On Development That Respects the Environment

"We Come From God and We Are All Going Back to Him"

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, AUG. 26, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of Benedict XVI's address at this Wednesday's general audience, which gathered pilgrims in the courtyard of the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters:

We are coming to the end of the month of August, which for many means the end of the summer holidays. As we return to our daily activities, how can we not thank God for the precious gift of creation, which we can enjoy not only during the period of vacations! The different phenomena of environmental degradation and natural calamities, which unfortunately are often reported in the news, remind us of the urgency of the respect owed to nature, recovering and appreciating, in every day life, a correct relation with the environment. A new sensitivity to these topics is being developed, which arouses the correct concern of the authorities and of public opinion, which is also expressed in the multiplication of meetings at the international level.

The earth is a precious gift of the Creator, who has designed its intrinsic order, thus giving us guidelines to which we must hold ourselves as stewards of his creation. From this awareness, the Church considers questions linked to the environment and its safeguarding as profoundly linked with the topic of integral human development. I referred to these questions several times in my last encyclical "Caritas in Veritate," reminding of the pressing moral need for renewed solidarity" (49) not only in relations between countries, but also between individuals, as the natural environment is given by God to everyone, and its use entails a personal responsibility towards the whole of humanity, in particular, towards the poor and future generations (Cf. 48).

Experiencing the shared responsibility for creation (Cf. 51), the Church is not only committed to the promotion of the defense of the earth, of water and of air, given by the Creator to everyone, but above all is committed to protect man from the destruction of himself. In fact, "when 'human ecology' is respected in society, environmental ecology also benefits" (ibid). Is it not true that inconsiderate use of creation begins where God is marginalized or also where is existence is denied? If the human creature's relationship with the Creator weakens, matter is reduced to egoistic possession, man becomes the "final authority," and the objective of existence is reduced to a feverish race to possess the most possible.

Creation, matter structured in an intelligent manner by God, is entrusted to man's responsibility, who is able to interpret and refashion it actively, without regarding himself as the absolute owner. Man is called to exercise responsible government to protect it, to obtain benefits and cultivate it, finding the necessary resources for a dignified existence for all.

With the help of nature itself and with the commitment of its own work and creativity, humanity is able to assume the grave duty to hand over to the new generations an earth which, in turn, the latter will be able to inhabit worthily and cultivate further (Cf. "Caritas in Veritate," 50). In order for this to happen, the development is indispensable of "that covenant between the human being and the environment that must be a reflection of the creative love of God" (Message on the occasion of the World Day of Peace 2008, 7), recognizing that we come from God and we are all going back to him.

How important it is, therefore, that the international community and the different governments be able to give the appropriate indications to their own citizens to address in an effective manner the ways of utilizing the environment that turn out to be harmful. The economic and social costs stemming from the use of shared environmental resources, recognized in a transparent way, must be assumed by those who use them, and not by other populations or by future generations. Protection of the environment and the safeguarding of the resources and climate call for all leaders to act jointly, respecting the law and promoting solidarity, above all in the weaker regions of the earth (Cf. "Caritas in Veritate," 50).

Together we can build an integral human development beneficial to present and future peoples, a development inspired by the values of charity in truth. For this to happen it is indispensable that the present model of global development be transformed through a greater and shared responsibility for creation: This is demanded not only by environmental emergencies, but also by the scandal of hunger and poverty.

Dear brothers and sisters: let us thank the Lord and make our own the words of St. Francis in the Canticle of Creatures: "Most High, Omnipotent, good Lord, yours are the praises, the glory and the honor and every blessing ... Be praised, my Lord, with all your creatures."

We, too, want to pray and live with the spirit of these words.

[Translation by ZENIT]

[The Holy Father then greeted pilgrims in several languages. In English, he said:]

I offer a warm welcome to all the English-speaking visitors present at today's Audience, including the many altar servers, school pupils and choristers.

The summer holidays have given us all the opportunity to thank God for the precious gift of creation. Taking up this theme, I wish to reflect today upon the relationship between the Creator and ourselves as guardians of his creation. In so doing I also wish to offer my support to leaders of governments and international agencies who soon will meet at the United Nations to discuss the urgent issue of climate change.

The Earth is indeed a precious gift of the Creator who, in designing its intrinsic order, has given us guidelines that assist us as stewards of his creation. Precisely from within this framework, the Church considers that matters concerning the environment and its protection are intimately linked with integral human development. In my recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, I referred to such questions recalling the "pressing moral need for renewed solidarity" (no. 49) not only between countries but also between individuals, since the natural environment is given by God to everyone, and so our use of it entails a personal responsibility towards humanity as a whole, particularly towards the poor and towards future generations (cf. no. 48).

How important it is then, that the international community and individual governments send the right signals to their citizens and succeed in countering harmful laws of treating the environment! The economic and social costs of using up shared resources must be recognized with transparency and borne by those who incur them, and not by other peoples or future generations. The protection of the environment, and the safeguarding of resources and of the climate, oblige all leaders to act jointly, respecting the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the world (cf. no. 50). Together we can build an integral human development beneficial for all peoples, present and future, a development inspired by the values of charity in truth. For this to happen it is essential that the current model of global development be transformed through a greater, and shared, acceptance of responsibility for creation: this is demanded not only by environmental factors, but also by the scandal of hunger and human misery.

With these sentiments I wish to encourage all the participants in the United Nations summit to enter into their discussions constructively and with generous courage. Indeed, we are all called to exercise responsible stewardship of creation, to use resources in such a way that every individual and community can live with dignity, and to develop "that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God" (Message for the 2008 World Day of Peace, 7)! Thank you.

© Copyright 2009 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Fr. Z: How St. Augustine came to be in Hippo

St. Augustine, by Serge Lancel

Edward Feser, Is self-ownership axiomatic?

this hand of me --> as part is of a whole

"of" does not have the same meaning(?) when it is used in the following:
this pencil of me --> something that belongs to me, or is my property

Now even if I have dominion over both my body and over tools (and other things), it may not be that the extent of my dominion (what I am able to do with something) is the same for both. Is dominion before law? Or is it after? It seems to me that the notion of dominion must be defined in terms of the law (both the natural law and positive law).

Zenit: Stratford Caldecott: Metaphysics Has Returned

Stratford Caldecott: Metaphysics Has Returned

And More Overlooked Themes of New Encyclical

By Stratford Caldecott

OXFORD, England, JULY 9, 2009 (Zenit.org).- There are four particular elements of "Caritas in Veritate" on "integral human development" that are worth mentioning because they have so far not been widely noticed.

First, this encyclical is closely connected to the Pope’s two previous encyclicals -- on love and on hope -- and forms with them a triptych on the Christian faith, in both its theoretical and its practical dimensions, namely, love and hope grounded in truth.

Second, the encyclical takes Catholic social teaching to a new level by basing it explicitly on the theology of the Trinity and calling for "a deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation." Metaphysics is back.

Next, it introduces a new principle -- that of "gratuitousness" and "reciprocal gift," which enables us to break the "hegemony of the binary model of market-plus-State" (38, 39, 41).

In other words, economics as a human activity is not ethically neutral and must be structured and governed in an ethical manner; that is, in accordance with the highest ends of man.

Economics and politics are not to be separated, because justice must enter into the economy from the outset, and justice is made perfect only in "giving and forgiving."

The radical implications of this principle for the market economy will need time to unfold.

Finally, those in the Distributist, Green, and "alternative economics" movements will be encouraged that the encyclical opens the door to the development of alternative "economic entities" that act on principles other than pure profit, or which treat profit merely as a means to a social end, including cooperatives, credit unions, micro-finance, and the "economy of communion" (46).

In fact, it hopes that new "hybrid" forms of commercial behaviour will emerge in the marketplace in the future (38). It insists that the "weakest members of society should be helped to defend themselves against usury" (65), and insists that use of technology be subordinated to the "holistic meaning" of the human (70).

It consolidates the strong environmentalist emphasis of John Paul II within Benedict XVI's vision of integral human development, linking human to environmental ecology and the natural law (51).

