A Few Thoughts about Immigration and Executive Amnesty

I just wanted to share a few of my thoughts about our nation's current immigration crisis and President Obama's unprecedented Executive Order issued last Friday granting instant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants here in the United States. First of all, I agree with Republican and Tea Party leaders and with the majority of my fellow Americans that this unilateral executive action taken by our president represented an unconstitutional abuse of his authority. The president's job is to enforce laws approved and passed by Congress, not to make up his own laws as he sees fit. (There is one exception to this: Unconstitutional laws passed by Congress, such as ObamaCare, should not be enforced but repealed, if they are not struck down by the courts.) Immigration reform and legislation is a matter for our elected representatives in Congress, who are the real lawmakers. For the umpteenth time since his administration began nearly six years ago, President Obama has exceeded his powers in order to foist his socialist agenda on our nation without our consent. He must be held accountable for violating his oath of office. I think Congress is overdue to begin talk of impeachment.

I am also rather unhappy that our good Catholic bishops have voiced approval for President Obama's unlawful course of action. They have the best of intentions, and they are concerned that those millions of people who are in our country illegally receive needed care and assistance, along with the opportunity for a better life, in line with Catholic social thought and biblical teaching about welcoming the stranger, caring for the least of our brethren, and not oppressing the alien. But I would respectfully submit that our bishops' approach to this complex issue is slightly flawed. The undocumented immigrants who pour across our southern border each day are for the most part deeply religious, hardworking, and otherwise law-abiding individuals whose chief goal is to find productive employment in order to support their families back home. Many of them do end up making a lasting positive contribution to our nation. However, such a large barrel is definitely going to contain some bad apples as well. So while grating privileges of citizenship to deserving aliens, this blanket amnesty is also making some criminals and gang members citizens of the U.S. It's a double-edged sword. By approving President Obama's illegal decree, our bishops undermine their own respect for the rule of law while accomplishing little for the immigrants themselves. There are many Catholic charitable organizations who are already fulfilling the Gospel mission by reaching out to these people at the local level regardless of their immigration status. Having the federal government confer instant citizenship on them with no questions asked is irresponsible and unecessary. In addition, making illegal immigrants instant citizens on a par with natural-born citizens and legal immigrants is unfair to the latter two groups of people.

Furthermore, our bishops do not seem to understand the real reasons for the president's action, which have nothing whatsoever to do with justice and compassion for immigrants. President Obama's unconstitutional edict was driven purely by political considerations in line with his own socialist agenda: its sole purpose was to add millions of new Democratic voters to the United States so that Hillary Clinton can be elected president to succeed him. Although cloaked that way, this illegal Executive Order was not designed to advance the welfare of the illegal immigrants themselves. President Obama has by now amply demonstrated that he doesn't care about the poor or about anyone else in this country who is struggling financially; his only concern is to protect the major corporate interests that back his presidency. And those interests, including Planned Parenthood, Monsanto, and the big pharmaceutical and insurance industries, are also backing Hillary Clinton's candidacy for president in order to retain their grip on U.S. politics and the economy.

There is no question that our immigration system has become an unwieldy bureaucracy that is in dire need of reform. Bureaucratic red tape alone has been a major factor contributing to the boom in illegal immigration. But granting millions of illegal immigrants automatic, unconditional, and permanent citizenship through executive fiat is not the proper way to begin resolving the situation. Our Catholic bishops themselves for years have been championing a comprehensive immigration reform proposal that includes addressing the root causes of mass migration to the U.S. from Mexico and Central America, as well as offering immigrants who came here illegally a legal pathway by which they can earn citizenship over a period of time. Although I may not fully agree with every aspect of this proposal, I do support it as a wise and common-sense approach to the complicated problem of illegal immigration. Our bishops should stick to their proposal and not hail with delight every move by our federal government that seems to advance their cause, much less a move that violates the Constitution and certain basic principles of justice.

I also think that more attention should be paid to the role of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed in the 1990s by President Clinton) and multinational corporations in the illegal immigration boom that has been affecting our country for the last twenty years. Big companies love cheap labor, and they can get lots of it when national borders are porous and immigration laws are weak or not enforced. If it is to be long-lasting and effective, immigration reform must be sufficiently farsighted to include structural reform of the global economy based on principles of justice and charity for all involved, as Benedict XVI spelled out in his 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate. Thus the U.S. must also work together in a spirit of community with other countries and international organizations to address the root causes of its illegal immigration problem.

