I haven't read it all yet, but looks like a good read for all. Just released this morning!
You can read or download it here (Vatican website).
Receive 'Charity in Truth' with Charity and Hunger for the Truth
By Deacon Keith Fournier
7/7/2009 Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
This long awaited encyclical letter will be released on Tuesday, July 7, 2009
CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) – On June 29, 2009 Pope Benedict XVI told the faithful, "The publication of my third encyclical is now near, which has the title Caritas in Veritate. Taking up the social themes contained in Populorum Progressio, written by the Servant of God Paul VI in 1967, this document -- which is dated precisely today, June 29th, the Solemnity of the Apostles Saints Peter and Paul -- aims to deepen a few aspects of integral development in our age in the light of charity in truth. I entrust to your prayers this new contribution that the Church offers to humanity in her commitment for sustainable progress, in full respect for human dignity and everyone's real requirements."
For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths. (2 Tim 4:3-4)
Wow, amazing... I've read parts of it... thanks EDB.
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Where Peter is, there is the Church. Where the Church is, there is eternal Life.
"The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society"- Mother Theresa
"But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion?
As always, we must persuade her with love, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us. So the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love - that is, to give until it hurts... her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems.
And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion". - Mother Theresa
I'm reading some of it; it is of a good length, so it'll take me awhile, as things are best examined with a thoroughness and exactitude. It's very good so far.
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"The divine law indeed has excluded women from the ministry, but they endeavor to thrust themselves into it; and since they can effect nothing of themselves, they do all through the agency of others; and they have become invested with so much power that they can appoint or eject priests at their will: things in fact are turned upside down, and the proverbial saying may be seen realized—“The ruled lead the rulers:” and would that it were men who do this instead of women, who have not received a commission to teach. Why do I say teach? For the blessed Paul did not suffer them even to speak in the Church. But I have heard some one say that they have obtained such a large privilege of free speech, as even to rebuke the prelates of the churches, and censure them more severely than masters do their own domestics." [-St. John Chrysostum, "On The Priesthood, Book III']
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"He who asserts that he cannot be bound by the [Catholic] Church's bonds, confesses that he cannot be loosed by her authority. And he who makes such an assertion, separates himself wholly from Christ." St. Gregory VII, Letter to Bishop Hermann of Metz, 1076
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"The Second Vatican Council solemnly declared in its Constitution on the Church that all the teachings of the Council are in full continuity with the teachings of former councils. Moreover, let us not forget that the canons of the Council of Trent and of Vatican I are de fide, whereas none of the decrees of Vatican II are de fide; The Second Vatican Council was pastoral in nature. Cardinal Felici rightly stated that the Credo solemnly proclaimed by Pope Paul VI at the end of the Year of Faith is from a dogmatic point of view much more important than the entire Second Vatican Council. Thus, those who want to interpret certain passages in the documents of Vatican II as if they implicitly contradicted definitions of Vatican I or the Council of Trent should realize that even if their interpretation were right, the canons of the former councils would overrule these allegedly contradictory passages of Vatican II, because the former are de fide, the latter not." --- [Dietrich von Hildebrand, "Charitable Anathema" Roman Catholic Books (1993)]
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"I dare not longer contradict the decrees of him [The Roman Pontiff] who keeps the doors of the Kingdom of Heaven, lest he should refuse me admission."
-- King Oswy, at the Synod of Whitby in A.D. 664, declaring himself in favor of the arguments of Bishop Wilfrid (who himself had just quoted Saint Peter) thereby aligning England with the Holy Apostolic See of Rome.
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"We do not worship, we do not adore, for fear that we should bow down to the creature rather than to the Creator, but we venerate the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore Him whose martyrs they are."
-- St. Jerome ("Ad Riparium", i, P.L., XXII, 907) writing on proper Catholic veneration of relics.
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For an excellent compendium of orthodox Catholic belief, and the first universal catechism of the Catholic Church please fellow the link below; click here--->: To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
As a social justice advocate I found this to be truly visionary.
Writing's like this are an inspiration to me and cause me again to think about returning to the Church I was brought up in.