Man is called to be the wise steward of creation, defending earth, water and air as "gifts of creation that belong to everyone," and helping to prevent mankind from destroying itself (51).

The Pope writes that it is "incumbent upon the competent authorities to make every effort to ensure that the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations: the protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate obliges all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet" (50).

But all this is set against a spiritual horizon, for we cannot achieve true solidarity with others without transcending our own selfish and material concerns in the "experience of gift" (34).

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Stratford Caldecott is the G.K. Chesterton Research Fellow at Benet’s Hall, Oxford, and editor of Second Spring and Sophia Institute Press.

Live Science: The Appendix: Useful and in Fact Promising

Zenit: Cardinal Bertone on "Caritas in Veritate"

Cardinal Bertone on "Caritas in Veritate"

"It Is Also Possible to Do Business by Pursuing Aims That Serve Society"

ROME, AUG. 22, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of a speech Benedict XVI's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, gave to the Italian Senate last month. The July 28 discourse was a reflection on the Pope's third encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate."

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Benedict XVI begins his Encyclical with a deep, comprehensive introduction in which he reflects on and analyzes the words of the title which closely link "caritas" and "veritas": love and truth. This is not only a sort of "explicatio terminorum", an initial explanation which seeks to point out the fundamental principles and perspectives of his entire teaching. Indeed, like the musical theme of a symphony, the theme of truth and charity then recurs throughout the document precisely because, as the Pope writes, in it is "the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity" [1].

But, we ask ourselves, which truth and which love are meant? There is no doubt that today these very concepts give rise to suspicion especially the term "truth" or are the object of misunderstanding, and this is especially the case with the term "love". This is why it is important to make clear which truth and which love the Pope is addressing in his new Encyclical. The Holy Father explains that these two fundamental realities are neither extrinsic to man nor even imposed upon him in the name of any kind of ideological vision; rather, they are deeply rooted within the person. Indeed, "love and truth", the Pope says, "are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of every human person" [2], the person who, according to Sacred Scripture, has been created precisely "as an image of the Creator", in other words of the "God of the Bible, who is both "Agápe" and "Lógos": Charity and Truth, Love and Word [3].

This reality is testified to us not only by biblical Revelation but can be grasped by every person of good will who uses right reason in reflecting on himself [4]. In this regard, several passages of an important and meaningful Document that came out just before Caritas in veritate seem to illustrate this view clearly. The International Theological Commission in recent months has given us a text entitled "The Search for Universal Ethics: A New Look at Natural Law". It addresses topics of great importance which I wish to point out and to recommend especially in this context of the Senate, that is, an institution whose main function is legislative. Indeed, as the Holy Father said to the United Nations Assembly in New York during his Visit last year to their headquarters [5], sometimes called the "glass palace", speaking about the foundation of human rights: These rights "are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations. Removing human rights from this context would mean restricting their range and yielding to a relativistic conception, according to which the meaning and interpretation of rights could vary and their universality would be denied in the name of different cultural, political, social and even religious outlooks". These reflections do not apply solely to human rights. They apply to every intervention by the legitimate authority called to regulate the life of the community in accordance with true justice by means of legislation that is not the result of a mere conventional agreement but aims at the authentic good of the person and of society and hence refers to this natural law.

Now, expounding on the reality of natural law, the International Theological Commission describes precisely how truth and love are essential requirements of every person and are deeply rooted in his being. "In his search for moral good, the human person should recognize what he is and be aware of the fundamental inclinations of his nature" [6], which orient him toward the goods necessary for his moral fulfilment. As is well known, "a distinction has traditionally been made between three important forms of natural dynamism.... The first, in common with every essential being, is comprised of the fundamental instinct to preserve and develop one's own existence. The second, which is shared by all living beings, includes the inclination to reproduce in order to perpetuate the species. The third, which is proper to man as a rational being, constitutes the inclination to know the truth about God and to live in society" [7]. Examining in depth this third form of dynamism which is found in every individual, the International Theological Commission declares that it is "specific to the human being as a spiritual being, endowed with reason, capable of knowing the truth, of entering into dialogue with others and of forming social relationships.... His integral well-being is thus closely linked to community life, which is organized in a political society by virtue of a natural inclination and not a mere convention. The person's relational character is also expressed in his tendency to live in communion with God or the Absolute....

Of course, it may be denied by those who refuse to admit the existence of a personal God, but it remains implicitly present in the search for truth and for meaning that is present in every human being" [8].

Man, therefore, through the "breadth of reason" [9], is made to know the truth in its full depth by "broadening [his] concept of reason", in other words, not limiting himself to acquiring technical knowledge in order to dominate material reality but rather opening himself to the very encounter with the Transcendent and to living fully the interpersonal dimension of love, "the principle not only of micro-relationships (with friends, with family members or within small groups) but also of macro-relationships (social, economic and political ones)" [10]. "Veritas" and "caritas" themselves point out to us the requirements of the natural law which Benedict XVI places as a fundamental criterion for moral reflection on the current socio-economic reality: "'Caritas in veritate' is the principle around which the Church's social doctrine turns, a principle that takes on practical form in the criteria that govern moral action" [11].

Using a cogent expression, the Holy Father thus affirms that "the Church's social teaching... is "caritas in veritate in re sociali": the proclamation of the truth of Christ's love in society. This doctrine is a service to charity, but its locus is truth" [12].

What the Encyclical suggests is neither ideological nor exclusively reserved to those who share belief in the divine Revelation. Rather, it is based on fundamental anthropological realities such as, precisely, truth and charity properly understood or, as the Encyclical itself says, given to the human being and received by him, but neither planned nor willed by him [13]. Benedict XVI wants to remind everyone that it is only by being anchored to this double criterion of "veritas" and "caritas", inseparably bound together, that it is possible to build the authentic good of the human being who is made for truth and love. According to the Holy Father, "only in charity, illumined by the light of reason and faith, is it possible to pursue development goals that possess a more humane and humanizing value" [14].

After this indispensable introduction, of which I have chosen to highlight some of the anthropological and theological aspects of the Papal text that may have attracted fewer comments from journalists, I would now like to explain just a few points, without claiming to cover the vast content of the Encyclical. Moreover, authoritative commentators have already published specific reflections on it in L'Osservatore Romano and elsewhere.

An important message that comes to us from Caritas in veritate is the invitation to supersede the now obsolete dichotomy between the financial sphere and the social sphere. Modernity has bequeathed to us the idea on the basis of which, if we are to be able to operate in the field of the economy, it is essential to achieve a profit and to be motivated chiefly by self-interest; as if to say that if we do not seek the highest profit we are not proper entrepreneurs. Should this not be the case, we must be content with belonging to the social sphere.

This conceptualization, that confuses the market economy that is the genus with its own particular species which is the capitalist system, has led to identifying the economy with the place where wealth or income is generated, and society with the place of solidarity for its fair distribution.

Caritas in veritate tells us instead that it is also possible to do business by pursuing aims that serve society and are inspired by pro-social motives. This is a practical way, if not the only one, of bridging the gap between the economic and the social spheres, given that an economic activity which did not incorporate the social dimension would not be ethically acceptable. It is likewise true that a social policy concerned only with redistribution, that failed to reckon with the available resources, would not be sustainable in the long run: in fact, production must precede distribution.

We should be particularly grateful to Benedict XVI for wishing to emphasize the fact that economic action is not separate from or alien to the cornerstones of the Church's social teaching such as: the centrality of the human person, solidarity, subsidariety, the common good.

It is necessary to supersede the current concept which expects the Church's social teaching and values to be confined to social activities, while experts in efficiency would be charged with guiding the economy. It is the merit and certainly not a secondary one of this Encyclical to contribute to remedying this gap which is both cultural and political.

Contrary to what people think, efficiency is not the fundamentum divisionis for distinguishing between what is business and what is not, for the simple reason that "efficiency" is a category that belongs to the order of means and not of ends. Indeed, efficiency is indispensable in order to achieve as well as possible the purpose one has freely chosen to give one's action. The entrepreneur who gives priority to efficiency that is an end in itself risks being caught by one of the most frequent causes of the destruction of wealth today, as the current economic and financial crisis sadly confirms.

