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PDF versionPope proposes a 'Christian humanism' for the global economy
by John L Allen Jr on Jul. 07, 2009
New encyclical on the economy offers something for both the political left and right to cheer … and something to be grumpy about
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome
Blending a call for increased aid to developing nations, support for global governance with “real teeth,” alarm at the “unregulated exploitation” of the environment, and staunch opposition to population control programs, Pope Benedict XVI today sketched what he called a “Christian humanism” for the globalized age in his long-awaited social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”).
To be sustainable, Benedict argues, economic policies must be rooted in a comprehensive vision of human welfare, including spirituality – as opposed to a “technocratic” approach, or one driven by “private interests and the logic of power.”
The pope rejects a laissez-faire economic philosophy which would treat the market as largely free-standing. Benedict specifically brushes off the idea that the economy has an in-built “quota” of poverty and underdevelopment required to function successfully.
“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,” the pope writes.
In terms of secular politics, there’s something for both left and right to cheer in Caritas in Veritate, and something for them to be grumpy about. Liberals will likely applaud Benedict’s call for robust government intervention in the economy and his endorsement of labor unions, while conservatives will appreciate his unyielding opposition to abortion, birth control and gay marriage, insisting that such policies are not only morally flawed but poor economic strategy.
Release of the 30,000-word Caritas in Veritate was delayed in order to give the pope time to reflect on the economic crisis that erupted in mid-2007. On the eve of a G8 summit in Italy this week devoted to pondering a new architecture for the global economy, Benedict says the church does not have "technical solutions to offer," but nonetheless issues a slew of specific recommendations:
- Resisting a “downsizing” of social security systems;
- Support for labor unions and the rights of workers in a global economy marked by mobility of labor;
- Combating hunger “by investing in rural infrastructures, irrigation systems, transport, organization of markets, and in the development and dissemination of agricultural technology”;
- Enshrining access to steady employment for all as a core economic objective;
- Protecting the earth’s “state of ecological health”;
- Seeing “openness to life,” meaning resistance to measures such as abortion and birth control, as not only morally obligatory but a key to long-term economic development;
- Ensuring that the targets of international aid programs are involved in their design and implementation, and trimming the bureaucracy sometimes associated with those programs;
- Lowering domestic energy consumption in developed nations, investing in renewable forms of energy, and adopting new more sustainable lifestyles;
- Curbing an “excessive zeal for protecting knowledge” among affluent nations, “through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care”;
- Opening up global markets to the products of developing nations, especially in agriculture;
- Commitment among developed nations to devote a larger share of their gross domestic product to development aid;
- Greater investment in education;
- More generous immigration policies, recognizing the economic contributions of migrants, both to their host countries and to their countries of origin by sending money home;
- Support for micro-finance, consumer cooperatives, and socially responsible forms of business;
- Reform of the United Nations and international institutions of economics and finance, in order to promote “a true world political authority ... with real teeth,” though one informed by the principle of subsidiarity – meaning respect for the liberty of individuals, families, and civil society;
- Opposition to abuses of biotechnology such as a new eugenics.
Underlying his specific positions, Benedict argues for a view of the human person founded on faith in God and open to spiritual meaning, as opposed to “an empiricist and sceptical view of life.”
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“Without the perspective of eternal life, human progress in this world is denied breathing-space,” the pope writes. Authentic development “requires a transcendent vision of the person, it needs God.”
In that context, Benedict insists on a strong public role for religion, against what Italian Cardinal Renato Martino, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, called "a militant secularism, sometimes exasperated," during a Vatican news conference this morning.
In the encyclical, Benedict XVI argues that both secularism and fundamentalism "exclude the possibility of ... effective cooperation between reason and religious faith."
Signs of the times flagged by the pope include “badly managed and largely speculative financial dealing, large-scale migration of peoples, often provoked by some particular circumstance and then given insufficient attention, [and] the unregulated exploitation of the earth’s resources.” Benedict also laments the juxtaposition of “a ‘right to excess’, and even to transgression and vice, within affluent societies, [alongside] the lack of food, drinkable water, basic instruction and elementary health care in areas of the underdeveloped world and on the outskirts of large metropolitan centres.”
In addition to structural reform, Benedict suggests that a lasting remedy to the present economic crisis will require conversion of individual hearts and minds.
“Development is impossible without upright men and women, without financiers and politicians whose consciences are finely attuned to the requirements of the common good,” the pope says.
