Caritas in Veritate for the Cattolica Medicine Test

Charity in truth "is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity" (§1). "Charity is at the heart of the Church's social doctrine" and governs not only micro-relationships but social, economic and political ones too (§2). It has to be linked with truth, both as veritas in caritate (Eph 4:15) and in the inverse order, caritas in veritate (§2): "Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality" (§3), and a Christianity of charity without truth would be "a pool of good sentiments" of little relevance (§4). Charity is "love received and given", and the Church's social teaching is "caritas in veritate in re sociali" (§5).

Two criteria of moral action matter most for development in a globalised society: justice and the common good (§6). Charity goes beyond justice but never lacks it: justice is "the minimum measure" of charity, which completes it "in the logic of giving and forgiving" (§6). The common good is the good of "all of us", and working for it is "the institutional path" of charity, which in a globalised society takes on the dimensions of the whole human family (§7).

The occasion is Paul VI's Populorum Progressio (1967), revisited "At a distance of over forty years" from its publication, with its hope for the "development of the whole man and of all men" (§8). The risk of our time is an interdependence of peoples not matched by ethical interaction of consciences (§9). "The Church does not have technical solutions to offer", but she does have "a mission of truth to accomplish" (§9).

Populorum Progressio must be read within the Tradition, outside of which it "would be a document without roots" (§10). Closely linked with the Second Vatican Council and Gaudium et Spes, it teaches two truths: the whole Church is engaged in promoting integral human development, and authentic development "concerns the whole of the person in every single dimension" (§11); "institutions by themselves are not enough, because integral human development is primarily a vocation" (§11). There is no break between pre-conciliar and post-conciliar teaching, but "a single teaching, consistent and at the same time ever new" (§12). Paul VI's wider teaching belongs with it: Octogesima Adveniens warned against the technocratic ideology (§14), Humanae Vitae linked life ethics and social ethics, and Evangelii Nuntiandi linked evangelisation and human advancement (§15).

For Paul VI "every life is a vocation" (§16), and "A vocation is a call that requires a free and responsible answer" (§17). Authentic development must be integral, "to promote the good of every man and of the whole man" (§18): "The truth of development consists in its completeness" (§18). The causes of underdevelopment are not primarily material; the most important is "the lack of brotherhood among individuals and peoples" (§19), and a globalised society "makes us neighbours but does not make us brothers" (§19). Populorum Progressio's call for urgent reform is itself a consequence of charity in truth (§20).

Paul VI hoped to rescue peoples "from hunger, deprivation, endemic diseases and illiteracy" (§21). Profit is useful as a means, but as the exclusive goal it "risks destroying wealth and creating poverty" (§21); the development he hoped for was "real growth, of benefit to everyone and genuinely sustainable" (§21), and the current crisis becomes "an opportunity for discernment" (§21). The world's wealth grows, "but inequalities are on the increase" (§22), and the State's sovereignty is limited by the new context of international trade and finance, so its role must be re-evaluated (§24).

The search for places to outsource production at low cost has led to "a downsizing of social security systems" (§25); prolonged unemployment undermines the freedom and creativity of the person, and "the primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man" (§25). On the cultural plane there is a twofold danger: a "cultural eclecticism" that treats cultures as equivalent and interchangeable, and "cultural levelling" (§26). Hunger depends less on a lack of material things than on a shortage of social resources, above all institutional ones, and food and water are universal rights (§27). "Openness to life is at the centre of true development" (§28), and the denial of religious freedom, by fanaticism or by practical atheism, obstructs it (§29).

"Deeds without knowledge are blind, and knowledge without love is sterile" (§30): development needs the disciplines to work together (§31), and access to steady employment for everyone remains a priority (§32). Globalisation, the principal new feature since Paul VI, is "a great opportunity", but without charity in truth it "could cause unprecedented damage and create new divisions within the human family" (§33).

"The human being is made for gift" (§34), and "Gift by its nature goes beyond merit, its rule is that of superabundance" (§34); development, to be authentically human, "needs to make room for the principle of gratuitousness as an expression of fraternity" (§34). The market rests on commutative justice, but it also needs distributive and social justice, and without trust it "cannot completely fulfil its proper economic function" (§35). It is not negative by nature: "it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals" (§36), and "every economic decision has a moral consequence" (§37).