To expand briefly on this theme, to say "market" means saying "competition", in the sense that the market cannot exist where there is no competition (even if the opposite is not true). And there is no one who can fail to see that the fruitfulness of competition lies in the fact that it implies tension, the dialectic that presupposes the presence of another and the relationship with another. Without tension there is no movement, but the movement this is the point to which tension gives rise can also be fatal; in other words it can generate death.

If the purpose of economic action is not synonymous with striving for a common goal as the Latin etymology "cum-petere" would clearly indicate but rather with Hobbes' theory, "mors tua, vita mea" [your death is my life], then the social bond is reduced to commercial relations and economic activity tends to become inhuman, hence ultimately inefficient. Therefore, even in competition, "the Church's social doctrine holds that authentically human social relationships of friendship, solidarity and reciprocity can also be conducted within economic activity, and not only outside it or "after" it. The economic sphere is neither ethically neutral, nor inherently inhuman and opposed to society. It is part and parcel of human activity and precisely because it is human, it must be structured and governed in an ethical manner" [15].

Well, the advantage by no means small that Caritas in veritate offers us is to give special consideration to the concept of market, typical of the tradition of the thought of civil economics, according to which it is possible to live the experience of human sociality within a normal economic life and not outside or beside it. This concept might be defined as an alternative, both regarding the concept that sees the market as a place for the exploitation and abuse of the weak by the strong, and the concept which, in line with anarchic-liberalistic thought, sees it as a place that can provide solutions to all the problems of society.

This way of doing business is differentiated from that of the traditional Smithian economy, which sees the market as the only institution truly necessary for democracy and freedom. The Church's social doctrine, on the other hand, reminds us that a sound society is certainly the product of the market and of freedom, but there are needs that stem from the principle of brotherhood that can neither be avoided nor be referred solely to the private sphere or to philanthropy. Rather, the Church's social doctrine proposes a humanism with various dimensions, in which the market is not combated or "controlled" but is seen as an important institution in the public sphere a sphere which far exceeds State control which, if it is conceived of and lived as a place that is also open to the principles of reciprocity and of giving, can construct a healthy civil coexistence.

I shall now examine one of the themes in the Encyclical which seems to me to have attracted some public interest because of the newness of the principles of brotherhood and free giving in economic activity. "Social and political development, if it is to be authentically human", Pope Benedict XVI says, needs "to make room for the principle of gratuitousness" [16]. "Internal forms of solidarity" are essential. The chapter on the cooperation of the human family is significant in this regard. In it the Pope stresses that "the development of peoples depends, above all, on a recognition that the human race is a single family", which is why "thinking of this kind requires a deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation". And further: "The theme of development can be identified with the inclusion-in-relation of all individuals and peoples within the one community of the human family, built in solidarity on the basis of the fundamental values of justice and peace" [17].

The key word that today expresses this need better than any other is "brotherhood". It was the Franciscan school of thought that gave this term the meaning it has retained over the course of time and that constitutes the complement and exaltation of the principle of solidarity. In fact, whereas solidarity is the principle of social organization that permits those who are unequal to become equal through their equal dignity and their fundamental rights, the principle of brotherhood is that principle of social organization which permits equals to be different, in the sense that they are able to express their plan of life or their charism in different ways.

Let me explain more clearly. The periods we have left behind us, the 19th century and especially the 20th century, were marked by great battles both cultural and political in the name of solidarity. This was a good thing; only think of the history of the trade union movement and of the fight to obtain civil rights. The point is that a society oriented to the common good cannot stop at solidarity because it needs a solidarity that reflects brotherhood, given that while a fraternal society also shows solidarity, the opposite is not necessarily true.

If one overlooks the unsustainability of a human society in which the sense of brotherhood is lacking and in which everything revolves around improving transactions based on the exchange of equivalents or to increasing transfers actuated by public structures for social assistance it then becomes clear why, in spite of the quality of the intellectual forces at work, we have not yet found a credible solution to the great trade-off between efficiency and equity. Caritas in veritate helps us to realize that society can have no future if the principle of brotherhood is lost. In other words, society cannot progress if the logic of "giving in order to have" or of "giving as a duty" is the only one that exists and develops. This is why neither the liberal-individualistic vision of the world, in which (almost) everything is exchange, nor the State-centred vision of society, in which (almost) everything is based on obligation, are reliable guides to lead us out of the shallows in which our societies today have run aground.

Then we ask ourselves the question: why is the perspective of the common good as it has been formulated by the Church's social doctrine, which was banished from the scene for at least two centuries, re-emerging like an underground river? Why is the transition from national markets to the global market that has taken place over the last 25 years rendering the topic of the common good timely once again? I note in passing that what is occurring is part of a broader movement of ideas in economics, a movement whose goal is the link between a religious sense and economic performance. On the basis of the consideration that religious beliefs are of crucial importance in forging people's cognitive maps and in shaping the social norms of behaviour, this movement of ideas is seeking to investigate how far the prevalence in a specific country (or territory) of a certain religious matrix influences the formation of categories of economic thought, welfare programmes, educational policies and so forth. After a long period, during which the celebrated theses of secularization appeared to have had the last word on the religious question at least insofar as the economic field is concerned what is happening today appears truly paradoxical.

It is not difficult to explain the return to the contemporary cultural debate in the perspective of the common good, a true and proper symbol of Catholic ethics in the social and economic field. As John Paul ii explained on many occasions, the Church's social teaching should not be considered as yet another ethical theory as regards the numerous theories already available in literature. Instead it should be seen as their "common grammar", since it is based on a specific viewpoint, the preservation of the human good. In truth, while the various ethical theories are rooted either in the search for rules (as happens in the positivist doctrine of natural law), or in action (as in Rawls' neo-contractualism or neo-utilitarianism), the social doctrine of the Church embraces "being with" as its Archimedean point. The ethical sense of the common good explains that in order to understand human action we must see it from the perspective of the acting person [18] and not from the viewpoint of the third person (as does natural law) or of the impartial spectator (as Adam Smith had suggested). In fact since the moral good is a practical reality, it is known first and foremost by those who practise it rather than by those who theorize about it. They can identify it and hence choose it unhesitatingly every time it is questioned.

Next, let us speak of the principle of free giving in the economy. What would be the practical consequence of applying the principle of free giving in economic activity? Pope Benedict XVI replies that the market and politics need "individuals who are open to reciprocal gift" [19]. The consequence of acknowledging that the principle of gratuitousness has a priority place in economic life has to do with the dissemination of culture and of the practice of reciprocity.

Together with democracy, reciprocity defined by Benedict XVI as "the heart of what it is to be a human being" [20] is a founding value of a society. Indeed, it could also be maintained that democratic rule draws its ultimate meaning from reciprocity.

In what "places" is reciprocity at home? In other words, where is it practised and nourished? The family is the first of these places: only think of the relationships between parents and children and between siblings. It is in the context of one's family that the relationship characteristic of brotherhood and based on giving develops. Then there are the cooperative, the social enterprise and associations in their various forms. Is it not true that the relationship between family members or the members of a cooperative are relations of reciprocity? Today we know that a country's civil and economic progress depends fundamentally on the extent to which reciprocity is practised by its citizens. Today there is an immense need for cooperation: this is why we need to extend the forms of free giving and to reinforce those that already exist. Societies that uproot the tree of reciprocity from their land are destined to decline, as history has been teaching us for years.

What is the proper role of the gift? It is to make people understand that beside the goods of justice are the goods of gratuitousness and, consequently, that the society whose members are content with the goods of justice alone is not authentically human. The Pope speaks of "the astonishing experience of gift" [21].

What is the difference? The goods of justice are those that derive from a duty. The goods of giving freely are those that are born from an obbligatio. That is, they are goods born from the recognition that I am bound to another and that, in a certain sense he is a constitutive part of me. This is why the logic of gratuitousness cannot be simplistically reduced to a purely ethical dimension. Indeed, gratuitousness is not an ethical virtue. Justice, as Plato formerly taught, is an ethical virtue, and we are all in agreement as to the importance of justice; but gratuitousness concerns rather the supra-ethical dimension of human action because its logic is superabundance, whereas the logic of justice is the logic of equivalence. Well, Caritas in veritate tells us that to function well and to progress, a society needs to have in its economic praxis people who understand what the goods of gratuitousness entail, in other words, who understand that we must let the principle of gratuitousness circulate anew in the channels of our society.