Benedict champions organized labor in Caritas in Veritate, arguing that in a global economy marked by massive mobility of labor workers’ rights “must be honoured today even more than in the past.” He calls upon labor unions in developed countries to devote greater attention to “exploited and underrepresented” workers in other parts of the world.
The pope also calls for urgent efforts to alleviate hunger, asserting that food and access to water must be regarded as “universal rights of all human beings.”
To some extent, Caritas in Veritate is styled as an update of Pope Paul VI’s 1967 social encyclical Populorum Progressio, which addressed the newly emerging global order in the era of decolonization. Benedict calls Paul’s document “the Rerum Novarum of the modern age,” a reference to Pope Leo XIII’s landmark 1891 encyclical that launched the modern tradition of Catholic social teaching.
Experts in Catholic social teaching say much of Caritas in Veritate is not exactly new – the call for a true world political authority, for example, reaches back to Pope John XXIII’s 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris, and has periodically been repeated by popes ever since.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of new wrinkles in Caritas in Veritate.
For one thing, Benedict XVI insists that Catholic social teaching must be seen as a package deal, holding economic justice together with its opposition to abortion, birth control, gay marriage, and other hot-button issues of sexual morality. The pope expresses irritation with “certain abstract subdivisions of the church’s social doctrine,” an apparent reference to tensions between the church’s pro-life contingent and its peace-and-justice activists.
For the first time in a social encyclical, a pope argues that current demographic trends – in particular, population declines and rapid aging in parts of the developed world, especially Europe and Japan – illustrate the wisdom of Catholic sexual morality.
“Decline in births, falling at times beneath the so-called ‘replacement level’, also puts a strain on social welfare systems, increases their cost, eats into savings and hence the financial resources needed for investment, reduces the availability of qualified labourers, and narrows the ‘brain pool’ upon which nations can draw for their needs,” Benedict writes.
Benedict called falling birth rates in the developed world a sign of “scant confidence in the future and moral weariness.”
A second original touch in Caritas in Veritate is Benedict’s description of the emergence of a “broad intermediate area” between private business firms and non-profit initiatives, made up of business enterprises that operate not just from the profit motive but also out of a sense of social responsibility. The pope explicitly cites the “Economy of Communion,” linked to the “Folocare” movement founded by the late Italian Catholic laywoman Chiara Lubich, which links almost 800 businesses worldwide in a commitment to pool a share of their profits in order to fund development and formational programs.
“It is to be hoped that these new kinds of enterprise will succeed in finding a suitable juridical and fiscal structure in every country,” Benedict writes. “The very plurality of institutional forms of business gives rise to a market which is not only more civilized but also more competitive.”
Third, despite the argument of some social theorists that the nation-state may become obsolete in a globalized age, Benedict argues that “both wisdom and prudence suggest not being too precipitous in declaring the demise of the State.” In fact, the pope says, the current economic crisis may mark something of a renaissance for the state, as public authorities once again assert control over economic life.
One interesting twist to Caritas in Veritate is that Benedict XVI managed to pen a 144-page reflection on the globalized economy without once using the term "capitalism."
Caritas in Veritate is the first social encyclical of the 21st century, and the third encyclical letter from Pope Benedict XVI, after Deus Caritas Est in late 2005 and Spe Salvi in 2007. The new encyclical carries the date of June 29, the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.
See related story: Indiana firm can claim a papal thumbs-up from new social encyclical
Read the full text of Caritas in Veritate here.
A re-read of any/all of the
A re-read of any/all of the aforementioned documents will show that there are NO new ideas here. But what a relief to see that Mr. Allen managed once again to work his left wing/right wing "leitmotif" into the discussion.
I see pure Blessed Oscar
I see pure Blessed Oscar Arnulfo Romero here. I hear Dom Helder Camara, even Bishop Pedro Casaldaliga, and Pere Jean-Juste of happy memory.
Why? What Church have you been praying at?
I hear in this encyclical, a continuance with Deus caritas est, in line with Sacramentum caritas, as so Mr. Allen correctly indicates. A reporter merely reports. Do you find his extensive summary wrong on some point, or simply in cognitive dissonance with your Chicago SChool of laissez-faire Economics which starves the majority of humanity for the profit of a very few, which denies Americans health care for the highest priced and most dysfinctional health care system in the world?
I was sick and you did not visit me; hungry and you failed to feed me . . .
A stranger and you did not recieve me, and alien and you did not shelter me.
