Caritas in veritate" - Charity in truth - bears the date of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, June 29

The social encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI "Caritas in veritate" - Charity in truth - bears the date of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, June 29, but will become public later on, most probably July 6 or 7, for the G8 and Obama's meeting in Italy.



Some key points:

"Without truth, without trust and love for what is truthful, there is no conscience or social responsibility, and the social action falls under the control of private interests or logics of power, with destructive effect on society, even more on a society in way to globalization, in difficult moments like the current ones," the Pope will say in "Caritas in veritate," ...

Economy cannot be left to self-regulation.

"In the midst of the new international economic, commercial and financial context," the Pope suggests an international new paradigm that should stick coherently to the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, should be aimed at achieving the common good and committed in fostering an authentic integral human development, inspired by the values of Justice, Charity and Truth."

Pope Benedict highlights from the beginning that "the charity of justice in truth, which Jesus Christ has shown to us along all his earthly life and, above all, with His death and resurrection, is the main resource at the service of the true development of each individual human being and humanity as a whole."

Crisis have been sparked by "a deficit of ethics in the economic structures." A total reform of the current system, therefore, requires "a common code" based on "the truth from both faith and reason," capable of providing "the light through which the human intelligence arrives to natural and supernatural truth of charity."

We need the "social responsibility of private companies," but will underscore that "true development is impossible without honest men, without financial operators and politicians who strongly feel in their own consciences the call for the common good."

Pay attention to the "ecologic health of the planet," and remind that "the duties we have to the environment are connected to the duties we have toward the human person", because "the first capital to be protected and cherished is the human person in its integrity since conception, i.e. fertilization."

See quotes Paul VI's Populorum progressio, which in 1967 denounced the gap between rich and poor countries, and Humanae vitae in criticizing abortion and contraception,"

The encyclical says that "openness to life is at the core of every true development," and regarding the ambiguous policies aimed at "reducing the need for abortion" by means of other social policies, the Pope warns that "if personal and social sensibility toward the welcoming of a new life is lost, even other forms of welcoming (life) useful to social life become fruitless."

The encyclical urges to global injustice, especially world hunger.

"Charity in truth requires an urgent reform to confront courageously and without hesitation the great problems of injustice in the development of the nations,", "food and water are universal rights,"

The World Super State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person--every person--needs: namely, loving personal concern"

The Greek word Oikonomia - from which the word "economy" comes -  means the rule or management of the oikos, the home: "the development of all nations depends above all in recognizing that we are one single family."

"It is the Church's duty to denounce the fundamental errors that have now been revealed in the collapse of the major American banks. Human greed is a form of idolatry that is against the true God, and is a falsification of the image of God with another god, Mammon. We must denounce this courageously, but also concretely, because grand moralizations are not helpful if they are not supported by a familiarity with reality, which helps us to understand what can be done concretely. The Church has never simply denounced evils, it also shows the paths that lead to justice, to charity, to the conversion of hearts. In the economy as well, justice is established only if there are just persons. And these persons are assembled through the conversion of hearts."

Pope Benedict XVI and President Barack Obama will meet on July 10, a much-anticipated Vatican audience. Those key points will be discussed before his travel to his "home" country in Africa...During his trip to Africa, the president will pass over Kenya, where his father was from, in favor of Ghana, the shelter of W.E.B. Du Bois who had come here as a special guest of President Kwame Nkrumah.


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Avec mes meilleures salutations.
François de Siebenthal