Benedict XVI asks us to restore the principle of gift to the public sphere. The authentic gift affirming the primacy of relationship over its reciprocation, of the inter-subjective bond over the good that is given, of personal identity over assets must find room for expression everywhere, in every context of human action, including the economy. The message that Caritas in veritate offers us is to think of gratuitousness hence brotherhood as a symbol of the human condition and thus to see the practice of giving as the indispensable prerequisite for the State and the market to function, with the common good as their goal. Without the widespread practice of giving, it would still be possible to have an efficient market and an authoritative (and even just) State, but people would certainly not be helped to achieve joie de vivre. Because, even if efficiency and justice are combined, they are not enough to guarantee people's happiness.

In Caritas in veritate Pope Benedict XVI reflects on the profound (and not on the immediate) causes of the current crisis. It is not my intention to review them and I shall limit myself to summing up the three principal factors of the crisis, identified and examined.

The first concerns the radical change in the relationship between finance and the production of goods and services which has gradually been consolidated in the past 30 years. From the mid-1970s various Western countries have based their promises of pension funds on investments that depended on the sustainable profitability of the new financial instruments, thereby exposing the real economy to the caprices of finance and generating the growing need to earmark value-added quotas to the remuneration of savings invested in these. The pressure on businesses deriving from stock exchanges and private equity funds have had repercussions in various directions: on directors, obliged to continuously improve the performance of their management in order to receive a growing number of stock options; on consumers, to convince them to buy more and more, even in the absence of purchasing power; on businesses of the real economy to convince them to increase the value for the shareholder.

And so it was that the persistent demand for increasingly brilliant financial results had repercussions on the entire economic system, to the point that it became a true and proper cultural model.

The second factor that contributed to causing the crisis was the dissemination in popular culture of the ethos of efficiency as the ultimate criterion of judgement and the justification of the financial reality. On the one hand, this ended by legitimizing greed which is the best known and most widespread form of avarice as a sort of civic virtue: the greed market that replaces the free market. "Greed is good, greed is right", preached Gordon Gekko, who starred in Wall Street, the famous 1987 film.

Lastly, in Caritas in veritate the Pope does not omit to reflect on the cause of the causes of the crisis: the specificity of the cultural matrix that was consolidated in recent decades on the wave of the globalization process on the one hand, and on the other, with the advent of the third industrial revolution, the revolution of information technology. One specific aspect of this matrix concerns the ever more widespread dissatisfaction with the way of interpreting the principle of freedom. As is well known, there are three constitutive dimensions of freedom: autonomy, immunity, and empowerment.

Autonomy means freedom of choice: one is not free unless one is in a position to choose. Immunity, on the other hand, means the absence of coercion by some external agent. It is substantially negative freedom (in other words it is "freedom from"). Lastly, empowerment (literally: the capacity for action) means the capacity to choose, that is, for achieving the objectives, at least in part or to some extent, that the person has set himself. One is not free even if one succeeds (even only partially) in realizing one's plan of life.

As can be understood, the challenge is to bring together all three dimensions of freedom: this is the reason why the paradigm of the common good appears as a particularly interesting perspective to explore.

In the light of what has been said above, we can understand why the financial crisis cannot claim to be an unexpected or inexplicable event. This is why, without taking anything from the indispensable interventions in a regulatory key or from the necessary new forms of control, we shall not succeed in preventing similar episodes from arising in the future unless the evil is attacked at the root, or in other words, unless we intervene by dealing with the cultural matrix that supports the economic system. This crisis sends a double message to the Government authorities. In the first place, that the sacrosanct criticism of the "intervening State" can in no way ignore the central role of the "regulatory State". Secondly, that the public authorities at different levels of government, must allow, indeed enhance, the emergence and reinforcement of a pluralist financial market. A market, in other words, should allow different people to work in conditions of objective parity to achieve the specific aim they have set themselves. I am thinking of the regional banks, of cooperative credit banks, ethical banks, of various ethical foundations. These are bodies that not only propose creative finance to their branches but above all play a complementary, hence balancing, role with regard to the agents of speculative finance. If in recent decades the financial authorities had removed the many restrictions that burden agents in alternative finance, today's crisis would not have had the devastating power that we are experiencing.

Before concluding, I would like to thank Hon. Mr Renato Schifani, President of the Senate of the Italian Republic, for permitting me to explain to this qualified audience several features of Benedict XVI's latest Encyclical.

In a certain way it is as if today the Holy Father were returning to the Headquarters of the Senate of the Republic, where, in the Library of the Senate on 13 May 2004, the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger gave an unforgettable "lectio magistralis" on the theme: "Europe. Its spiritual foundations yesterday, today and tomorrow".

It is interesting to note how, in that discourse, among other things the future Pontiff touched on certain topics that we rediscover today in his most recent Encyclical. Let us think, for example, of the affirmation of the profound reason for the dignity of the person and of his rights: "they are not created by the legislator", the then- Cardinal Ratzinger said, "nor are they conferred upon citizens, "but rather they exist through their own law, they are always to be respected by the legislator, they are given to him in advance as values of a superior order". This validity of human dignity prior to any political action and any political decision refers ultimately to the Creator; he alone can establish values that are based on the essence of the human being and are intangible. That there are values that cannot be manipulated by anyone is the true and proper guarantee of our freedom and of human greatness; the Christian faith sees in this the mystery of the Creator and of the condition of the image of God who has conferred them on man". In Caritas in veritate Benedict XVI repeats that "human rights risk being ignored" when "they are robbed of their transcendent foundation" [22], that is, when people forget that "God is the guarantor of man's true development, inasmuch as, having created him in his image, he also established the transcendent dignity of men and women" [23].

Further, in the "lectio magistralis" given five years ago, the current Pontiff recalled that "a second point in which the European identity appears is marriage and the family. Monogamic marriage, as a fundamental structure of the relationship between a man and a woman and at the same time as a cell in the formation of the State community, was forged on the basis of biblical faith. It has given its special features and its special humanity to Western and Eastern Europe, also and precisely because the form of fidelity and renunciation outlined here must always be acquired anew, with great effort and much suffering.

Europe would no longer be Europe if this fundamental cell of its social edifice were to disappear or to be essentially altered". In Caritas in veritate this warning is extended until it becomes universal, we might say global, and reaches all who are responsible for public life; we read in it, in fact: "It is thus becoming a social and even economic necessity once more to hold up to future generations the beauty of marriage and the family, and the fact that these institutions correspond to the deepest needs and dignity of the person. In view of this, States are called to enact policies promoting the centrality and the integrity of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman, the primary vital cell of society, and to assume responsibility for its economic and fiscal needs, while respecting its essentially relational character" [24].

Of course, Caritas in veritate is addressed, as it says in its official title, to all the members of the Catholic Church and to "all people of good will". Yet, because of the principles it illumines, the problems it tackles and the guidelines it offers, it seems to me that this Papal Document which gave rise to so many expectations beforehand and then to so much attention and appreciation, especially in the social, political and economic contexts can find a special echo in this institutional Headquarters of the Senate of the Republic. I am convinced that, over and above differences in training and in personal conviction, those who have the delicate and honourable responsibility of representing the Italian people and of exercising legislative power during their mandate, may find in the Pope's words a lofty and profound inspiration for carrying out their mission so as to respond adequately to the ethical, cultural and social challenges which call us into question today and which, with great lucidity and completeness, the Encyclical Caritas in veritate sets before us. My hope is that this document of the ecclesial Magisterium which I have endeavoured to describe to you today, at least in part, may find here the attention it deserves and thus bear positive and abundant fruit for the good of every person and of the entire human family, starting with the beloved Italian Nation.

--- --- ---

Notes

[1] Caritas in veritate, n. 1

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., n. 3.

[4] "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" (ibid.).