Did he neglect to mention the
Did he neglect to mention the gigantic elephant in the room? The massive and criminal waste of material and human resources sacrificed to the various national idols in the form of "defense spending"? The the much forgotten and evaded words in Matthew 5.43-48 are also the words of the Lord that "will never pass away" Luke 21.33.
Beautiful, beautiful, same
Beautiful, beautiful, same old, same old. It still seems wrong that in the USA one bishop can protect 11 parish priests that are pedophiles, while in places like Honduras eleven bishops cannot protect the life of one parish priest whose crime is feeding the poor.
The church has produced one Oscar Romero and it is trying to forget him. Rules, rules rules, these do not dry the tears of those of us that can't understand this.
It is good to see that
It is good to see that Benedict XVI isn't in the pocket of the Republican Party like so many Catholics in this country. Instead of turning "the market" into a golden calf he writes with realism and compassion about the global economy.
Steve
Of course the pope isnt in
Of course the pope isnt in the republican party's pocket - he's european, not american. Republicans like those in america are virtually non-existent in most of the developed world.
"Reform of the United Nations
"Reform of the United Nations and international institutions of economics and finance, in order to promote 'a true world political authority ... with real teeth,'".
Yes, let's relinquish American sovereignty to an organization increasingly enthralled to radical Muslim nations and whose primary mission is to transfer wealth from developed nations to third-world countries ruled by the likes of Robert Mugabe and Hugo Chavez.
Don't worry, Your Holiness. Your desire to see market economies defenestrated, particularly the American one, is already underway, courtesy of the Cipher-in-Chief you're going to meet with on Friday.
I have difficulty
I have difficulty comprehending your comments, dearest Dwight, please forgive me.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in fact does direct a great deal of his nation's wealth to other nations in the region. Is this wrong? You seem to indicate all his resources and country's wealth should go to "developed nations" meaning I guess the US.
Is it wrong for President Chavez to help the poor and starving nations with their development? Does this not most closely follow the dictates of this encyclical?
I do not know what you mean by Cipher, but did not our present impossible economic system come about under the past presidency (and vice-presidency), an administration which in fact received a surplus economy, and passed on to our present elected President an economy in ruins, with too many Americans living as in the Third World and worse, stripped of homes, jobs, health care?
just wondering
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)
You are missing the point.
You are missing the point. The problem is that we already have global organizations that make, oversee and enforce world-wide economic decisions. They are called the World Bank, the IMF and the like. The problem is that they are not accountable to anybody but o themselves. The Pope is asking for an organization that is accountable to elected officials (and elected official not living only in the US and 2-3 other countries). The Pope is asking for a market kept in check by society and culture and not the other way around. He is spot on!
Why are you surprised that
Why are you surprised that Pope Benedict would favor a global political authority with teeth? It is the exact system he has lived his entire clerical life and now leads. He himself was once the teeth of this global political system. In his experience it works well and since his theology is integrative, he does not clearly separate spiritual progress and political progress.
His government transfers wealth from first world to third world countries as a matter of course. The USCCB gave up their sovereignty a long time ago to his global authority. Benedict knows of what he speaks. He has always preferred and defended centralized authority. There should be nothing shocking about his call for a single global political authority.
Please don't read this
Please don't read this Encyclical with the eyes of liberal or conservative, but with eyes looking to see where I (MYSELF) need to change my ideas and beliefs. While I tend to be a conservative, read this pope's writings have made more concerned about the environment. Reading things from Archbishop Chaput have made more concerned about Immigration Policies. For the love of God, don't just use this teaching to hammer the other guy, but listen, reflect, and take to heart what this kind and gentle pope has to say.
His Holiness here calls for
His Holiness here calls for free and open immirgation policies as of great benefit both to the sending families and above all to the receiving nations
I do not know what the Archbishop says about it, but the Pope trumps the Archbishop, as far as my understanding of Roman CAtholic ecclesiology goes . . .
your poorest servant
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)
Archbishop Chaput has spoken
Archbishop Chaput has spoken about the need to reform laws to take compassionate care of all immigrants (including "illegal" immigrants). I am not surprised you have not heard about this since usually the media only reports what a bishops saids when it is about abortion or gay marriage ( a rare exception was the 2007 immigration reform when Cardinal Mahony advised his diocese to potentially violate state law if I remember correctly).
See George Weigel's trenchant
See George Weigel's trenchant and witty comments at National Review Online.