John Paul II spoke of "a system with three subjects: the market, the State and civil society" (§38). Today "without gratuitousness, there can be no justice in the first place" (§38), and "The exclusively binary model of market-plus-State is corrosive of society" (§39). Business risks being answerable only to its investors, and outsourcing can weaken its responsibility to workers, suppliers, consumers, the environment and society (§40); "investment always has moral, as well as economic significance" (§40). The State is not to be declared dead too soon, and political authority should be dispersed over several levels (§41). Globalisation, "a priori, is neither good nor bad. It will be what people make of it" (§42).

Many people claim only rights, but "rights presuppose duties, if they are not to become mere licence" (§43), and "The sharing of reciprocal duties is a more powerful incentive to action than the mere assertion of rights" (§43). "To consider population increase as the primary cause of underdevelopment is mistaken" (§44); the encyclical asks for responsible procreation and policies supporting the family founded on marriage (§44). The economy needs "an ethics which is people-centred" (§45), and since the word "ethical" can be abused, the whole economy, not just some sectors, should be ethical (§45). A broad area between profit and non-profit enterprise has emerged, including the "civil economy" and the "economy of communion" (§46), and development programmes should be planned with the people they serve, with transparent agencies (§47).

"The environment is God's gift to everyone" (§48): nature is neither an untouchable taboo nor raw material to abuse, nor "something more important than the human person" (§48), and it contains a grammar for its wise use (§48). Hoarding non-renewable energy harms poor countries, and technologically advanced societies "can and must lower their domestic energy consumption" (§49); the costs of using shared environmental resources should be borne by those who incur them (§50). When "human ecology" is respected, environmental ecology benefits, because "The book of nature is one and indivisible" (§51). Truth and love "cannot be produced: they can only be received as a gift" (§52).

"One of the deepest forms of poverty a person can experience is isolation" (§53), and the development of peoples depends on recognising that the human race is "a single family working together in true communion" (§53), on the model of the Trinity's unity (§54). Discernment about cultures and religions is needed: "Religious freedom does not mean religious indifferentism, nor does it imply that all religions are equal" (§55); both the exclusion of religion from public life and fundamentalism block the dialogue between reason and faith (§56).

Subsidiarity is "first and foremost a form of assistance to the human person via the autonomy of intermediate bodies" (§57) and "the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state" (§57); it must stay linked with solidarity (§58). Aid can lock people into dependence, so it should involve local agents and civil society, and the main help is to let poor countries' products into international markets (§58). Cooperation is also an encounter of cultures, grounded in the natural law (§59); richer nations should give larger portions of their GDP to aid, perhaps through "fiscal subsidiarity" (§60); education includes the whole formation of the person, and tourism can educate or exploit (§61).

Migration is "a social phenomenon of epoch-making proportions" (§62): migrants "cannot be considered as a commodity or a mere workforce", and "Every migrant is a human person" (§62). Poverty is linked with unemployment, and the encyclical defines "decent" work (§63); unions should look beyond their own members (§64); finance must return to being an instrument of development, with micro-finance against usury (§65); purchasing is always a moral act, not only an economic one (§66). Finally, the encyclical calls for reform of the United Nations and for "a true world political authority", regulated by law and observing subsidiarity and solidarity (§67).

We know that "we are a gift, not something self-generated" (§68), so the development of peoples goes awry if humanity thinks it can re-create itself through technology, a "Promethean presumption" (§68). Technology "is a profoundly human reality", and "technology is never merely technology" (§69); but it can become an ideology in which "truth has come to be seen as coinciding with the possible" (§70). "Development is impossible without upright men and women" (§71), peace is not a merely technical product (§72), and the media cannot be held to be morally neutral (§73).

Bioethics is "A particularly crucial battleground" between the supremacy of technology and moral responsibility, with a choice between "reason open to transcendence or reason closed within immanence" (§74). Following Paul VI, "the social question has become a radically anthropological question" (§75), as in vitro fertilisation, embryo research, cloning, eugenic programming of births and a pro-euthanasia mindset show (§75). Development must include spiritual growth, since the person is a "unity of body and soul" (§76), and it needs "new eyes and a new heart" to see in development what technology cannot give (§77).

"Without God man neither knows which way to go, nor even understands who he is" (§78). "A humanism which excludes God is an inhuman humanism" (§78): the greatest service to development is "a Christian humanism" that enkindles charity and takes its lead from truth (§78). Development needs "Christians with their arms raised towards God in prayer" (§79); the letter closes at the end of the Pauline Year with Romans 12:9-10 and an entrustment to the Virgin Mary (§79).