[5] Discourse to the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization, 18 April 2008.

[6] The Search for Universal Ethics: A New Look at Natural Law, n. 45.

[7] Ibid., n. 46.

[8] Ibid., n. 50.

[9] Discourse to the University of Regensburg, 12 September 2006.

[10] Caritas in Veritate, n. 2

[11] Ibid., n. 6.

[12] Ibid., n. 5.

[13] "Truth which is itself a gift, in the same way as charity is greater than we are, as St Augustine teaches. Likewise the truth of ourselves, of our personal conscience, is first of all given to us. In every cognitive process, truth is not something that we produce, it is always found, or better, received. Truth, like love, 'is neither planned nor willed, but somehow imposes itself upon human beings'" (Caritas in Veritate, n. 34).

[14] Ibid., n. 9.

[15] Ibid., n. 36.

[16] Ibid., n. 34.

[17] Ibid., nn. 53-54.

[18] Cf. Veritatis Splendor, n. 78.

[19] Cf. ibid., nn. 35-39.

[20] Ibid., n. 57.

[21] Ibid., n. 34.

[22] Ibid., n. 56.

[23] Ibid., n. 29.

[24] Ibid., n. 44.

Clergy Congregation's Letter to Permanent Deacons

"We Must Love the Poor In a Preferential Way"

VATICAN CITY, AUG. 18, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is the letter Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, the prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, sent Aug. 10 to permanent deacons on the feast of St. Lawrence, deacon and martyr.

* * *

My Dear Permanent Deacons:

The Church discovers more and more the richness of the permanent diaconate. Whenever Bishops come to the Congregation for the Clergy, on the occasion of their ad limina visits, the theme of the diaconate, among others, is often commented upon and the prelates are generally very much pleased and full of hope in regard to you, Permanent Deacons. This fills all of us with joy. The Church thanks you and recognizes your dedication to your qualified ministerial work. At the same time, the Church would like to encourage you on the way of personal sanctification, in your prayer lives and in the spirituality of the diaconate. To you one can equally apply what the Pope has said to priests, for the Year for Priests, that is that it is necessary “to work in favor of this pull of priests toward spiritual perfection, upon which, above all, depends the efficacy of their ministry.” (discourse of March 16, 2009).

Today, on this feast of St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr, I would like to invite you to reflect upon two areas, your ministry of the Word, and your ministry of Charity.

We recall with gratitude the Synod on the Word of God, celebrated in October of last year. We, ordained ministers, have received from the Lord, through the mediation of the Church, the task of preaching the Word of God to the ends of the earth, announcing the person of Jesus Christ, who has died and risen, His Word and His Kingdom, to every creature. This Word, as the final Message of the Synod affirms, has one voice which is His, Revelation, has one will which is His, Jesus Christ, and one Way which is His, Missionary Activity. To know Revelation, to adhere unconditionally to Jesus Christ as a fascinated and enamored disciple, to base oneself always upon Jesus Christ and to be with Him in our Mission, this is then what awaits a permanent deacon, decisively and without any reservation. From a good disciple a good missionary is born.

The ministry of the Word which, in a special way for Deacons, has as its great model St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr, requires of ordained ministers a constant struggle to study it and carry it out, at the same time as one proclaims it to others. Meditation, following the style of lectio divina, that is, prayerful reading, is one well traveled and much counseled way to understand and live the Word of God, and make it ones own. At the same time, intellectual, theological and pastoral formation is a challenge which endures throughout life. A qualified and up to date ministry of the Word very much depends upon this in depth formation.

We are awaiting, in the proximate future, a document of the Holy Father regarding the Synod which we have referred to. This must be welcomed with an openness of heart and with profound commitment to study it.

The second reflection regards the ministry of Charity, taking as a great model St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr. The diaconate has its roots in the early Church’s efforts to organize charitable works. At Rome, in the third century, during a period of great persecution of Christians, the extraordinary figure of St. Lawrence appears. He was archdeacon of Pope Sixtus II, and his trustee for the administration of the goods of the community. Our well beloved Pope Benedict XVI says regarding St. Lawrence: “His solicitude for the poor, his generous service which he rendered to the Church of Rome in the area of relief and of charity, his fidelity to the Pope, from him he was thrust forward to the point of wanting to undergo the supreme test of martyrdom and the heroic witness of his blood, rendered only a few days later. These are universally recognized facts.” (Homily Basilica of St. Lawrence, November 30, 2008).

From St. Lawrence we also take note of the affirmation “the riches of the Church are the poor.” He assisted the poor with great generosity. He is thus an ever more present example to permanent deacons. We must love the poor in a preferential way, as did Jesus Christ; to be united with them, to work towards constructing a just, fraternal and peaceful society. The recent encyclical letter of Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), should be our updated guide. In this encyclical the Holy Father affirms as a fundamental principle “Charity is the royal road of the social doctrine of the Church” (n. 2). Deacons must identify themselves in a very special way with charity. The poor are part of your daily ambiance, and the object of your untiring concern. One could not understand a Deacon who did not personally involve himself in charity and solidarity toward the poor, who again today are multiplying in number.

My dear Permanent Deacons, may God bless you with all his love and make you happy in your vocation and mission! With respect and admiration, I greet the wives and children of those of you who are married. The Church thanks you for the support and multifaceted collaboration which you give to your respective spouses and fathers in their diaconal ministry. In addition, the Year for Priests invites us to manifest our appreciation for our dear priests, and to pray for them and with them.

Vatican City, Feast of St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr, August 10, 2009

Cláudio Cardinal Hummes
Archbishop Emeritus of Sao Paulo
Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy

Stephen Meyer on Coast to Coast AM. Alas, you have to be a member to download clips.

He is a fellow at the Discovery Institute. During the show he maid references to Pete Ward's Rare Earth. He also mentioned his colleagues Jay Richards and Guillermo Conzalez, who wrote Privileged Planet.

Stephen Meyer's new book

Signature in the Cell

He is being interviewed on Coast to Coast AM tonight. If an audio file becomes available, I will put up the link.

A review by A. C. Grayling of Alison Gopnik's The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love and the Meaning of Life.

(via First Things)

Zenit: Cardinal Tauran at World Religion Congress
"We Have To Do Good and To Avoid Evil"

Often a question is asked: "Do objective moral values exist capable of uniting men and of procuring for them peace and happiness?". How do believers answer such a question?

Believers are convinced that ethics cannot only produce norms of behaviour, but must shape the human conscience and help to discover the demands of natural law: we have to do good and to avoid evil. [The First Principle of Practical Reason.] This is a fundamental principle which imposes itself on everybody and which allows dialogue with persons of different religions and cultures.

So as believers, we must be able to indicate to our fellow men and women that our values are fundamental for our fellow men and women in order to foster mutual comprehension, recognition and cooperation among all the members of the human family. [We may share the same ends or goods... but does that necessitate that the means always be the same, in every society?]

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 constitutes one of the highest expressions of the conscience of modern history. No doubt it has contributed to make men and women of our time aware of the patrimony of values inherent to the human person and to its dignity.

Believers nevertheless are in a position of giving a new light by teaching that man has been created in the image of God. They have been created equal. They have received from the Creator inalienable rights among which are the right to live, to be free and to look for happiness. [Is he taking this explicitly from the Declaration of Independence?]

So consequently we have to measure the progress of science and of technology not only according to their results, but also according to their capacity to defend the specificity of the human person and to check if the spiritual fundamental values are prevailing over our instinctive reactions.

It is why so often Pope Benedict recalls the nobility of reason which manifests itself through authentic human behaviour of the person and of the society. It is therefore always urgent to check if in our life the truth prevails over ambiguity. A trend to separate human rights from the ethical and rational dimensions should be resisted.

The legislator should behave in a manner which is ethically responsible because politics cannot make abstraction of ethics nor civil law and legal order can make abstraction of a superior moral law.

The great religious wisdoms and philosophies have to witness to the existence of a moral patrimony widely shared, which forms the basis of every dialogue on moral questions; this patrimony expresses a universal ethical message that man can decipher. The form and the extension of these traditions can considerably differ according to cultures and situations, but nevertheless they remind us of the existence of a patrimony of moral values common to all human beings. For example, the "golden rule": "do not do to anyone what you do not want to be done to you" is found, under one form or another, in the majority of the traditions of wisdom. [And what of the love of God?]