For now, I fully support Congress doing all in its power to halt the implementation of President Obama's latest assault on our Constitution, and to hold the president accountable for abusing his authority yet again. He is a dangerous tyrant, so a real effort should be made in the near future to impeach him and remove him from office for the good of our country.

Financial and Moral Deficits

Our nation's record-breaking budget deficits are in the news lately. President Obama’s recently uncloaked budget bombshell for fiscal year 2014 includes massive and unprecedented new spending increases—largely as a consequence of the pathetically misnamed Affordable Care Act—at a time when the United States of America is still struggling to recover from the worst recession in eighty years. Under President Obama’s corrupt and irresponsible administration over the past five years, which has swollen the federal bureaucracy to double its original size and scope, our nation has been digging itself into a far deeper hole of debt, and at a far more rapid pace, than at any previous point in its 240-year history. Even the dramatic rise in the national debt from $2.1 trillion to more than $10 trillion that marked the George W. Bush administration due largely to its own massive spending and federal bureaucratic growth is quickly being eclipsed by President Obama’s boundless spending extravaganza. Whereas our country gained some $8 trillion in additional debt burden during eight years of President Bush, we have accumulated nearly $7 trillion more on top of that during just five years of President Obama. As a result, our national debt figure now stands at $17.3 trillion and counting. Unfortunately, President Obama and his loyal cronies on both sides of the aisle have abandoned all pretense of concern for rescuing our country from this inconceivable debt nightmare, with the concept of a balanced budget appearing less likely and more laughable with each passing day. If President Obama’s proposed budgetary scheme were to pass Congressional muster, gigantic spending hikes would push our national debt well above the $20 trillion mark before the final three years of his administration are up.

It is shocking to think that just thirty-three years ago when President Ronald Reagan took office, our entire national debt was "only" around $900 billion. It’s even more disturbing to realize that the federal budget deficit projected for this coming fiscal year alone eclipses our nation's total debt figure for the year 2000. Clearly, our dishonest and corrupt reigning establishment politicians in Washington have lost all sense of fiscal discipline and responsibility for the financial health of our country as they unscrupulously sacrifice control of our national financial system to the insatiable appetites of major corporate interests, thereby loading a colossal and unsustainable burden of debt onto the shoulders of future generations of average hardworking Americans and guaranteeing that American prosperity will soon be a thing of the past.

But while we must be concerned about these gargantuan runaway financial deficits and their long-term impact on our economy, we tend to forget that our country is simultaneously experiencing a more serious kind of deficit—that is, a moral deficit. These two kinds of deficits, moral and fiscal, are closely related. Our nation’s financial and economic decline over time has directly resulted from and closely paralleled its moral decline. The profound and clearly evident moral deficit in our nation's leadership and in its citizens must first be acknowledged and duly addressed if we are to have any hope of effectively halting and reversing the national debt—not to mention getting our economy on a sound footing.

Morality involves a sense of responsibility towards God and our neighbor. Religion helps to foster and inculcate this sense of responsibility. Our Founding Fathers and early national leaders were religious and moral men, and under their wise and competent administration, our country's debt incurred by the War of Independence was paid off in a timely fashion and the national debt kept very low thereafter. The Founders and their immediate successors exhibited a healthy fear of even the smallest outstanding debt. Benjamin Franklin encapsulated this early fiscal conservatism in his famous line, "It is better to go to bed supperless than to wake up in debt." President Andrew Jackson paid off the national debt down to zero in 1835. Unfortunately, in more recent times, the religious and moral character of our nation's leaders has tended to decline, with a decreased sense of responsibility to the people they govern, and the result has been a corresponding increase in the national debt. During the last century, America's outstanding debt rose from less than $1 billion in 1900 to more than $2 trillion in 2000. From the 1980s onward, the debt began to rise at a noticeably faster pace. In the last fourteen years it has grown exponentially, dwarfing the entire national debt of America’s previous 200 years combined, reflecting an increasing loss of any sense of responsibility on the part of our most recent national leaders.

What is debt? Debt is something that we owe someone else. When we get a loan or a credit card, a bank gives us a certain sum of money to borrow. Along with the right to borrow money comes the responsibility to use this money honestly and to repay it as soon as possible. When a creditor lends us money, he gives us the right to use it and expects us to pay it back in a timely fashion. Thus a financial debt is a moral responsibility towards our neighbor, because the money we are borrowing belongs to him. When we repay our debts, we are acting honestly and responsibly in accordance with the moral law.

