A radical call to reform

The Catholic doctrines of social justice are sometimes described as the Church’s “best kept secret”. The release of Pope Benedict’s new encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), it must be hoped, will bring these teachings — the Church’s concern about the world as it is and how it should be — into sharp focus.

Pope Benedict, the theologian pope, has added to the wealth of writings on social justice by Popes Leo XIII, Pius XI, John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II, placing particular emphasis on the theology which underpins the Church’s social doctrines.

Pope Benedict XVI signs a copy of his encyclical Caritas in Veritate.CNS photo: L'Osservatore Romano via Reuters

In the secular view, Pope Benedict is typically characterised, indeed caricatured, as a political conservative. If his previous statements on matters such as economics, development, labour, the environment and latterly the global financial crisis failed to offer a clue to the contrary, Caritas in Veritate presents a radical manifesto for a transformation of social, economic and personal values.

It is likely that Pope Benedict’s call for reform will be largely unheeded, even as the current economic crisis presents a singular opportunity for it. After all, Pope Pius XI’s prophetic words in 1931, as the world suffered the effects of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, fell on deaf ears: “Free competition, and especially economic domination, must be kept within definite and proper bounds, and must be brought under effective control of the public authority” (Quadragesimo Anno, as paraphrased by Pope Paul VI in 1975). Almost eight decades later, in Caritas in Veritate we have set of principles that may serve as a premise from which to develop a conversion of social and economic relations for the common good.

Most profoundly, Pope Benedict describes the human person as “the primary capital to be safeguarded and valued”. He observes rightly that the world has lost its respect for the human person: “When a society moves towards the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man’s true good. If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away.”

This finds expression not only in societies where abortions are seen as tolerable, but also in the manner by which the profit motive trumps the dignity of the person.  “How”, the pope asks, “can we be surprised by the indifference shown towards situations of human degradation when such indifference extends even to our attitude towards what is and is not human?” Here the pope transcends competing ideological camps; his encyclical will make uncomfortable reading for conservatives and liberals alike.

Most radical, in economic terms, is his critique of the free market. Pope John Paul II was no less critical of unfettered capitalism, but Pope Benedict is able to buttress his argument with the knowledge of recent experience. The present economic crisis has exposed the free, unregulated market as a corrupted (and corrupting) system grounded in greed that fails to serve the common good.

The Holy Father cites several examples of how greed — the primacy of profit and consumption — has caused immense harm. South Africans will concur when he criticises the “excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property”. He does not refer to specifics, but it is apparent that he is pointing at pharmaceutical companies who challenged the distribution of generic antiretroviral medicines to poor people with HIV. If the pope was reading South African newspapers, he might well have included among gravely sinful market practices the scandal of price-fixing, which is rife in this country.

The pope does not, however, blame an abstract economic system for the crisis. We must hold accountable “individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility”. The deleterious effects of capitalism therefore are not inevitable, but can be negated. The system could be a force for good.
He notes that “the conviction that the economy must be autonomous, that it must be shielded from ‘influences’ of a moral character, has led man to abuse the economic process in a thoroughly destructive way”.

In short, the current model of capitalism is in need of thorough reform and some type of regulation. Pope Benedict suggests that when necessary the “political community” should intercede in the economy for the common good. But this, he notes, requires that governments — individually and, in a globalised world, jointly — have a clear moral vision. This in itself calls for radical modifications.

While much of Caritas in Veritate speaks to us in our immediate circumstance — within the context of the economic crisis — it is not a document of reaction. The scandal of most wealth being held by a few as multitudes go hungry is perennial. The Church’s concrete proposals are few. As Pope Benedict writes, “the Church does not have technical solutions to propose”. The encyclical’s immense value resides in its timeless appeal for a new consciousness, rooted in the Gospel, which acknowledges and embraces the dignity of all humanity in charity.

In the course of the encyclical Pope Benedict provides many practical incentives for doing so — such as, in his direst warnings, the preservation of peace — but the purest, and therefore most persuasive argument, is made right at the beginning of the letter when he writes:

“Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity. Love — caritas — is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace.”