inside america

Charity and Truth
In his third encyclical, after insisting again on the method that defines Christianity, the Holy Father expands its range of application to the areas of economic development and social justice. He makes it clear that the social doctrine of the Church is inseparable from our faith in Christ.

by lorenzo albacete

When, as Prefect of the Congregation for Doctrine, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger led the Magisterium’s clash with proponents of Latin American Liberation Theology he had again and again to insist that the fundamental concern of the Church was not the rejection of Marxism and socialism, that it was not a preference for capitalism, that it was not a matter of orthodoxy against orthopraxis, that it was not a rejection of a “preferential option for the poor,” nor a matter of social and political structures vs. individual responsibility, nor an other-wordly moralism, nor the fear of revolution, etc., etc. The Church’s concern was a matter of protecting the point of departure of the Church’s involvement with social, economic, and political matters. It was a concern about the proper method to arrive at a judgment in these matters which corresponded with the true nature of Christianity. It was a matter of insisting on what must come first, namely, the event of an encounter with the Risen Christ and the faith made possible by the grace of this encounter. The Church had to insist that without the experience of this event, the truth of reality could not be fully known. In the decisive words of Vatican II, only the Mystery of Christ, and its revelation of the Father and his Love, allows us to recognize the mystery of man and creation itself (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22). It was a matter of insisting that this “only” meant exactly that: only. As Pope Benedict XVI, Ratzinger continues to be concerned about this point: the importance of understanding the method of grasping reality that defines Christianity. In fact, his three encyclicals can best be understood from this perspective.
In Deus Caritas Est, the Pope traced how the true knowledge of God as Love is impossible without recognition of Christ’s presence today as victorious over sin and death. The revelation of God as Love through this encounter allows us to recognize the relational nature of human personhood and the vocation of each human person to live forever by the power of this divine Love. Already in this encyclical, the Pope began to show how it is this experience that makes possible our judgments of the cultural, political, social, and economic circumstances in which we are living.
In the encyclical Spe Salvi, the Holy Father describes how it is this experience that gives birth to our hope, allowing us to recognize the defining desires of our heart and their correspondence to this vocation of love.
In the third encyclical Caritas in Veritate, after insisting again on the method that defines Christianity, the Holy Father expands its range of application to the areas of economic development and social justice that challenge us today. He makes it clear that the social doctrine of the Church is inseparable from our faith in Christ, and not a “third way,” beyond the clash of capitalism with socialism or individualism with collectivism. Instead, the social doctrine of the Church is something radically new.
The Holy Father insists from the very first paragraph that he wants to identify the “driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity.” He declares this force to be “charity in truth” as revealed in Christ. It “has its origin in God, Eternal Love, and Absolute Truth.” The “vocation” to this destiny has been “planted by God” in the desires of the human heart and mind, and it cannot be totally destroyed in us. It is not something we choose. It is the objective reality of how we are made, what truly makes us human, what defines us as such. As truth, it is an expression of the Love that is God. Love cannot be separated from this Truth about us and about God. But this charity in truth is not some abstract force. “In Christ, charity in truth becomes the Face of his Person.” Thus, charity revealed as faith in Christ, the recognition of the truth of his Presence, is “at the heart of the Church’s social doctrine” (par. 2).
The secularization of charity, like the reduction of reason, makes it necessary today to speak of “charity in truth” and not simply “truth in charity,” since this could be reduced to fideism and an applied moralism. Instead, says the Holy Father, “truth needs to be sought, found, and expressed within the ‘economy’ of charity, but charity in its turn needs to be understood, confirmed, and practiced in the light of truth. Only in this way will the Christian “method” for grasping reality (beginning with faith in the concrete Person of Christ) be safeguarded from reduction by the current cultural and ethical relativism. I will continue these observations in further columns.