In the world of finance, we have a responsibility to only borrow a sum of money that we reasonably expect to be able to repay and to avoid deliberately accumulating unsustainable debt. Sometimes, through no fault of our own, we may become indebted to someone and be unable to repay what we owe. In this case, it is an act of mercy and a moral thing for our creditor to voluntarily practice debt forgiveness. When he does this, he is saying that the money he lent us is now ours to keep, and we need not worry about paying it back. In the Bible, Jesus urges creditors to practice this form of forgiveness, and not to demand repayment when this is impossible.

Similarly, in the realm of morality, we are given the right to make free choices, and along with this freedom comes the responsibility to act in accord with the moral law. When we abuse our freedom by committing sin, we incur a moral debt towards God and towards our neighbor. We can pay off such a debt by repenting of our sin and making reparation for it by prayer, fasting, and works of charity. Nonetheless, it is a fact of fallen human nature that most of us are walking around with some level of debt to God due to our sins. However, God is merciful and has made an arrangement known as Purgatory to take care of any remaining moral debt we may owe Him at the time of our death. Jesus himself connected the moral debts we owe to God with the moral debts owed to us by our neighbor in the Our Father, which in St. Mark's gospel reads, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."

Now, in the financial world, there is (or ought to be) a difference between an honest, responsible person who accidentally falls into a situation of unsustainable debt through no fault of his own, and a dishonest, irresponsible person who runs up many debts and wishes to continue running them up with no intention of ever repaying them. In the first case, mercy (financial assistance) is appropriate; in the second case, there can be only justice (collection agencies). In the moral life, there is a similar distinction between a person who sins and then repents and makes restitution for his sin, and a person who sins freely and wishes to continue sinning with no intention of ever repenting. In the first case, God is merciful and bestows a heavenly reward; in the second, He is just and metes out the punishment of Hell. Just as it is the fiscally irresponsible person’s own fault that he loses his credit card and whatever he purchased with it and must pay what he owes with extra penalties and interest, it is the morally irresponsible person’s own fault that he ends up in Hell for all eternity.

Beneath the economic and financial collapse of 2008 that led to the current recession lay a crisis of personal moral responsibility. It’s easy and partly correct to blame irresponsible lending policies of the banks or unwise housing policies of the federal government for this disaster, but the fact is that all of us Americans contributed to this national financial crisis by our immoral individual personal decisions which helped drive the preceding artificial boom. We chose to borrow irresponsibly, to spend more and save less, to live beyond our means, to take on more and more debt, to buy that nice house and new car and all kinds of gadgets we wanted but really couldn’t afford. In other words, we chose to live dishonestly because we were selfish, greedy, materialistic and corrupt. And these immoral personal decisions of ours contributed to the ballooning growth of our national debt during the Bush administration. As Pope Benedict XVI eloquently demonstrated in his great social encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), you cannot build a sustainable economy on immorality and selfishness. Fidelity to the moral law on the part of everyone involved, i.e., personal moral responsibility, is a prerequisite for a sound economic and financial system.

The word "deficit" comes from the Latin word deficere, which means "emptiness." Benedict XVI pointed out in Caritas in Veritate that financial deficits and moral deficits go hand in hand. When individuals in a society succumb to a loss of personal moral responsibility, one of the natural consequences is a loss of fiscal responsibility that negatively impacts the whole society. Our skyrocketing fourteen-figure national debt with its twelve zeroes is merely a symbol and a symptom of the yawning moral emptiness of our nation’s leaders and citizens in recent years. Without a general and profound moral reform of American society beginning with each individual American, no financial reform project will succeed or bear lasting fruit. Only through a timely return and re-commitment to personal moral responsibility—aided by devout religious faith and the wisdom and example of the Founders—on the part of America’s citizens and leaders alike can our nation yet hope to pull away from the giant black hole of financial self-destruction toward which it is now hurtling at breakneck speed.

