Charity in Truth: “Introduction” #1-9
Now that I have finished Is it Possible to Live this Way? Vol. 1: Faith by Msgr. Luigi Giussani, I am turned my attention to Pope Benedict XVI’s most recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate or in English, Charity in Truth. I am reading the edition put out by Ignatius Press, as pictured above, however since there are several editions of the encyclical (including just downloading the PDF), I will use the paragraph numbers which will remain the same across editions, instead of the page numbers when making references to the text.
Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has been one of my favorite writers in theology for a long time. While most certainly a scholar, I find his writing very easy to understand. I believe it is because he does not just caught up in his head, but he writes from his heart: from the unity of his person. He writes from his experience. Now, while I do not know if he is a member of Communion and Liberation, I do know that he has been very close to the Movement for quite some time. He preached at Msgr. Guissani’s funeral Mass, and shortly after he was elected Pope he asked for members of Memores Domini, basically the secular institute of the Movement (they are lay men and women who live in community after making promises of chastity, obedience and poverty, while working in the world), to move into the Apostolic Palace to do the housekeeping, but mostly so he could join them for “School of Community” as often as his schedule would allow. I believe it is his living the Method of CL that allows him to write so well from his own experience so that we can see what he is talking about in our own experience.
Right from the start, His Holiness points out that Charity in truth is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity. For each of us, truth is God’s plan, and we find our good by adhering closely to God’s plan in our lives. It is only through adherence to God’s plan that we can experience real freedom, which is of course, our destiny. Jesus, through His Incarnation, purifies our search for love and truth, and liberates both from the impoverishment that our humanity brings to it.
In his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, the Holy Father started from the truth revealed through St. John, that “God is Love” (1 Jn 4:8), and that everything has its origin in God’s love, everything is shaped by His love, and everything is directed towards God’s love. That charity, our participation in God’s love, is at the very heart of the Church’s social teaching. Charity is what gives this teaching life, for it gives it real substance to the relationship with God and neighbor.
Unfortunately, charity is often misconstrued in modern society is such a way as to empty it of any real meaning. When this happens there is the risk that charity will become detached from ethical living. Charity must remain rooted in the real; it must remain rooted in truth. St. Paul writes, in his Letter to the Ephesians, to speak “the truth in charity” (Eph. 4:15), and this is very important. Truth must be sought, found and expressed in charity. I am sure we have all experienced people being “brutally honest” with us. It is not so much the truth but the way it is expressed to us that can be so painful when done with little concern for our feelings. Or, scientific research, which is a seeking of the truth, most certainly can be so very good in promoting human development, but not when that research is done in a way that does not respect the dignity of the human person (this is why the Church is opposed to embryonic stem cell research; not to stand in the way of the benefits that might come from that research, but because of the truth of the dignity of the human life that is destroyed in that research). However, in this encyclical, Pope Benedict is turning St. Paul’s expression around to emphasize that charity also needs to be understood, confirmed, and practiced in the light of truth. “Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity” (#3). Without this foundation in truth, charity “degenerates” into mere emotionalism. This foundation gives charity freedom from the constraints of emotionalism that takes away charity’s social and relational content, and from the constraints of fideism that deprives charity of its human and universal breathing space.
When we fill charity with truth we can communicate and share it with others. The word “dialogue” comes from two Greek words, dia which means “through” and logos which means “word or reason”. Thus truth allows us to let go of our subjective opinions and impressions, to move beyond our cultural and historical limitations, so that we can come together in the assessment of the value and substance of things. “In the present social and cultural context, where there is a widespread tendency to relativize truth, practicing charity in truth helps people to understand that adherence to the values of Christianity is not merely useful but essential for building a good society and for true integral human development” (#4).
Charity is both received and given. Of course it is first received by us from God, but then we are called to give it to others. The Church’s social teaching is “the proclamation of the truth of Christ’s love in society. This doctrine is a service to charity, but its locus is truth” (#5). As we are first the objects of God’s love, we should then become the subjects of charity by allowing ourselves to become instruments of God’s grace, His charity, so that we can form a network of charity.
This encyclical is marking the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Populorum Progressio (“The Development of Peoples”), and so it picks up and extends many of the themes of that monumental encyclical. Two of the most important being justice and the common good.
Simply, justice is giving another person what is due them. Every society develops its own system of justice. Charity, however, goes beyond justice while never lacking justice. In justice I give to the other person what is due them. I call the plumber to fix my sink, in justice I pay him for his services. Charity goes beyond justice because in charity I offer what is mine to the other. “I cannot ‘give’ what is mine to the other without first giving him what pertains to him in justice” (#6). So using our plumber analogy, I cannot give him a tip if I have not first paid him the bill I owe him. The tip would be charity, a giving of something that is mine to him. Paying his bill is justice. “On the one hand, charity demands justice: recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of individuals and peoples. . . . On the other hand, charity transcends justice and completes it in the logic of giving and forgiving” (#6).
All this is a good thing for us. If God was merely just, we would all be in trouble. We are all sinners, and if God treated us merely in justice, according to what we deserve, we would have no chance of heaven. But God is Love/Charity, so He goes beyond justice, offering Himself, quite literally by becoming Flesh and still offering Himself in the Eucharist, for the forgiveness of our sins. Yet, God does not contradict justice; He will judge us. If we are in mortal sin, we will end up in hell, if we still have the stains of our venial sins we will spend time in Purgatory making amends for the effects of our sins (which God has forgiven), and once free from all stain of sin God will bring us into communion with Him in heaven. As God deals with us (both just, but goes beyond justice to be charitable in giving and forgiving us), so we must we deal with one another.
This brings us to the consideration of the common good. If I say that I love someone, then naturally I desire the good for the person I love, and I will even take steps to help secure for them the good. We are all called to love not just this person and that one, but all people. Therefore there is a good that is linked to living in society, and we call that the common good. To both desire and strive for the common good is a requirement of both justice and charity. “The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbors, the more effectively we love them” (#7).
“The Church does not have technical solutions to offer and does not claim ‘to interfere in any way in the politics of States’. She does, however, have a mission of truth to accomplish, in every time and circumstance, for a society that is attuned to man, to his dignity, to his vocation. Without truth, it is easy to fall into an empiricist and skeptical view of life, incapable of rising to the level of praxis because of a lack of interest in grasping the values — sometimes even the meanings — with which to judge and direct it. Fidelity to man requires fidelity to the truth, which alone is the guarantee of freedom (cf. Jn 8:32) and of the possibility of integral human development” (#9).
