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Caritas in Veritate:
On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth
By Pope Benedict XVI
(Ignatius Press, 157 pp., $14.95)
I.
Are we facing an economic crisis? I do not mean the crisis of the credit markets that has wiped trillions off the global balance sheet and plunged the world into recession. I mean a spiritual crisis, of which the crash is but a symptom. According to Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, we are in the midst of a “late capitalist . . . countdown to social dissolution and the triumph of infinite exchangeability and timeless, atomized desire.” The only way to interrupt this countdown, he suggests, is for all of us to pattern our actions on divine love. A number of intellectuals--ranging from former Maoists such as Alain Badiou to dialectical materialists such as Slavoj Žižek--have made similar diagnoses, and proposed similar solutions. And to their company must now be added the pope.
With his first encyclical--Deus Caritas Est, or God is Love, in 2006--Benedict XVI gave notice that he intended to make the struggle against this crisis a corner-stone of his pontificate. Now, with his new encyclical Caritas in Veritate: On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth, the Vicar of Rome has given us his manifesto on the need for love in a globalizing age. “Love--caritas--is an extraordinary force,” he tells us. Without love “there is no social conscience and responsibility, and social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in social fragmentation, especially in a globalized society at difficult times like the present.” Caritas--the word means both love and charity in Latin--is the force that ties us together in society. “To love someone is to desire that person’s good and to take effective steps to secure it.” Owing to this love we strive for “the common good,” the good of “ ‘all of us’ . . . individuals, families, and intermediate groups who together constitute society.” Without love we become isolated and alienated, “a ‘stranger’ in a random universe.” In fact, the lack of love is itself the cause of material deprivation: “if we look closely” at poverty, “even its material forms,” we see that it is “born from isolation, from not being loved or from difficulties in being able to love. Poverty is often produced by a rejection of God’s love.”
But not just any love will do. Love, Benedict instructs, "needs to be understood, confirmed, and practiced in the light of truth," something that is too often forgotten in our "social and cultural context which relativizes truth . . . showing an increasing reluctance to acknowledge its existence." He goes on: "Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. . . . Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word 'love' is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite."
And not just any truth will do. Jesus Christ "is the Truth" (John 14:6); and "Charity in truth" is "the Face of his Person." Only in the truth of God's word (logos) is dialogue (diá-logos) "authentic," and only that truth makes genuine communication and community possible. "Adhering to the values of Christianity," the pope explains, "is not merely useful but essential for building a good society and for true integral human development. A Christianity of charity without truth would be more or less interchangeable with a pool of good sentiments, helpful for social cohesion, but of little relevance. . . . There would no longer be any real place for God in the world. Without truth, charity is confined to a narrow field devoid of relations. It is excluded from . . . promoting human development of universal range, in dialogue between knowledge and praxis." In sum, only "love in truth," true love, Christian love, can bring about authentic "social, juridical, political, and economic" development.
The blogosphere--a profane realm if ever there was one--bristles with criticism of this or that aspect of the pope's specific recommendations. Some shake their heads at his call for a strengthening of international governance and the United Nations. Others, conversely, are disappointed in his stress on the ongoing sovereignty of states, and in his insistence that "the governance of globalization must be marked by subsidiarity." Still others, such as Peter Steinfels in The New York Times, never even engage the contents, but complain instead about the difficulty of the prose. But so far as I can tell, nobody is much interested in debating the crucial argument that runs through Benedict's encyclical: the fundamental claim that economic exchange requires love.
This silence is odd, given that nowadays, in the midst of a crisis of confidence in the ability of markets to regulate themselves, we hear any number of calls for their moral reorientation. Princeton University, for example, recently hosted a conference on "Natural Law and Economics." One might therefore expect a "value-oriented" approach from a personage as prominent as the pope to attract serious discussion. Perhaps the problem is that believers treat the economic relevance of God's love as self-evident, while non-believers (especially those trained as economists) consider it absurd. Both, I think, are wrong. Benedict is an influential voice asking a basic question about our markets and our societies: can the values they require to function properly be produced from within themselves, or must those values come from beyond themselves? His question, and his answer, deserve our critical attention.