Copyright © 2014 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

Pope Francis: Pastor of the World

The world is now seeing what a devout Catholic pastor of souls from Argentina looks like in the person of our current Holy Father, Pope Francis. His quiet reserve, his deep prayerfulness and spirituality, his humility and charity, his simple and frugal lifestyle, his doctrinal orthodoxy, his liturgical reverence, and especially his personal pastoral style and his exceptional talent as a preacher and communicator, all remind me of Father Abel, the saintly Argentinian pastor of my childhood and early teen years at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Guadalupe, California. A good deal of prayer, careful study, and meditation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit went into the preparation of each of his daily morning Mass homilies on the Scripture readings. Despite his unassuming exterior, Father Abel was quite erudite, well versed in Catholic doctrine and theology and the Fathers and Doctors of the Church as well as in biblical history and exegesis. Moreover, he was in tune with where Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger were leading the Church at the dawn of the Third Millennium. As well as a man of deep prayer and high education, Father Abel was a good teacher. His daily Mass homilies, which often focused on three basic “elements,” were simple and direct, yet profound and rich in theological insights—much like those of Pope Francis. They were always delivered slowly and carefully, so that we could grasp each word and idea he was presenting to us, and he would make direct eye contact with each of his listeners as he spoke, just as Pope Francis does. And, best of all, these homilies always came straight from his head and his heart, without the aid of a prepared text—just like the daily Mass homilies of Pope Francis.

Father Abel’s homilies illuminated the Scriptures and made them come alive for us simple lay people. He was a true pastor, who fed us spiritually with the Word of God and the sacraments of the Church and who inspired us to live our Christian faith by his example of a holy life. Now Pope Francis—another Argentinian Catholic pastor of souls—is doing the same thing as shepherd of his little flock at the Domus Sanctha Marthae, as the Bishop of Rome, and as the Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church. Like his patron, Saint Francis of Assisi, he is a reformer, called by God to rebuild His crumbling Church in a corrupt and materialistic age of radical secularism. He is carrying out this mission of reform quite simply and effectively by courageously preaching and authentically living the full truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. By his clear teaching and personal example of humble service, he is returning the Church to the roots of its faith and to the essence of the Gospel message.

From his earliest words and actions as the Successor of Saint Peter, this man has made it clear that he has come to serve, not to be served. By humbly referring to himself as “the Bishop of Rome” rather than as “the Pope,” he indicated that he is not interested in using the power of the papacy to control and dominate others for his own self-aggrandizement—as some arrogant and corrupt pontiffs in Church history have unfortunately done, leading to divisions, schisms, and wars. Rather, Pope Francis sees his office as a ministry of loving service to Christ’s faithful, whose task as Bishop of Rome is to “preside over all the churches in charity” and thus keep them united in the one true faith of Christ. This simple and humble approach to the papacy is in keeping with the desires for papal reform and Christian unity expressed by Blessed John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint (That They May All Be One). Pope Francis’ profound humility and charity are having a remarkably strong positive effect on leaders of the Orthodox churches, which have been separated from full communion with Rome since 1054. His papal inauguration Mass was the first in nearly a millennium to be attended by the Patriarch of Constantinople. That highly significant gesture was a clear sign that, under the influence of Pope Francis, the Orthodox Churches have now begun moving seriously toward full reunion with the Church of Rome. After all, it was not so much doctrinal disagreements and cultural differences that divided the Eastern and Western Churches, but rather the imperial, domineering attitude of certain corrupt and power-hungry Popes in the early Middle Ages that led to the Great Schism. Just as a lack of charity by certain Popes divided the Churches, the charity of Pope Francis is helping to reunite them and heal the old wounds of division.

The humble Christian attitude and warm personal approach of Pope Francis have not only endeared him to his fellow Catholics and to other Christians, but have also drawn the admiration and respect of people of goodwill throughout the modern secular world. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon praised him as “a man of peace and purpose” and “a voice for the voiceless.” He has been nominated “Man of the Year” by Vanity Fair magazine. “Pope Francis is the best news for the Catholic Church in centuries,” declared singer Elton John in a recent interview. “On his own, this man has succeeded in bringing people back to Christ’s teachings…Non-Catholics like me rise to their feet to applaud the humility of every gesture of his…Francis is a miracle of humility in an age of vanity.” And Italian atheist Giorgio Faletti admitted that “Jorge Mario Bergoglio seemed to me immediately a great communicator, a person that by his face inspires that goodness that the representative of Catholics in the world must inspire, a man who has the qualities to repair with his figure all the scandals that recently have damaged the image of the Vatican and what it represents.”

