of Christianity is not merely useful but essential for building a good society and for true integral human development.”
“The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbors, the more effectively we love them. Every Christian is called to practice this charity in a manner corresponding to his vocation and according to the degree of influence he wields.”
“In the economic sphere the principal form of assistance needed by developing countries is that of allowing and encouraging the gradual penetration of their products into international markets, this making it possible for these countries to participate fully in international economic life.”
“The church’s social doctrine proclaims and bears witness to faith. It is an instrument and an indispensable setting for formation in faith.”
“Reason, by itself, is capable of grasping the equality between men and of giving stability to their civic coexistence, but it cannot establish fraternity. This originates in a transcendent vocation from God the Father, who loved us first, teaching us through the Son what fraternal charity is.”
“Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.”
“Through the combination of social and economic change, trade union organizations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interests of workers, partly because governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labor unions.”
“Openness to life is at the center of true development. When a society moves toward the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man’s true good.”
“Lowering the level of protection accorded to the rights of workers or abandoning mechanisms of wealth redistribution in order to increase the country’s international competitiveness hinder the achievement of lasting development.”
“The economy needs ethics in order to function correctly – not any ethics whatsoever, but an ethics which is people-centered.”
“The poor are not to be considered a “burden” but a resource, even from the purely economic point of view. It is nevertheless erroneous to hold that the market economy has an inbuilt need for a quota of poverty and underdevelopment in order to function at its best.”
“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 so-called outsourcing of production can weaken the company’s sense of responsibility toward the stakeholders – namely the workers, the suppliers, the consumers, the natural environment and broader society – in favor of the shareholders.”
“The processes of globalization, suitably understood and directed open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a worldwide scale; if badly directed, however; they can lead to an increase in poverty and inequality, and could even trigger a global crisis.”
“Individual rights, when detached from a framework of duties that grants them their full meaning, can run wild, leading to an escalation of demands that is effectively unlimited and indiscriminate. An overemphasis on rights leads to a disregard for duties.”
“The technologically advanced societies can and must lower their domestic energy consumption. ... What is also needed, though, is a worldwide redistribution of energy resources so that countries lacking those resources can have access to them.”
“The protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate obliges all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet.”
“If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology and along with it that of environmental ecology.”
“Today humanity appears much more interactive than in the past: This shared sense of being close to one another must be transformed into true communion.”
“While it may be true that development needs the religions and cultures of different peoples, it is equally true that adequate discernment is needed. Religious freedom does not mean religious indifferentism nor does it imply that all religions are equal.”
“One possible approach to development aid would be to apply effectively what is known as fiscal subsidiarity, allowing citizens to decide how to allocate a portion of the taxes they pay to the state.”
“The global context in which work takes place also demands that national labor unions, which tend to limit themselves to defending the interests of their registered members, should turn their attention to those outside their membership and in particular to workers in developing countries where social rights are often violated.”
“More economically developed nations should do all they can to allocate larger portions of their gross domestic product to development aid, thus respecting the obligations that the international community has undertaken in this regard.”
“Consumers should be continually educated regarding their daily role, which can be exercised with respect for moral principles without diminishing the intrinsic economic rationality of the act of purchasing.”
“Just because social communications increase the possibilities of interconnection and the dissemination of ideas, it does not follow that they promote freedom or internationalize development and democracy for all.”
“The greatest service to development, then, is a Christian humanism that enkindles charity and takes its lead from truth, accepting both as a lasting gift from God.”

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