Individuals and communities are able, in the light of reason, to recognize the fundamental orientations of an ethical behaviour consistent with the nature of the human subject himself.

What is a Vocation? According to St. Thomas Aquinas By Joseph Bolin

Whether sinners love God more than themselves with a natural love?

Mr. Kevin F. Keiser writes in response to my use of Garrigou-Lagrange to argue that we cannot love God more than ourselves without grace:

I am well aware of these texts of Garrigou-Lagrange, as well as other similar ones in the Christian Perfection and Contemplation, The Three Ways, and in his commentary on the Summa. I had to undertake the study of them for my doctoral thesis. 

Nevertheless, I still maintain what I said, that in St. Thomas’ mind, the deliberative love of the will is perverted through sin, but not even sin can remove the natural love of God as principle of nature and as extrinsic common good. See for example De Veritate 22, a. 2, ad 3: 

“To the third it must be said that God can be considered in two ways: either in himself, or in his effects. In himself indeed, since he is the essence of goodness, he cannot be not loved. Wherefore, by all those seeing him through his essence, he is loved, and there as much as someone knows him, so much does he love him. But in some of his effects, insofar as they are contrary to the will, such as punishments inflicted, or commandments which seem heavy, God himself is refused, and in a certain way is hated. And nevertheless, it is necessary that they who hate him as so some effects, love him in other effects; just as the Demons themselves, according to Dionysius in the 4th book of the Divine Names, they desire to be and to live naturally, and in this, they desire and love God himself.” 

It is perhaps better explained in the Commentary on the Sentences, lib. 4 d. 50 q. 2 a. 1 qc. 1: “I answer that, A twofold will may be considered in the damned, namely the deliberate will and the natural will. Their natural will is theirs not of themselves but of the Author of nature, Who gave nature this inclination which we call the natural will. Wherefore since nature remains in them, it follows that the natural will in them can be good. But their deliberate will is theirs of themselves, inasmuch as it is in their power to be inclined by their affections to this or that. This will is in them always evil” 

The upshot of this is that… (qc. 5): “Now God is apprehended in two ways, namely in Himself, as by the blessed, who see Him in His essence; and in His effects, as by us and by the damned. Since, then, He is goodness by His essence, He cannot in Himself be displeasing to any will; wherefore whoever sees Him in His essence cannot hate Him. On the other hand, some of His effects are displeasing to the will in so far as they are opposed to any one: and accordingly a person may hate God not in Himself, but by reason of His effects.”

Even better is II-II, q. 34, a. 1: “I answer that, As shown above (I-II, 29, 1), hatred is a movement of the appetitive power, which power is not set in motion save by something apprehended. Now God can be apprehended by man in two ways; first, in Himself, as when He is seen in His Essence; secondly, in His effects, when, to wit, “the invisible things” of God . . . “are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Romans 1:20). Now God in His Essence is goodness itself, which no man can hate–for it is natural to good to be loved. Hence it is impossible for one who sees God in His Essence, to hate Him. 

Moreover some of His effects are such that they can nowise be contrary to the human will, since “to be, to live, to understand,” which are effects of God, are desirable and lovable to all. Wherefore again God cannot be an object of hatred if we consider Him as the Author of such like effects. Some of God’s effects, however, are contrary to an inordinate will, such as the infliction of punishment, and the prohibition of sin by the Divine Law. Such like effects are repugnant to a will debased by sin, and as regards the consideration of them, God may be an object of hatred to some, in so far as they look upon Him as forbidding sin, and inflicting punishment.” 

I realize that these texts are speaking about hatred of God, and not about the inability to love him. Nevertheless, they are quite pertinent, since they all speak of a natural love of God that cannot be subverted or displaced by sin, not even by the obstinacy in actual mortal sin found in the demons and the damned.
It is not sufficient, then, simply to assert that my previous post “goes against the plain meaning of I II 109, 3.” Does St. Thomas go against the plain meaning of I II 109, 3. I should say not, unless by plain you mean not requiring any understanding of the terms used, But I think the plain meaning is, well, what St. Thomas says there, namely, “in statu naturae corruptae homo ab hoc deficit secundum appetitum voluntatis rationalis.” It is quite plainly consistent with St. Thomas’ other thought elsewhere. 

As for Garrigou-LaGrange, my adherence to him is quite strong, but my adherence to St. Thomas is stronger, And I have found that Garrigou-LaGrange is a sure guide to Thomas’ thought, with few exceptions. This is one of those exceptions, where, with the Carmelites of Salamanca and many others, he placed an already existing aversio to God in the will of man in Original Sin, an aversio with which he is born, present even before a child’s first motion of will (as the texts you supplied so clearly point out). St. Thomas, on the other hand, does not think so; he says that in original sin, there is “something corresponding to the aversion [i.e. of actual sin], namely, the destitution of Original Justice” (De malo, q. 5 a. 2). For St. Thomas, the essence of Original Sin is not an inordinate love of self that we are born with, but the loss of the gratuitous integrity of our Original State (which makes it so that our first rational act will certainly be one of inordiinate love of self unless we are helped by grace, I-II, q. 89, a. 6), plus the real culpa that accrues to our nature, since the loss of Original Justice was perpetrated by the human will in the active principle of our nature, i.e. Adam. Even the wound of malice for St. Thomas is by way of privation of a previous order, not by way of position of a perverting self-love (I-II, q. 85, a. 3). 

As for religion in sinners, we agree. As for whether the State can compel acts of religion, I’m not sure, but you might want to look at De Regimine Principum, Bk. 1, ch. 15. My first interpretation would be that before Christ, the State could command acts of religion, but afterwards, it must leave that to the Church,

Mr. Keiser (apologies for misspelling your last name earlier):

I concede that according to these texts, the demons and sinners love God in the way spelled out in those texts. But, we need to keep in my the distinction between an inclination and the will act or volition. Commentary on the Sentences, lib. 4 d. 50 q. 2 a. 1 qc. 1 identifies the natural will with an inclination. Just because the will is inclined to certain acts, does not mean that it is reduced to those acts necessarily. None of the texts show that sinners or the demons actually love God more than themselves. So, the damned may be inclined by nature to love God more than themselves, but they do not actually do so.

The inclination to the love of God (and to love God more than one's self), being natural, is present in children before the age of reason. I believe St. Thomas stipulates that once a child reaches the age of reason he must make a true choice between God and sin. For those who reject God sinfully, they have turned themselves away from God, and they cannot love God more than themselves even with a natural love. The inclination to love God remains but it is not actualized.

Regarding your last comments: here and here -
Also the texts do not directly speak of loving God more than one's self - I think it is correct to say that the love of God more than one's self is possible when we understand that God is greater than our selves, is the final end of all creation, and so on. Is it possible for someone to love God naturally and yet not love Him more than himself [once he has this understanding]? I think it is possible for a disordered or sinning will to do so - the love of God in such a manner is nonetheless made subordinate to the love of one's self (and the rejection of God as the [supernatural] last end). Is it possible for those who are damned to have multiple or successive acts of the intellect and will? It seems that this is the case for the demons and the blessed in heaven while we have not reached the Last Day - but afterwards?

Look up Russell Hittinger on corporate personhood.

The irony won't be clear to those unfamiliar with Russell's recent writing on the topic of "society". His thesis is that societies have a real unity that exists beyond mere aggregation. Societies are real social forms that are much different than a simple cobbling-together of disparate individuals who share superficial interests or even legal recognition. Hittinger has even used "a college faculty" as an example of a kind of societal social form - a collection of individuals who share a true unity, not because they are mandated by an authority to have a pseudo-unity, and not because they are simply using each other as means to individual ends, but because there is a transcending substance that unites them, akin to family.

Societies may have a real unity, but that does not mean that they are named persons, except analogously. Should corporations or societies have rights given to them as a whole?

His CV can be found here.