In his formally prepared speeches and addresses as well as in his extemporaneous daily Mass homilies in the Domus Sanctha Marthae chapel, Pope Francis courageously preaches the full truth of Christ’s Gospel, without minimizing or glossing over difficult or controversial areas. In his first homily as Pope given in the Sistine Chapel, he urged the Church not to reject the cross: “When we journey without the cross…we are not disciples of the Lord.” In the homily at his installation Mass, Pope Francis reminded us of our basic human responsibility to protect all of God’s creation, including human life and the natural environment, for the benefit of all. In his first address to the Holy See’s diplomatic corps, he drew attention to “the spiritual poverty of our time” manifested in what his predecessor Benedict XVI used to call “the ‘tyranny of relativism’,” and stated: “Francis of Assisi tells us we should work to build peace. But there is no true peace without truth! There cannot be true peace if everyone is his own criterion, if everyone can always claim exclusively his own rights, without at the same time caring for the good of others, of everyone, on the basis of the nature that unites every human being on this earth." In line with his two predecessors, Pope Francis has also criticized the injustice and inhumanity of the current global economic system that allows a few to profit enormously at the expense of many. He has condemned “the dictatorship of a nameless, faceless economy” and pointed out that we have fallen into a “globalized indifference” that has robbed us of the ability to sympathize with our suffering brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. Through these and many other homilies and addresses, Pope Francis is shaking us Christians out of our comfortable complacency and challenging us to live the Gospel in such a total, radical and authentic way that it completely changes our lives and transforms the modern world.

In his last and greatest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed: “To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are…exacting and indispensable forms of charity.” As the 265th Successor of Saint Peter, Pope Francis is now carrying on this essential mission of Christian charity. By his words and example, he is preaching the truth that will set us free, the truth that has the power to save humanity from self-destruction. And, slowly but surely, he is drawing the modern secularized world back to Christ. Pope Francis has become more than just the leader of the Catholic Church; he has become the pastor of the world.


Copyright © 2013 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

Caritas in Veritate--1st Anniversary

July 7 was the first anniversary of the release of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI's third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth). In this landmark document, our Holy Father discusses globalization and its accompanying economic and social issues in the brilliant light of Catholic teaching. At the center of his discussion is the human person, redeemed by Christ. The Pope explains that God calls each man and woman to develop himself or herself fully in every aspect--spiritually, culturally, educationally, socially, economically, and so forth--and that this individual development takes place within the shared context of the family, the Church, the nation and international society. This exchange involves not merely relationships of rights and duties, points out the pontiff, but also relationships of gratuitousness, mercy and communion. In other words, human development is not built simply on justice, on doing your job and fulfilling your religious, social and political obligations, but it is also built on charity, on freely going out of your way to do good things for other people, for the Church, for your country and for your fellowmen in other countries. Moreover, this development must be built on truth, which together with charity unites human beings into a true family of God. Into this discussion the Pope brings the "economy of gift." Human life and all creation are free gifts out of love from God, who is the source of all charity and truth. He calls us to freely answer this love with gifts of love for him and for our neighbor. To the extent that we share God's love with others, we contribute to "integral human development," which is God's Will for the human race. Part of this development is science, in which man discovers more about the good things God has made, and technology, in which he eases life's burdens, making it more worthy of man. Science, technology, economics, politics and all other fields must serve the true good of the human person and of all humanity, not the selfish interests of individuals and small groups, or else they run the risk of causing great damage to human development and interpersonal relations. With jewel-like clarity Pope Benedict shows how this all fits together and makes sense.

I cannot say enough about this outstanding encyclical. It is a priceless gift to the Church and humanity, and I have only given a poor summary of its rich contents here. I am planning to write more articles about it in the near future. In the meantime, if you like you can check out a piece I've already written about it entitled A New Vision of Globalization, which is in the list of published articles in my blog sidebar.

We Are In God's Hands

I recently received the May/June 2010 issue of Science Illustrated, one of my favorite magazines. The lead story introduces a new technological concept some scientists are getting into called "geoengineering." This would involve manipulation of the Earth itself to save humanity from predicted disasters of its own making, such as global warming. One of their ambitious ideas is to encircle the globe with gigantic mirror arrays that would reflect sunlight away from Earth. The payoff could be enormous, these scientists tell us, but the risks are also tremendous. I feel that this particular method of geoengineering is a classic case of attacking the disease by treating the symptoms while ignoring the cause. The problem with global warming is not in the amount of sunlight reaching Earth, but in the man-made greenhouse gases that trap more of its warmth and could potentially lead to a runaway greenhouse effect. It is dealing with these greenhouse gases from artificial sources right here on Earth and in our atmosphere that we will effectively address any problem of artificial warming, not by reengineering the planet from the outside in.

