Charity in the truth

ITS original Latin rendition is “Caritas in veritate.” It’s the title of the third long-awaited encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI that just came out first week of July.

When two years ago its idea was first brought up in public, the common attitude was that it was to be the papal social encyclical to tackle our festering current global economic crisis.

Expectations and suspense ran high. What made it more so was that there were announcements that the document would come out last year. But it didn’t, thus, all sorts of speculations came thick and fast.

So it was quite a major letdown that when it finally came out, only the “usual people” (ecclesiastics, Church commentators, seminary professors, etc.) were the ones making noise. Hardly anything came out from the secular press. It seemed that interest in the encyclical was restricted to a certain circle of people.

Even in our country that’s supposed to be very Catholic, there’s almost total silence to its reception. The bishops preferred, it seems, to talk about politics or something else, though it must be said that what they said one way or another have some relation to what the encyclical is saying.

This phenomenon has been hovering and bothering me at the back of my mind. Why is it like that? His second encyclical, “Spes salvi” (Saved by hope), despite its tremendous content, suffered more or less the same fate. It was only the first one, “Deus caritas est” (God is love), that caused some stir.

Several reasons can be put forward. But I prefer to think that most people are not prepared for it. Many are those who do not know how to think theologically. They can think emotionally, rationally, sociologically, economically, politically, not but yet theologically.

I’m afraid some have gone to the extent of considering documents like this as a foreign body to their system. They have already developed a certain allergy to any Church document.

Underpinning this could be an attachment to the superficial aspects of the current situation, plus a certain soft or subtle narcissism that keeps one thinking of oneself only, or worse, a hostile attitude backed up by some ideologies like secularism, a wild liberalism, etc.

Which is all a pity because the encyclical puts the whole issue of our current socio-economic-political predicament in its proper perspective. The Church has the duty and the charism to read the signs of the times, and this is what the Holy Father is doing in this encyclical.

It does not offer technical solutions, but it points out the fundamental causes of our problems these days and the way to correct them. The Pope knows the vast scope as well as the limits of his authority. He toes the line.

In this document, the Pope says that while truth always has to be pursued and given in charity, as St. Paul says, charity, which is the driving force of human development, should always be developed in the truth.

Everyone, I suppose, wants to love. But we have to make sure that our love is in the truth, otherwise we would just be going in circles, pursuing a false and dangerous love.

He defines what true integral human development is, grounding it on its ultimate source as a vocation coming from God and highlighting the spiritual component more than its material aspect.

The Pope tries to highlight the connection between our earthly affairs on the one hand, and our origin and destination in God, on the other.

Our usual problem is to understand our autonomy in our earthly affairs as total independence from God. They are just a human thing, we tend to think. God has no place in them. Wrong! We need to make drastic changes in this mentality.

The Pope goes on to touch on a number of crucial elements regarding our earthly affairs that all need clarification. Among these are the social principles of common good, solidarity and subsidiarity as lived in the context of our present crisis.

There are references to how international cooperation should be developed, and other issues like migration, aid to poor countries, care for the environment, delicate responsibilities in finance, etc.

There’s one point that I find most interesting. It’s about how openness to life is at the center of true development. “If personal and social sensitivity toward the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance valuable for society also wither away.”

We cannot say that we have not been warned.