Thursday, February 14, 2013

Deus Caritas Est and Caritas in Veritate: Pope Benedict XVI's Social Teaching

Even though the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church is awesome, it was released before Pope Benedict XVI's papal contributions to the Church's social teaching were published.  So, to round out the series, here's the USCCB's recounting of those contributions:
...Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) 2005, Pope Benedict XVI -- Benedict's first encyclical, that could have been an abstract or scholarly treatise, instead dug deep into the concept of love and cited the connections between love of God and love of neighbor. Pope Benedict said the Church could no more neglect charity than it could Scripture or the sacraments and even called charity a manifestation of Trinitarian love.

Caritas In Veritate (Charity in Truth) 2009, Pope Benedict XVI -- anticipated since 2007, this encyclical is believed to follow up on the themes of Populorum Progressio. Dealing with the ethics of contemporary economics, it's reasonable to think that the global economic crisis will weigh in heavily on what the pope has to say.
Their summary came before the release of Caritas in Veritate. Here's a more detailed summary.  Excerpts:
Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict's third encyclical, is a call to see the relationship between human and environmental ecologies and to link charity and truth in the pursuit of justice, the common good, and authentic human development. In doing so, the pope points out the responsibilities and limitations of government and the private market, challenges traditional ideologies of right and left, and calls all men and women to think and act anew...

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