In his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI has warned us of an error widely prevalent in the modern fields of science and technology, namely, the idea that we human beings must take complete control of Earth and determine our own destiny. Here I'd like to quote Bishop Thomas Wenski, whom the pope recently appointed as archbishop of Miami, Florida and who was himself quoting our Holy Father from Deus Caritas Est: "'We are only instruments in the Lord's hands; and this knowledge frees us from the presumption of thinking that we alone are personally responsible for building a better world.' In all humility we will do what we can, and in all humility we will entrust the rest to the Lord. It is God who governs the world, not we."

While seeking solutions to the great problems facing our twenty-first century world, humanity must trust more than ever in the Lord and in His infinite mercy.

A New Vision of Globalization

Undoubtedly, one of the most important events of this year was the long-anticipated release of our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI's third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth). This is the first social encyclical to emanate from the Vatican since Pope John Paul II published Sollicitudo Rei Socialis in 1987. Pope Benedict's first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love), drafted by John Paul II a few months before his death, had been completed and released in December 2005 within the first year of the new pontificate. Two years later in November 2007, Pope Benedict had issued his second encyclical, the first written entirely by him, Spe Salvi (Saved by Hope). This led some observers at that time to wonder whether a reverse pattern of the theological virtues was being set: with the new pope's first encyclical on love and a second about hope, would the third deal with faith? The late Father Richard John Neuhaus said in an EWTN interview with Raymond Arroyo that he did not think this would be the case. Although Father Neuhaus did not live to see the release of our present Holy Father's third encyclical, it turned out that he was correct.

Early in 2007, Vatican sources informed the press that Pope Benedict XVI had begun working on his second and third encyclicals. The topics of these documents engendered various surmises ranging from marriage and family life to religious fundamentalism--areas in which His Holiness was devoting considerable energy at the time. Meanwhile, curial officials close to the Pope soon confirmed that the third encyclical letter would apply Catholic social teaching to globalization and poverty. A cardinal in Rome also made clear in the summer of 2007 that His Holiness was not in a rush to write and release this particular document, but that because of the complexity of the subject matter, the Pope was devoting much time to prayer and study as he drafted the piece.

Indeed, I am glad that the Holy Father took his time in preparing this document, to ensure that it would carefully address all of the modern interrelated global social issues. To synthesize these multifarious issues into a coherent perspective would be a challenging task for anyone given the interdisciplinary nature of the subject. Yet in Caritas in Veritate, our Holy Father has aptly set globalization and its effects within the clear perspective of Catholic social doctrine. Furthermore, in a few concise lines he has laid out for the Church of this era the theological basis for Catholic social teaching, in itself an invaluable treasure. With this landmark encyclical, Pope Benedict has accomplished even more: in a simple, orderly fashion, he has placed social teaching and issues within the context of love and truth, faith and reason, life, marriage and the family. Indeed, there is hardly a single aspect of the Catholic faith that is not woven into this beautiful tapestry. Caritas in Veritate is like the key to a code or the instruction manual of a celestial telescope kit in which the Holy Father shows how everything fits together and works. It is a long document, but to the point and jam-packed with information. As a papal encyclical, it presents the infallible magisterium of the Church on a subject of hard-to-exaggerate significance; as a work of theology, it is a distillation of Joseph Ratzinger's theological riches mined over the past sixty years; as a rationally sound philisophical treatise, it offers one of the finest examples of our Holy Father's intellectual giftedness; as a blueprint for the Church's social mission in the twenty-first century, it offers not just theoretical groundwork for the hierarchy but practical tips for the laity; as a letter from a spiritual father to his children, it is touched with the childlike humility and charming graciousness for which Pope Benedict has come to be known; as a work of literature, it must surely rank among the great classics of human history. Caritas in Veritate may have been long-awaited, but the wait was well worth it.

Public anticipation of this encyclical was certainly heightened by unstable economic conditions worldwide, leading to the economic crisis that struck the globe like an asteroid in 2008. Just as the United States nonchalantly reveled in its seeming indestructibility prior to 9/11, a widely accepted notion held that the new post-Cold War global economy was immune to recession and failure. In both cases, when the popular myth collapsed, people were left with a sense of disillusionment and started hunting for truthful answers to the question of "what went wrong." In the current case, Catholics and non-Catholics around the world expected that the new social encyclical in the works would have some answers regarding the shortcomings of our contemporary globalization system and how these flaws might be remedied. Thus they looked forward with respectful eagerness to whatever words of wisdom our Holy Father would impart on this complicated issue. Caritas in Veritate does not disappoint at all in this respect either, as we will see.