I read George Weigel's column
I read George Weigel's column at NRO. Apparently, Mr. Weigel will accept the parts of the encyclical he likes and ignore or scorn what he doesn't like. Sounds like cafeteria Catholicism to me.
Steve
thanks, simple Priest, but I
thanks, simple Priest, but I far prefer Mr. John Allen's trenchant and witty comments, as John is a great and above all a Catholic writer.
your poorest servant
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)
George Weigel skillfully
George Weigel skillfully employs the tactics of ‘divide and conquer.’ First he ‘uncovers’ this great big division and antagonism between the Pope(s) (John Paul II and Benedict) and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Then he traces the passages he likes and agrees with to the Pope and the passages he doesn’t like to ‘them’ (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace). Having done so, he feels perfectly justified to disregard the passages he doesn’t like (a typical Cafeteria Catholic move) and encourages his readers to do the same. This way he can claim to be a ‘good Catholic’ while fundamentally dismissing in public a highest authority teaching of the Church. Hypocrisy.
Very well done! You pretty
Very well done! You pretty much captured the essence - much to the chagrin of those who would deny the Church's commitment to workers and the poor and the rectitude of governmental redistribution of income.
One of the main reasons that
One of the main reasons that secularism seems so militant to the vatican seems to me to be the problem that the vatican and several Christian Churches promote ethical policies that trail those of secular society. For instance in the sex scandal alone, if a child were molested by a physician, the physician goes to jail. If another physician protects the molester, he too goes to jail. Even if a physician has an affair with a patient, he looses his license. Why are priests and Bishops not likewise censored. The problem with our authoritarian clerical structure is that it seeks out its own experts, those that agree with it. This is not an attempt to be authoritative at all.
I thank the Pope for some of the ethical improvement in this pronouncement, but point out that the improvement has been way too long in its coming. I also point out that there is much to improve upon in his clerical words!
Let us all seek peace and more understanding from the Spirit that talks to us all! The clerics are certainly not alone in the daily revelations of the Supreme Being. It is only arrogance that claims a special ear to revelation. In fact, it is probably the person that does not expect any special help from our great God that receives more clarity of understanding if he or she only has an open enough mind to accept what the spirit is telling us in our day and the intelligence to understand that we can only improve on imperfect understanding of the mind of our great God.
Peace and more understanding,
R. Dennis Porch, MD
As a non-RC Christian (though
As a non-RC Christian (though RC for 40+ yrs.before departing) I hope as "taad" said above, we digest this document with care and without pre-judgment. The RC church, for good or ill, has an impact beyond its own flock. Much of what is highlighted in Mr. Allen's piece, if uttered by any secular politician in my country (USA) would be dismissed by the business and social conservative sectors of the electorate as "liberal gibberish" or some equally unfortunate phrase.
Fealty to the Pope restrains Catholics within those sectors from a direct frontal assault, so we get the fiction that Benedict only wrote the "good parts", i.e., life issues, and some rogue bunch of closet "LIBRUL" cardinals the rest. Mr Weigel of National Review, and others: Oh my, what webs you (on the right) weave when you seek to deceive. The self-importance and puffed chests of American rightist Catholics in a billion member global organization, in which they seek to impose the Republican party platform on the rest of humanity gives hubris a new meaning.
Even before studying the text
Even before studying the text with the thoroughness it requires, I am surprised and delighted that the Pope's "Caritas in Veritate", in spite of its whiff of pessimism (how revealing is his quotation from the pre-Socratic Heraclitus of Ephesus,known as the "weeping philosopher" because of his pessimistic view of the human condition)and its top-down style of teaching, incorporates more than a smattering of a type of Liberation Theology for the learned, the rich and the powerful. There is no doubt,however,that the time will come when even the Pope will be writing about the living and lived out Liberation Theology of the Poor within the Church as so many Bishops have done in Latin America in general and Brazil in particular. After all, Saint Peter was only a poor fisherman who lived out his faith!
Thank you for this good
Thank you for this good summary of the encyclical. One major part left out, however, is Benedict's extensive critique of the "supremacy of technology" in chapter six.
"The process of globalization could replace ideologies with technology[152], allowing the latter to become an ideological power that threatens to confine us within an a priori that holds us back from encountering being and truth. Were that to happen, we would all know, evaluate and make decisions about our life situations from within a technocratic cultural perspective to which we would belong structurally, without ever being able to discover a meaning that is not of our own making. The “technical” worldview that follows from this vision is now so dominant that truth has come to be seen as coinciding with the possible."