COMMENTS (7)
Williams:
“late capitalist . . . countdown to social dissolution and the triumph of infinite exchangeability and timeless, atomized desire.”
george:
Been there. Done that.
How many radical political organizations did I once bump into that used jargon like this to prophecize the death of capitalism. And they based their prognostications on the alleged "scientific" predicates of Marxism.
Even on a psychological level this sort of alienation is embedded in the Marxist analysis of economic rationalization.
What's the Pope suggesting then, that capitalism is bad for the soul? Maybe. But in a roundabout way it's sure filled the Vatican's coffers hasn't it?
And can you imgine Williams, Badiou an ... view full comment
Williams:
“late capitalist . . . countdown to social dissolution and the triumph of infinite exchangeability and timeless, atomized desire.”
george:
Been there. Done that.
How many radical political organizations did I once bump into that used jargon like this to prophecize the death of capitalism. And they based their prognostications on the alleged "scientific" predicates of Marxism.
Even on a psychological level this sort of alienation is embedded in the Marxist analysis of economic rationalization.
What's the Pope suggesting then, that capitalism is bad for the soul? Maybe. But in a roundabout way it's sure filled the Vatican's coffers hasn't it?
And can you imgine Williams, Badiou and Zizek [Zizek?!] coming on Fast Money, then Mad Money and preaching "Divine Love"!!!!
Besides, the Pope and all the other religious enablers could not possibly be more complicit [if unwittingly] in the surge of capitaliist exploitation. After all, they do their damnedest to yank the flocks of sheep away from the political organizing needed to stand a fighting chance against the universe's masters.
Oh, and caritas ["all we need is love!"] is indeed an extraordinary force out in the world today. The love of money, for example. Where do these folks get their inspiration----from watching Oprah?
Love reduced down to a cliche, a bromide, a slogan. Yeah, that'll chance things on Wall Street. Hey, I'm sorry, but the minds of folks like this never, ever fail to stuptefy me. They're incredibly naive, credulous, ingenuous, artless. Just like I used to be when, as a boy, I spouted much the same thing. I stopped being a boy in Vietnam. What's it going to take to get these folks off cloud 9?
David Nirenberg:
The blogosphere--a profane realm if ever there was one--bristles with criticism of this or that aspect of the pope's specific recommendations.
george:
No where near enough. The Pope plucks his words out of....what? How are they even remotely connected to the flesh and blood capitalism....to the manner in which capitalism has evolved historically as a political economy? You don't have to be a hard core materialist to recognize the preposterous limitations of Benedict's exhortations here. His mind is mush next to the reality of those who engineer the shock doctrine.
Moral reorientation. Yes, let's sit down with Baucus, Obama, Beck, The Editors and the healthcare industry. Let's see how far we can reorient THEIR moral compasses.
DN's assumptions about the relationship between "love" and "markets" is particularly naive. Markets are not moral or immoral, they are efficient or inefficient, productive or non productive. Capitalists make decisions based on what will or will not garner a profit---not on what will or will not make the world a better place. They are not "evil" men and women. They are just simply doing what they must do in order to stay competive with others in their market. They don't call it the "law of the market" for nothing. A CEO doesn't wake up one morning and think, "oh boy, I'm shifting 2000 jobs to China this week. Fuck them!" Instead, he or she is far more likely to do it because his or her competitor is doing it and they won't stay in business if they don't follow suit. That's what happened to a company I once worked for. The boss felt terrible letting us go. But what realistic choice did he have? THAT is how capitalism functions---systemically. Divine Love won't change it.