Critics of Pope Benedict (who are a phenomenon unto themselves, as they have no rational basis for their criticism) foretold that this encyclical would be chiefly a condemnation of Communism or unrestrained capitalism, or both. But these folks ought to know by now that scolding and reviling are not the trademarks of Benedict XVI. While taking accurate and forthright account of the major problems with the current system of globalization, Caritas in Veritate is primarily a positive document. It is an exciting document, because here for the first time we have a truly insightful and accurate analysis of the phenomenon of globalization, enlightened by the full splendor of the Catholic faith, together with a vision of the vast potential that worldwide interdependence has for building a true human family on the basis of charity in truth. It is nothing less than a new vision of globalization that Pope Benedict is presenting to the Church and the world.

The introductory paragraphs of the encyclical, numbers 1 through 9, constitute the solid foundation on which Pope Benedict builds his thesis. In these passages, the Holy Father defines charity and truth, and succinctly explains the link between the two. Both have their origin in God, Who is Eternal Love and Absolute Truth, and both are fully revealed in Jesus Christ. Thus "to defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are... exacting and indispensable forms of charity" (no. 1). In paragraph 2, Pope Benedict says that charity "is 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)." In subsequent chapters of his encyclical, the Pope makes abundantly clear the importance of both the "micro-relationships" and the "macro-relationships" to human society, and that as Catholics we have a responsibility to promote charity and truth in both spheres. Charity and truth are two sides of the same coin: "Truth needs to be sought, found and expressed within the 'economy' of charity," says His Holiness, "but charity in its turn needs to be understood, confirmed and practised in the light of truth." Furthermore, this light is lit by both reason and faith (no. 3). In paragraph 5 the Holy Father defines charity as "love received and given" (note the order of the words: love is first received from God and then given to others), and then points out that this dynamic of charity gives rise to the Church's social teaching, "which is caritas in veritate in re sociali: the proclamation of the truth of Christ's love in society."

In paragraphs 6 and 7, Pope Benedict examines two of the criteria that govern moral action which are relevant to human development in our increasingly globalized society: justice and the common good, respectively. First he deals with the interconnection between charity and justice, noting that we cannot be charitable to others unless we are first just towards them. Moreover, he says that "justice is inseparable from charity, and intrinsic to it" (no. 6). The pontiff quotes Pope Paul VI in calling justice the "minimum measure" of charity. In other words, to give people the basic requirements of justice is not a separate issue from charity, but an integral part of it. Then he explains that besides the good of the individual person, there is the good linked to living in society, the common good. "To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity" (no. 7).

But how do we strive towards the common good? In these same two paragraphs, the Supreme Pontiff weaves his answer to this question into a beautiful "theology of the city." Here the Pope is using the word "city" to mean "human community," and he identifies charity and justice as essential ingredients in building this community. He says in number 6 that the earthly city is built up not merely by relationships of rights and duties (justice) but "by relationships of gratuitousness, mercy and communion" (love). Pope Benedict explains what striving for the common good means: "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” (no. 7). He says that every Christian is called to practice charity "in a manner corresponding to his vocation and according to the degree of influence he wields" in public life. He then adds: "This is the institutional path — we might also call it the political path — of charity, no less excellent and effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbour directly." Putting politics and charity together in the same breath might strike some people as odd, but after all the whole business of politics is to promote the common good. Here the pontiff also confirms the error of some misguided Catholics who have chosen to opt out of political life altogether, and he proclaims that active citizenship is a duty of charity. Thus the Pope echoes the Catholic bishops of the United States, who maintain that "responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation" (Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, no. 13). In an increasingly interconnected world, says our Holy Father, the concept of the common good and efforts to obtain it must be broadened in corresponding measure to embrace the entire human family, "that is to say, the community of peoples and nations." Pope Benedict goes on to say that "man's earthly activity, when inspired and sustained by charity, contributes to the building of the universal city of God" in unity and peace (no. 7); it is a prefigurement of the heavenly city, the ultimate goal of human existence.

(This article remains to be continued in a future post.)