The Decreasing Ontological Density of the State in Catholic Social Doctrine by Patrick McKinley Brennan (pdf)

CATHOLIC SOCIAL THOUGHT AND THE LARGE MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION by GERALD J. RUSSELLO (pdf)

Russell Hittinger, Two Thomisms, Two Modernities

Fr. Alexander Men, The Six Days of Creation

Insight Scoop: Fr. Aidan Nichols: The Pope "gives social teaching an injection of theology"

Benedict gives social teaching an injection of theology
Fr Aidan Nichols says there is more genuine Christian doctrine in the Pope's new encyclical than in Paul VI's 1967 letter Populorum Progressio

Zenit: Cardinal Cordes on "Caritas in Veritate"

Zenit: Cardinal Cordes on "Caritas in Veritate"
"The Heart of Social Doctrine Remains the Human Person"

Edward Feser, Scholastic’s Bookshelf, Part I

AICN: Another BRIDGET JONES Movie, + Blanchett's In Another Historical Epic!!

Sandro Magister, Grand Returns. "Iota unum" and "Stat veritas" by Romano Amerio (via Fr. Z)

Regarding the act of religion

After thinking about this topic for the past few days, I've reached some tentative conclusions:

Looking through ST II II question 81 again, I see that when Aquinas speaks of the subjection of our mind to God with respect to the virtue of religion, he is referring to religion’s direction of our actions to God as our last end. So in this case, subjection is just giving what is due to God as First Principle and Lord of all things; it is subjection in a rather limited sense. Hence it is possible to be subject to God in this way, by rendering to Him what is due (honor and worship), and yet be in rebellion against him (i.e. being in the state of sin).

So at this point I am inclined to think that acts of religion are possible for those who are in the state of sin, but the possibility of acquiring the virtue to some degree is even less than that of the other moral virtues, given the proximity of religion to God. With that being the case, one could still argue that the state should not compel acts of religion.

I'll have to look at the earlier paper I wrote about acts of religion; I think I argued that acts of religion should not be commanded by the state, but the justification for this was that the state did not have the competency to compel one to do what required grace. While an act of religion may not require grace, to expect someone in the state of sin to develop that virtue, while persisting in sin, seems to be unreasonable.

Alasdair MacIntyre has a new book out: God, philosophy, universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition. Can intellectual history be well-written? Only if one takes advantage of the latest scholarship, and even that may not be sufficient as one tries to recreate the intellectual milieu of an age.

How difficult is it to determine a theologian's influence at a university or within a religious order? Tracing a school of thought to its founder(s) may be simple enough; but to show that this school had an impact on those who were not members? Can this be done, especially if they are not contemporaneous?

Some discussion of the primary end of marriage here. Compare with the United States Catechism for Adults.

From an article by Robert T. Miller criticizing Msgr. Alberto Bonandi:

More specifically, Bonandi argues that there are two ends of marriage—the unitive and the procreative—and if the Church permits the divorced and remarried to pursue one of these ends (the unitive), "consistency would require" that the Church also permit such persons to pursue the other (the procreative), and so to have sexual intercourse. But these "ends" are not the ends of "marriage," no matter what theologians or popes may have carelessly said; they are the ends, rather, of marriage acts, that is, of sexual acts. In contemporary Catholic moral doctrine, a sexual act is licit if, among other things, it is appropriately ordered to these two ends; that is, it is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition of the moral liceity of a sexual act that it be of a kind that is (a) fit to produce a certain kind of emotional intimacy between the spouses, and (b) fit to be procreative. Thus sexual acts incompatible with either the unitive end (some people mention in vitro fertilization) or the procreative end (e.g., masturbation) are morally wrong. The reason, incidentally, that adulterous sexual acts are wrong is that, while they may be ordered to the unitive end, they are incompatible with the procreative end because an adulterous relationship is not a reasonable one in which to rear the children that the act may produce.

Bonandi takes these ends, which govern the moral quality of sexual acts, and converts them into norms governing human relationships generally: For Bonandi, if a relationship is fostering the unitive end, then that relationship may (perhaps ought to) foster the procreative end as well. The implications of this are rather shocking. For if, as Bonandi says, a man and a woman sharing a life together and rearing children are pursuing the unitive end and so may pursue the procreative end as well, then a widower who invites his own mother into his home to assist in the rearing of his children will be pursuing the unitive end with her and so may have sexual intercourse with her as well, which is worse than absurd. In truth, we pursue the unitive end with different people in different ways all the time. This does not license us to pursue the procreative end as well.

A discussion of the act (and virtue) of religion at Just Thomism.

Google Books: Dominican Gallery, by Aidan Nichols, O.P.

In this book Fr. Nichols discusses the lives and influence of seven English Dominicans of the 20th century.

Mark Johnson, Got 24 theses?

RTForum: Regarding the Literal Meaning of the Six Days of Creation by John F. McCarthy

Apparently Matthew Levering is now at the University of Dayton, according to this post at Ordo Praedicatorum. Does this have to do with the current situation at Ave Maria? (Dr. Levering still has a faculty page at the university.) What's going to happen to the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal?

According to his CV(?), he will be starting at UD this Fall.

(source)

A personalist notion of the common good in Caritas in Veritate?

From the encyclical:

7. Another important consideration is the common good. To love someone is to desire that person's good and to take effective steps to secure it. Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good. It is the good of "all of us", made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society[4]. It is a good that is sought not for its own sake, but for the people who belong to the social community and who can only really and effectively pursue their good within it. To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity. To take a stand for the common good is on the one hand to be solicitous for, and on the other hand to avail oneself of, that complex of institutions that give structure to the life of society, juridically, civilly, politically and culturally, making it the pólis, or "city". The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbours, the more effectively we love them.

What is marked in red seems to be in accord with the traditional understanding of the common good--one which is found in the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, for example. But what follows right after seems to be a more personalistic understanding of the common good, in which the common good is subordinate to the good of each individual. I don't think the Latin translation is available yet, but I do not think it will say anything really different from what is being expressed here in English. This understanding of the common good can be found in John XXIII, the documents of Vatican II, and subsequent documents concerning Catholic social teaching. But is that enough of a pedigree to grant it validity? The two notions of the common good can be reconciled, if it is admitted that the supposed good of the individual, to which the "common good" is subordinate, is itself a common good, and not a private good.

Did Pope Pius XII write much on the common good?

I am surprised that more Catholic philosophers and theologians have not picked up on this. But if my understanding of this current notion of the common good is wrong, please explain to me how so.

Living with others

Living with others is a "basic" good; and yet is there a precept of Natural Law that commands us to do so? We may speak of a natural inclination to do so, or a natural imperative, but a precept? We may have an inclination to procreate, but this is not a precept for everyone -- the precepts of Natural Law tell us how to choose this reasonably, if we choose it. Some may renounce it for the sake of the Kingdom. But some may be called to renounce human company for the sake of God's company -- to become a hermit. They are not cut off from the supernatural communion that is the Church, but they are removed from participating in human relationships "in this world." (Physically? I think you see what I am getting at.)

It would seem from his treatment of the lawfulness of virginity that St. Thomas would affirm that there is, indeed, a precept to live with others. If someone is not needed for the earthly civitas for its perfection, but set aside by God for something greater, are they dispensed from the precept? I don't see how the duty to live with others can be anything but a duty of the individual. The duty of the multitude, as described by St. Thomas, does not seem to fit in this case: "The other duty has to be fulfilled by the multitude, and the fulfilment of this kind of duty is not binding on each one of the multitude."

Perhaps the response is that one is not really living apart from others--that the supernatural communion the hermit shares with other members of the Church is the fulfillment of the precept. The precept is not be fulfilled at one level, but is at a higher level.

Something to think about: The Genesis Flood--Why the Bible Says It Must be Local by Rich Deem

Fr. Pinckaers on St. Alphonsus Liguori

After all the shifts and variations of ethicists through two centuries--and they were at times extreme--St. Alphonsus' system established a certain balance by its return to considered reason. There followed a measure of calm in regard to the probabilist dispute, and in 1831 the Church confirmed this by declaring that the moral theology of Blessed Alphonsus might be safely taught and used in the confessional. Withotu going so far as to assert explicitly that his 'theory of equal probability' was the best system for moral theology, the Church declared him a Doctor in 1871. Thus Alphonsus became the patron of moralists.

