Overview of “Caritas in Veritate”

Integral human development is back in the news: By Kevin Dance, CP *

Pope Benedict XVI explores the challenges of integral human development today in Caritas in Veritate. He uses the occasion of the 40th year since Paul VI issued his encyclical Populorum Progressio (On the Progress of Peoples) to recall its richness and reinforces its relevance to present world challenges.

After exploring the connection between charity and truth, he turns to the message of Populorum Progressio, stressing that its principles have continuing force and validity to help in social analysis.

He then helps us look at the present challenges facing integral human development. He points to the moral dimension of the economy that is so often overlooked. Integral development must draw together into unity and harmonise the economic, social, political and human dimensions of life. Solidarity and shared humanity are basic building blocks of a sustainable development. We are urged to find the proper balance of rights and duties, including our duties towards the environment. Cooperation, not unbridled competition is needed. Technology can be a positive or a negative force. The encyclical concludes with a call to Christian action.

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Love – caritas – is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force that has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth. (1)

 There you have it! Love is at the heart of Catholic social teaching on justice and society. Our origin in God’s love and our unity as one human family guide both our ‘micro’ relationships with friends, family and small groups, as well as our ‘macro’ relationships in the social, economic and political spheres (1 -2).

Charity received and given is what gives rise to the Church’s social teaching, which is caritas in veritate in re sociali: the proclamation of the truth of Christ’s love in society. This doctrine is a service to charity, but its locus is truth. Development, social well-being, the search for a satisfactory solution to the grave socio-economic problems besetting humanity, all need this truth (5).

 Justice is the primary way of charity or, in Paul VI’s words, “the minimum measure” of it, an integral part of the love “in deed and in truth” Charity demands justice by recognizing and respecting the rights of others. And it also “transcends justice and completes it in the logic of giving and forgiving” Benedict calls us to realize that peace and development are promoted not by relationships of rights and duties alone, but even more fundamentally by “relationships of gratuitousness, mercy and communion”. (6)

Paul VI : key insights that still shape human development today:

• Authentic human development concerns the whole of the person in every single dimension.
• Integral human development is primarily a vocation to act responsibly and in solidarity. It must be based on a vision that is bigger than the individual person. It needs God.
• It is not about merely technical aspects of human life, but about the meaning of our life journey in company with our fellow humans to promote the good of every person who is of unconditional value.
• Two extremes of idealizing technical progress, or a utopian wish to return to humanity’s original natural state, work against progress by separating the moral foundations of progress and our responsibility in this area.
• Integral human development presupposes the responsible freedom of the individual and of peoples: no structure can guarantee this development without human responsibility.
• Underdevelopment is caused by a lack of solidarity and the will to change, not bychance or historical necessity.
• Privilege or positions of power have no place in promoting development.
• True economic development produces real growth, benefits everyone and is genuinely sustainable.
• Paul VI’s vision of development saw people freed from all that limited life – hunger, deprivation, diseases, illiteracy. This requires active involvement in the international economic process, to build educated, equal societies, with democratic processes to enable peace and freedom. (11- 21)

Current challenges or blocks to integral development

• The present crises are increasingly interconnected and require a new integrated way of understanding.
• Uncontrolled speculative financial dealings have damaging effects on the real economy.
• Globalization’s impact on large scale movements of people is not taken seriously enough.
• Unregulated exploitation of the earth’s resources
• An emerging call of the new poor in rich countries where some enjoy ’superabundance’
• The world’s wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities are on the increase. Jobless growth is unsustainable.
• Corrupt activity by the economic and political classes in both rich and poor countries.
• Large multinational companies sometimes fail to respect the human rights of workers.
• International aid often fails because of irresponsible actions by both donors and beneficiaries.
• Rich countries jealously protect intellectual property, often at the cost of other countries, especially in the area of pharmaceuticals and health care
• There are some cultural practices that still hinder human rights and development .
• The current crisis calls for a profound cultural renewal, to re-plan our journey, to set ourselves new rules and to discover new forms of commitment. (21-22)

In light of the above, Benedict urges us to shift from short term thinking to a “profound and far-sighted revision of the current model of development…Human costs always include economic costs, and economic dysfunctions always involve human costs” (32). The perilous state of the earth’s health as well as the cultural and moral crisis of the moment demand it prompt action with a long-term vision. Forty years ago Paul VI recognized the growing interdependence within the human community. The full force of its impact was still in the future. The ways in which globalization locks the world together must be reckoned with if we are to find an appropriate development model for today (33). Globalisation can assist development, but it can also destroy true progress. The greed and immoral behavior of the few in the world of high finance has been able to bring the world to the edge of ruin. The social, moral, economic and political dimensions of life have been cut off one from another. Isolation is one of the deepest forms of poverty. Our challenge is to reconnect the separated parts and so humanize and harmonize globalization. This is the heart of caritas in veritate (33).

*Kevin Dance, CP is the Director of Passionists International.

One Response to “Overview of “Caritas in Veritate””

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