Even before studying the text
Even before studying the text with the thoroughness it requires, I am delighted and surprised that the Pope's "Caritas in Veritate", in spite of its whiff of pessimism and its top-down style of professorial teaching, incorporates more than a smattering of a type of Liberation Theology for the learned, the rich and the powerful. This is a good start. There is no doubt that the time will come when even the Holy Father will accept and take the bottom-up Liberation Theology of the Poor seriously. As many Bishops in Latin America in general and in Brazil in particular have discovered, there is much to learn from the Poor in their small Ecclesial Base Communities: "True Love" gradually changes the world and society.Jesus chose a poor fisherman to be the leader of the first Christian Community.
Pope looks to be confused on
Pope looks to be confused on the economic front. He is not expressing any thing against or in favour of capitalism despite the recent economic crisis of capitalism. There cannot be any neutral system for the welfare of mankind by ammending the present capitalist system. He advises market competition (free market)but ignores the present monopoly market conditions. If free market as known to all the economists world over and defined in textbooks is practised as suggested by him, the existence of capitalism will be over once for all. The economists from developed nations are misrepresenting monopoly market as free-market.Probably Pope is not aware of this.
He also advised trade unions to pay greater attention to the exploited and unrepresented workers of other parts of the world. This clearly shows that he wants to support exploitative capitalism. Workers are presently taking shelter of monopoly law of trade unions. In that he approves the monopoly capitalism. Karl Marx says that wage-workers are fit for revolution and other unorganised sector workers are uselss for any change. Wage-workers, as we know, are more worried about their own privileges. They will not venture into unknown territory for helping other workers from unorganised sectors.
Supporting micro-finance system is suggested by him. It is contrary to monopoly capitalism, which believes in largeness of enterprises by centralized economic controls. Decentralisation of finance as well as production functions will bring down the capiatlism itself. On one hand, he says that capitalism as such is now effectively "obsolete" and must be replaced by a new form of market economy whose driving force is NOT maximisation of profits. He forgets that trade union system is a part of monopoly capitalism. He, on the other hand, recognises the same system for further progress.
New form of market economy will not have present day monopoly capitalism not have Marxian socialism. Both systems do not favour "free market" for preserving interest of the state or private monopolists. It means he is suggesting a "third alternative economic system". He does not say bluntly as he is a part of capitalist economic system and presently enjoying huge privileges flowing from that very system.
If he opts for the third alternative system, it has to be an exploitationless economic systems wherein employers and employees would not have any status. The "Third system" could assure full employment through the route of self-employment, retaining all the surplus values (a la Marx)created by worker-cum-owner.This way the economic scenario would be all together different than he is perceiving. He is not an economist. However, his advisers are certainly coming from pro-capitalist system. They cannot go thinking beyond the limits of capiatlism.This is the tragedy of this Encyclical.
Is there anything wrong with
Is there anything wrong with my computer? The comments I have sent you have not yet been published...
I explore human dignity and
I explore human dignity and the common good in the work day at my site The Rationale Com and have been an advocate for fair trade for many years. My main site is the Ray Tapajna Chronicles with events that forecasted our economic crisis at http://tapsearch.com/tapartnews and I explore the lost worlds in the globalist free trader Flat World at http://tapsearch.com/flatworld
At The Rationale Com, we focused on the latent response of religion and philosophy in the global arena with workers being the "stepchildren" of philosophy and religion forced to wait their turn in a controlled sequence of events outside the will of the people.
We also pursue untold stories behind the news in the global economic arena at http://www.bizarrepolitics.com
I have read just parts of Pope Benedict's new encyclical and welcome it.
However, I noted the term globalization and free trade used without any real definitions of these terms and wonder why.
Globalization and so called free trade have been driven by powerful forces outside the will of the people with much of it bypassing any democratic process. The same applys to free trade which is primarily based on moving production from place to place for the sake of cheaper labor. Tariffs have been taken off products but put on the value of workers as the real commodities being traded.
Please review and pass on The Rationale Com at http://www.therationale.com and all our sites under one link at http://linkbun.ch/aztb We consider it our "ministry".
George Weigel,'gratia et
George Weigel,'gratia et auctoritate sua' should write a model encyclical on the social doctrine of the Church as he understands it. It could perhaps be based on the theme, "Caritas in malignitate". I am sure that, being a scholar, even the Pope would study it with the utmost care.
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