You can clearly see the relationship between capitalism and Christianity in the invention of the Protestant Reformation. What is this but a flagrant attempt to reconcile God with the moneychangers in the temple? As feudalism gave way historically to mercantilism and [with a burgeoning world trade] full blown capitalism. Same with Locke and The Enlightenment. Capitalism needed a new philosophical, theological, political superstruture, didn't it? What, did you think all of these new relationships were just a historical coincidence?
How is Capitalism reconciled with the path Jesus Christ chose when he drove the moneychangers OUT of the temples?
DN:
Where John Paul II or Paul VI cultivated an ecumenical voice when they wished to speak about global problems, Benedict cultivates a dogmatic one.
george:
Yes, an ecumenical approach aimed at galvinizing all the religious faithful to shove their God to the side [this time] and embrace all Gods under one big tent of Divine Love is better than the alternative---what we have today. But who the hell is actually naive enough to even IMAGINE the audactiy of THAT change?!!
You?
Yes, Benedict's love may be narrowed by his truth. But what IN THE WORLD and FOR ALL PRACTICAL PUROSES can that possibly MEAN? Isn't an embrace of an ecumenical Divine Love just another Truth to the author?
Instead, the closest thing we have to a relationship between love and truth out in the real world [of global capitalism] is, for all practical purposes, the relationship between the love of money and the truth that juts out glaringly [especially given the past year] when political and economic power come together to forge the narrative.
george walton
d/a
The pope's liberal platitudes are worse than useless. The man is a pompous ass. The only thing that can save this planet is capitalism, i.e. rationality on a global scale.
Freedom works. It really does. Yeah yeah, the real estate bubble is bad news. But it's a minor problem compared to the tens of millions of people murdered by socialist regimes. The fact is that socialist countries are impoverished tyrannical crapholes.
Over a million Cubans have fled to the United States. How many Americans, other than a few fugitives from the law, have moved to Cuba?
The pope's liberal platitudes are worse than useless. The man is a pompous ass. The only thing that can save this planet is capitalism, i.e. rationality on a global scale.
Freedom works. It really does. Yeah yeah, the real estate bubble is bad news. But it's a minor problem compared to the tens of millions of people murdered by socialist regimes. The fact is that socialist countries are impoverished tyrannical crapholes.
Over a million Cubans have fled to the United States. How many Americans, other than a few fugitives from the law, have moved to Cuba?
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neigbor as thyself." Since this is part of the liturgy, I have heard those words spoken hundreds, thousands, of times, and since an adult (I am almost 60), asked why we are to love our neighbors "as thyself", as opposed to simply loving our neighbors. Is the admonition to love our neighbors, or is the admonition to love ourselves? Or is it an acknowledgment that to love "thyself" is a pre-condition for loving our neighbors; after all, how can someone love another without first having self-love. T ... view full comment
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neigbor as thyself." Since this is part of the liturgy, I have heard those words spoken hundreds, thousands, of times, and since an adult (I am almost 60), asked why we are to love our neighbors "as thyself", as opposed to simply loving our neighbors. Is the admonition to love our neighbors, or is the admonition to love ourselves? Or is it an acknowledgment that to love "thyself" is a pre-condition for loving our neighbors; after all, how can someone love another without first having self-love. That is of course the same issue being addressed by Nirenberg and the Pope, and first raised by the Apostle Paul. With Paul, however, it is the first and great commandment alone that is the key to salvation ("we are justified by Faith only"), so while questions regarding "economic morality" (or "good works, which are the fruits of Faith") may be "pleasing to God", they do not "make men meet to receive grace". Nirenberg's composition would be perplexing to anyone, Christian or not, absent an understanding of this concept.
properly rendered through compulsory transaction, to include economics, is of marginal value. Personal and collective edification is stillborn without freewill conviction and motivation. Love is the solution. So goes the eye of the needle.
properly rendered through compulsory transaction, to include economics, is of marginal value. Personal and collective edification is stillborn without freewill conviction and motivation. Love is the solution. So goes the eye of the needle.