There are probably some hard core free market folks and ultra capitalists that wont like what the Pope has to say, but I think it is very Christ centered way of looking at economics and justice.
Here is an article from the Washington post summarizing the letter.
Pope Benedict on Economic Justice
THIS CATHOLIC'S VIEW By Thomas J. Reese, S.J.
Pope Benedict's long awaited encyclical calls for a radical rethinking of economics so that it is guided not simply by profits but by "an ethics which is people-centered."
"Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end," he writes in Caritas in veritate (Charity in Truth), but "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."
He decries that "Corruption and illegality are unfortunately evident in the conduct of the economic and political class in rich countries...as well as in poor ones." He also says that "Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers."
Benedict, like Paul VI, whose encyclical Populorum Progressio (Development of Peoples) he is commemorating, is concerned about the "The scandal of glaring inequalities." Both Benedict and Paul hoped that economic development would "produce real growth, of benefit to everyone and genuinely sustainable." Benedict disappointedly acknowledges that "The world's wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities are on the increase" [italics in text].
"The dignity of the individual and the demands of justice require," he affirms, "that economic choices do not cause disparities in wealth to increase in an excessive and morally unacceptable manner, and that we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone."
In his encyclical, Benedict calls for charity guided by truth. "Charity demands justice: recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of individuals and peoples," he says. "Justice must be applied to every phase of economic activity, because this is always concerned with man and his needs," he writes. "Locating resources, financing, production, consumption and all the other phases in the economic cycle inevitably have moral implications. Thus every economic decision has a moral consequence."
The encyclical notes the globalization that has taken place since Paul's encyclical was issued over 40 years ago. Alas, "as society becomes ever more globalized, it makes us neighbors but does not make us brothers." True "development of peoples depends, above all, on a recognition that the human race is a single family working together in true communion, not simply a group of subjects who happen to live side by side." The goal of such development is "rescuing peoples, first and foremost, from hunger, deprivation, endemic diseases and illiteracy."
Sounding like a union organizer, Benedict argues that "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."
Rather the goal should be decent employment for everyone, which "means work that expresses the essential dignity of every man and woman in the context of their particular society: work that is freely chosen, effectively associating workers, both men and women, with the development of their community; work that enables the worker to be respected and free from any form of discrimination; work that makes it possible for families to meet their needs and provide schooling for their children, without the children themselves being forced into labor; work that permits the workers to organize themselves freely, and to make their voices heard; work that leaves enough room for rediscovering one's roots at a personal, familial and spiritual level; work that guarantees those who have retired a decent standard of living."
The pope disagrees with those who believe that the economy should be free of government regulation. "The conviction that the economy must be autonomous, that it must be shielded from 'influences' of a moral character, has led man to abuse the economic process in a thoroughly destructive way," he writes. "In the long term, these convictions have led to economic, social and political systems that trample upon personal and social freedom, and are therefore unable to deliver the justice that they promise."
Benedict even supports "a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. 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."
While Benedict acknowledges the role of the market, he emphasizes that "the social doctrine of the Church has unceasingly highlighted the importance of distributive justice and social justice for the market economy." He unflinchingly supports the "redistribution of wealth" when he talks about the role of government. "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."
Although Benedict's emphasis in the encyclical is on the theological foundations of Catholic social teaching, amid the dense prose there are indications, as shown above, that he is to the left of almost every politician in America. What politician would casually refer to "redistribution of wealth" or talk of international governing bodies to regulate the economy? Who would call for increasing the percentage of GDP devoted to foreign aid? Who would call for the adoption of "new life-styles 'in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments'"?
Benedict believes that if people understood God's love for every single human person and his divine plan for us, then believers would recognize their duty "to unite their efforts with those of all men and women of good will, with the followers of other religions and with non-believers, so that this world of ours may effectively correspond to the divine plan: living as a family under the Creator's watchful eye."
peace
keith
__________________ There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Sinners and Hypocrites. I thank the Lord I can be counted amongst the Sinners. To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity.
__________________ Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness. - Blessed Mother Teresa
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