The patronage of St. Alphonsus, which merits our respect and esteem for his achievements, still leaves ethicists free in regard to following his reasoning. They retain this freedom as long as no definite law constrains them. This freedom is all the more necessary as the limitations of casuist morality, of which St. Alphonsus was teh most highly authorized representative, have become more apparent in our day. We can now better perceive the fundamental differences in organization and structure as well as in problematics that separate it from the moral theology of St. Thomas and the Fathers of the Church. Incontestably, post-Tridentine moral theology, in concentrating on cases of conscience and the dispute over probabilism, narrowed its horizon. We see now how it contrasts with the breadth fo the views on human action and on God that we find in the Fathers and the great scholastics. The link has not been broken, but there has been a shrinkage and a slight distortion.

The Sources of Christian Ethics, 277

Moral Choices: The Moral Theology of St. Alphonsus Liguori, by Theodule Rey-Mermet

Worth getting? It seems that St. Alphonsus' Theologia Moralis is not easy to come by. I should review what Fr. Pinckaers says about St. Alphonsus and the debates over probabilism. Dr. Fleming esteems St. Alphonsus highly.

CE
Doctors of the Church
A Short History of Moral Theology
Redemptorists USA

Defending Probabilism: The Moral Theology of Juan Caramuel by Julia Fleming (Google Books)

American Papist: Text: Caritas in Veritate on 'urgent need of a true world political authority'

Pope Benedict's third encyclical is a mammoth work which will take some time to digest, but here is a third important paragraph I'd like to highlight, one that is sure to generate some vigorous debate back-and-forth:

67. In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations. The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations.

... globalization and development are dependent upon... cheap energy...

Substance, Accident, and Transubstantiation
by
Peter A. Kwasniewski

(the rest of the article)

R. R. Reno on Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

Defending Truth

07.07.2009

R.R. Reno

CNA: Renowned moral theologian weighs-in on Theology of the Body debate
(via The Hermeneutic of Continuity)

Zenit: Holy See on Economic Crisis and Development
"We Reiterate Our Plea That the Poorest Countries Be Given Priority" [2009-07-02]

Recommendations:

Consequently, for the Holy See, there is, first and foremost, a compelling moral obligation to address these worsening social and economic disparities which undermine the basic dignity of so many of the world's inhabitants. At the same time Church institutions all over the world have seized the momentum to foment new structures of solidarity and to call for and encourage the redirection of the national and global financial and economic systems towards the principles of justice, solidarity and subsidiarity.

Given the vulnerability of so many of the world's poor, we endorse the proposed approach to protect them with short-term stabilization measures while using longer term measures to help ensure sustainable financial flows and reduce the likelihood of this crisis reoccurring. We also urge that the future agenda be not overly ambitious. Short-term actions must focus on means that are capable of bringing tangible relief within a reasonable time period to individuals most in need. Longer term measures -- which often may require developing a stronger political consensus to realize them -- should focus on actions that support sustainability. We therefore support the proposed practical balance between short-term needs for effective action and the longer term proposals to review the framework of the global economic system.

In terms of specific action, we welcome the commitments made at the G20 London Summit last April to make available more than $1 trillion in additional assistance. Unfortunately, however, only a small part of this assistance was targeted for the poorest developing countries. Hence, it is essential that adequate financial assistance still be directed to these countries, whose financing needs must be closely monitored. It is also important that such assistance be extended with minimal conditionality from the IFIs.

We are conscious of the human and social dimensions of this global crisis. In light of that, we support measures aimed at strengthening food security, the protection of social expenditures, and, more generally, a people centered focus of public expenditure. In this regard, we welcome particularly the proposals for the necessary additional resources to be made to the World Bank's Vulnerability Financing Framework.

New World Bank Group Vulnerability Financing Facility

And then there is this...

As the UN community assumes this collective responsibility to support the poorest developing countries at this time of financial crisis, we believe it is appropriate to recall the reflections of Pope Benedict XVI at the beginning of this year in celebrating World Day of Peace. He placed special emphasis on the essential need for a 'strong sense of global solidarity' between rich and poor countries to address effectively the fight against poverty. His appeal was essentially a moral one, based on the common good for all human beings.

Does the common good of the human race require that the UN undertake the responsibility to support developing countries? How would it enforce the rule of law and bring about justice, both of which are necessary for the common good? Relying on the current system to provide the necessary funds does not seem to be an acceptable solution, if the system is itself a form of exploitation and unjust. I can see why many are wary of redistributionist schemes, and those critics may have a point regarding the taking away of people's income unjustly--but I think the source of the funding and wealth must be examined too. Is Robin Hood just, if he is a representative of the government?

Sandro Magister, New Discoveries. Why St. Paul Was Given a Philosopher's Face

GoogleBooks: First the Bow is Bent in Study

James Chastek, Aristotle, essentialism, and evolution

When we simply plow through Aristotle’s text changing every “what is” to “essence” we will be prone to fall into exactly the sort of error that is thoroughly discredited by the insights of evolution. In Aristotle’s system, the “what”, when said of a natural thing, refers to a compositeof matter and form; when said of a being without matter thing, it refers to form alone. The first “what” is inseparable from a change and flux so far as it is defined with matter, and so if we say that “the what” means “essence” than the essence of natural things is changeable. Changeability is not the whole of its essence (for form is essential to its essence too) but it is inseparable from it. In this sense of essence, the essences of the things the natural scientist studies are changeable. The difficulty is that “essence”, because of its absolute character, cannot mix with the idea of being changeable. The mind recoils from the idea of “changeable essence” as a contradiction, or at least an extremely poor choice of words. This is why when we find various good reasons to say that essences (or what we thought were essences) are not fixed, it is better to junk the idea of essence altogether. This is fine, but even after we junk the word “essence” we are still left with Aristotle’s “the what”, which, when applied to natural things, includes matter and is therefore capable of change.

But Aristotle also says that nature is more form than matter, does he not, even though it is made up of both? And matter is proportioned to form -- so how much change can a thing tolerate before its potencies are affected, and it no longer has the same potencies as before?

Continuum/T&T Clark has an edition of Fr. Bouyer's The Christian Mystery that is currently in print.

Zenit: Holy Father's Address to French Seminary
"The Task of Forming Priests Is a Delicate Mission"

James Chastek:

It would be interesting to develop St. Thomas’s notion of logic as a manual like “the proper use of a human intellect”.

int.) Human powers can function well or poorly. Digestion can happen either effortlessly, or with difficulty and pain; vision can be either 20/20 or obscured by glaucoma, nerve damage, etc; the endocrine system can work or be impaired by diabetes; our ability to make a jump shot can be trained and coached, etc.

1.) Intellect: a power which knows what things are. We pass over any consideration of the nature of this power, unless we need to know it in order to use the intellect properly.

2.) We come to know by learning. So intellect learns what things are. Like other human powers, sometimes this development is automatic, other times it must be trained or coached. We are only interested here in the part that can be trained or coached (that is, educated).

3.) Learning involves getting a more perfect knowledge of something, and so begins with what is more imperfect. Learning simply speaking therefore begins with a concept that is most imperfect, simply speaking.

4.) The learning in question is of what something is. The most imperfect grasps of what something is, is our awareness that it is at all in some way. One the one hand, this is a real awareness of what something is; on the other hand it is so imperfect and indeterminate that it tells us almost nothing, and is always taken for granted in our thought.

(more examples)

The logic from names to definition(s)
The Death of an Interesting Theory

Edward Feser, Hume, science, and religion and James Chastek, Hume's critique of causality as applying to exterior things

Are the unitive and procreative ends of marriage really "co-equal"? Can we explain the traditional precept of the Church to marry a Catholic if they are? Or is this precept better understood of the procreative end is the primary end, and the unitive secondary to it? That is to say, we should marry someone Catholic for the sake of the children and their proper upbringing as Catholics and so on. After all, Catholics have an obligation to raise their children as Catholics, even if their spouse is not Catholic.