Dear Parishioners,

The Pope didn’t just break his wrist!  He also broke his image.   This July he issued his third and long awaited social encyclical; a personal papal letter on the social teaching of the Church and its application today.  It will stand well in the series of such documents dating back to Leo XIII’s “Rerum Novarum” (of New Things!); that1891 document is the foundation stone of the Catholic social teaching tradition – a tradition that broke ground away from “thou shalt not lie”, “thou shalt not kill” and “thou shalt not steal” to address the condition of labor and the need for everything from child labor laws, minimum and living wages, the right to organize (horror of horrors – unions!) and the right to collective bargaining.  As one commentator writes “Benedict XVI has made a habit of refuting his own stereotype.  None of his three enclyclicals, least of all this one, confirms the image of “Ratzinger the conservative autocrat”.

No, I don’t expect many of you to run out and buy a copy of “Caritas in Veritate”.  I also don’t expect this closely reasoned and thickly written document to make anyone’s best seller list.  Still it is an important landmark in the social justice teaching of the Church.  It is one that will be hotly debated for years to come.  One American neo-conservative has already written it off as a “duck-billed platypus!”, consisting of agreeable (to him) lines that the Pope must have written  mixed with “justice and peace” lines that someone else must have inserted! – shades of William F. Buckley dismissing the great social encyclical  “Mater et Magistra” by Pope John XXII in the 60’s with the snide remark “Mater (mother) Si: Magistra (teacher) No!”                         

If I had to summarize the ground breaking work in Pope Benedict’s letter, it would be with three really deep and profound phrases: The first is “integral human development”; the second and third are simply “gift” and “fraternity”.

“Integral Human Development”  - Ever since Vatican II (1962-1965) and the writings of Pope Paul VI (1963-1978), the scope of evangelization (which all accept as the Church’s job), has been pushed to bring social justice within the agenda of the Church’s main business. However, “Preaching the gospel” and “working for social justice” still seem to be separate and apart.  The Pope now brings the two halves emphatically together to make one whole.  “The Whole Church, in all her being and acting  - when she proclaims, when she celebrates, when she performs acts of charities is engaged in promoting integral human development • • •  authentic human development concerns the whole person in every dimension”.  There simply is no spiritual pathway that bypasses integral human development which leads to Christ and finds its measurement and criteria in Christ.  This central idea, the fusion of spirituality and social action  under the banner of integral human development enables Benedict to turn to contemporary crises: the current financial crisis, the crisis of globalization and migration and to judge the impact of each on integral human development.

“Gift and Fraternity” – Discussing  modern finance Benedict draws a line between a capitalist economy aimed at maximum profit and a civil market economy aimed at the common good.  It includes  the concept of “gift”, which is not oriented solely by profit, and it encourages “fraternity”, a generalized sort of friendship between equals that respects diversity.  A civil market promotes something for which people already possess an instinct; they need and want to be able to “give”.

Pope Benedict also places his hopes in the United Nations.  “There is an urgent need of a true world political authority to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace, to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration.”

The Pope already has a reputation for being “green” and he puts his whole rhetorical weight behind it.  He calls for a reform of life styles and the re-education of conscious choices as part of “a covenant between human beings and the environment.”  This too is the Church’s business for the sake of integral human development.

As one editor has put it, “This remarkable and intelligent man, now in his eighties, seems to have regained the originality of mind that once made him one of the most innovative voices at Vatican II.  Half a century later he still has new things to say, well worth hearing, well worth waiting for.  And no stereotype could ever begin to describe him.”

Your Pastor,
Brian T. Joyce