I agree with Nirenberg. Love is good and doesn't require Catholic belief to be authentic. But good luck telling Benedict that. He's not just worried about a lack of love, but also a lack of faith, which he regards as basically the same thing. I suppose that this is a necessary way of looking it at it if you're the Pope, and ecumenical pronouncements to the contrary are probably more politically than theologically correct. Benedict knows of course that one can express love and charity without Catholic, or any, faith, and that many do. But there must be something wrong with that. Otherwise, it seems, faith ceases to have a point -- there's no place for God in the world. Benedict thus c ... view full comment
I agree with Nirenberg. Love is good and doesn't require Catholic belief to be authentic. But good luck telling Benedict that. He's not just worried about a lack of love, but also a lack of faith, which he regards as basically the same thing. I suppose that this is a necessary way of looking it at it if you're the Pope, and ecumenical pronouncements to the contrary are probably more politically than theologically correct. Benedict knows of course that one can express love and charity without Catholic, or any, faith, and that many do. But there must be something wrong with that. Otherwise, it seems, faith ceases to have a point -- there's no place for God in the world. Benedict thus concludes that such faithless love and charity amount to mere sentimentality, mere emotion, mere feelings, which are contingent and subjective and, we might say, mere matters of taste. No, no, Benedict says, that won't do. Love must have a firmer footing. Otherwise, one's preference for charity over cruelty is as "true" as one's preference for coffee over tea. Love is thus stripped, in the Pope's eyes, of its profundity and is thus susceptible to abandonment when another pleasing notion comes along. But do we need God to feel a profound feeling? Do those without faith actually regard love as merely a preference, equivalent in importance to a preference for a particular flavor of ice cream? Of course not. Yes, love is a feeling. We do not know -- not the Pope, not anyone -- that love exists anywhere outside the human mind. The question is how to deal with that problem. Do we simply assert that it does, and insist that it lives only in our particular mythology? Benedict takes that course. Or do we choose to acknowledge, celebrate, teach, and develop a mere feeling that seems to have preceeded the invention of every major religion, commands universal recognition, and is as uncontroversially right and good as our preference for those things called "right and good"?
I'm disappointed that so much ink is devoted to the writings of someone whose entire premise of their life and philosophy is based upon a falsehood. It would be like a review of an document from adherents of Thor. Or Poseidon. We have seen little benefit from religion and, if anything, it only seems to bring terror and destruction. The modern age suffers Islamic terrorism. Past ages suffered Catholic terrorism (that still echoes) Other organized religions can claim as much.
Religion gums up the advancement of science and the hope of improving people's lives. Relying on a false god (they're all false) delays the assumption of responsibility by people. Recent small examples include t ... view full comment
I'm disappointed that so much ink is devoted to the writings of someone whose entire premise of their life and philosophy is based upon a falsehood. It would be like a review of an document from adherents of Thor. Or Poseidon. We have seen little benefit from religion and, if anything, it only seems to bring terror and destruction. The modern age suffers Islamic terrorism. Past ages suffered Catholic terrorism (that still echoes) Other organized religions can claim as much.
Religion gums up the advancement of science and the hope of improving people's lives. Relying on a false god (they're all false) delays the assumption of responsibility by people. Recent small examples include the slowdown of stem cell research, the avoidance of polio vaccines for fear of a western conspiracy, the slaughter of pigs in Egypt and the resulting garbage crisis, suicide bombs, the refusal to allow gay men and women to marry, etc. Past injections of religious wisdom slowed astronomy, and medicine. If religious leaders were infallible, wouldn't god have clued them in on, say, the location of planet earth in our solar system? Omniscience is a hard sell when you turn out to be so completely misinformed. Falseness does not stop the faithful. But it should give a magazine like The New Republic pause before it wastes our time on such things.
That the Pope could presume to suggest how to improve the world is the height of hubris. Any suggestion that starts with a false and destructive belief system isn't worth the electrons - or paper - it's written on. Or, for that matter, a review in The New Republic.
I'll go with absurd.
I'll go with absurd.