"...aim at a higher goal"...- Pope Benedict XVI

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

There is so much to be heard in the following excerpt from Pope Benedict XVI’s “Caritas in veritate” (Charity in Truth):

1. The Church’s social doctrine has always maintained that justice must be applied to every phase of economic activity, because this is always concerned with man and his needs. 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 social sciences and the direction taken by the contemporary economy point to the same conclusion. Perhaps at one time it was conceivable that first the creation of wealth could be entrusted to the economy, and then the task of distributing it could be assigned to politics. Today that would be more difficult, given that economic activity is no longer circumscribed within territorial limits, while the authority of governments continues to be principally local. Hence the canons of justice must be respected from the outset, as the economic process unfolds, and not just afterwards or incidentally. Space also needs to be created within the market for economic activity carried out by subjects who freely choose to act according to principles other than those of pure profit, without sacrificing the production of economic value in the process. The many economic entities that draw their origin from religious and lay initiatives demonstrate that this is concretely possible.

In the global era, the economy is influenced by competitive models tied to cultures that differ greatly among themselves. The different forms of economic enterprise to which they give rise find their main point of encounter in commutative justice. Economic life undoubtedly requires contracts, in order to regulate relations of exchange between goods of equivalent value. But it also needs just laws and forms of redistribution governed by politics, and what is more, it needs works redolent of the spirit of gift. The economy in the global era seems to privilege the former logic, that of contractual exchange, but directly or indirectly it also demonstrates its need for the other two: political logic, and the logic of the unconditional gift.

1. My predecessor John Paul II drew attention to this question in Centesimus Annus, when he spoke of the need for a system with three subjects: the market, the State and civil society. He saw civil society as the most natural setting for an economy of gratuitousness and fraternity, but did not mean to deny it a place in the other two settings. Today we can say that economic life must be understood as a multi-layered phenomenon: in every one of these layers, to varying degrees and in ways specifically suited to each, the aspect of fraternal reciprocity must be present. In the global era, economic activity cannot prescind from gratuitousness, which fosters and disseminates solidarity and responsibility for justice and the common good among the different economic players. It is clearly a specific and profound form of economic democracy. Solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone, and it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State. While in the past it was possible to argue that justice had to come first and gratuitousness could follow afterwards, as a complement, today it is clear that without gratuitousness, there can be no justice in the first place. What is needed, therefore, is a market that permits the free operation, in conditions of equal opportunity, of enterprises in pursuit of different institutional ends. Alongside profit-oriented private enterprise and the various types of public enterprise, there must be room for commercial entities based on mutualist principles and pursuing social ends to take root and express themselves. It is from their reciprocal encounter in the marketplace that one may expect hybrid forms of commercial behaviour to emerge, and hence an **attentiveness to ways of civilizing the economy. **Charity in truth, in this case, requires that shape and structure be given to those types of economic initiative which, without rejecting profit, **aim at a higher goal **than the mere logic of the exchange of equivalents, of profit as an end in itself…

We have much to thank the Lord for in giving His Church a share in His Wisdom, especially through prayerful Popes like Pope Benedict XVI and Pope St. John Paul II. Let us take to heart what we read today and ask the Holy Spirit to activate that gift of wisdom each of us received at Baptism that we may accept our responsibilities in the care of one another. Come, Holy Spirit enable us to love in truth! Mary, Mother and Model for the Church, intercede for us and help us bring Jesus into the world, by the power of His Holy Spirit, as you did.

 

[esieffe]

My esteem for Pope Benedict grows daily.

 

[MariaChristi]

My esteem for Pope Benedict grows daily.

Thanks, esieffe – my esteem for God’s gifts to him grows too! I am amazed each time I read or re-read any of Pope Benedict XVI’s works at how he is able to share the most profound Truth in such a humble way!

 

[patricius79]

It reminds me of St. Paul’s teaching in Scripture that everything we do should be done out of love. That applies to all buying and selling… and giving things away for free.

 

[MariaChristi]

It reminds me of St. Paul’s teaching in Scripture that everything we do should be done out of love. That applies to all buying and selling… and giving things away for free.

Thanks for your reply, brother Pat.

Pope Benedict XVI has such wisdom from God in his prayerful understanding of the “signs of the times”. Buying and selling can be done in love or for selfish reasons, giving things free can also be done from selfish reasons or in love as well – Both need to be understood in the light of Divine Charity.

St. Paul was divinely inspired to write in His Epistles what God revealed for all of us to hear by the power of the same Holy Spirit. Jesus promised His disciples the night before he died that He would send “Another Paraclete”. He would send His Holy Spirit to bring us into all truth. If we are to learn how to love truly, if we are to understand what the Pope has written in this Encyclical “On Charity in Truth”, we need to read it prayerfully.

May God help all of us, as Members of His Body, the Church, to listen to all God has revealed in Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church, that each of us may by God’s Grace, build up the Body of Christ in love.