"...relationships of gratuitousness, mercy and communion"

A brilliant overview of Catholic social teaching and view of the human person from Cardinal George. An excerpt:

In his latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), Pope Benedict XVI articulates how this Catholic vision pertains to the most pressing social issues of our time and how it ultimately has the power to unite the human race. The pope writes, "The earthly city is promoted not merely by relationships of rights and duties, but to an even greater and more fundamental extent by relationships of gratuitousness, mercy and communion" (6).

Cardinal Francis E. George, archbishop of Chicago and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), echoes this assessment in his new book, titled The Difference God Makes: A Catholic Vision of Faith, Communion, and Culture (Herder and Herder, 2009). Although the book was written almost entirely before Caritas in Veritate was released, it builds on the same tradition of Catholic social teaching and thus shares many of the same insights and observations.

In this exclusive interview with Columbia, the cardinal discusses the ongoing task of the Church to transform our culture in charity and truth.

Columbia: You begin your book by discussing the Christian understanding of creation, the incarnation and communio. Why are these concepts foundational to how we see God and the world?

Cardinal George: People understand God in different ways, but the constant tendency, if we let ourselves go, is to reduce God to our size and see him as just one more fixture in the universe – bigger and more important, but just one more. Yet, God both transcends his creation and is present within it, as the cause of its very being.

This relationship to God, first of all, brings us into relationship with everyone else and with all of creation. This is done through Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate, and he enables us to understand how our neighbor is also our brother or sister.

Columbia: You also explain that the modern idea of the person is focused on individualism and subjectivism, in contrast to seeing our identity in terms of relationship. How do we see that individualistic worldview play out in our society today?

Cardinal George: If we are individuals for whom relationships are just added on, rather than being persons who are born related, then we start with rights and not with duties or obligations to others. Since rights have to be protected, we get into a legal framework that is almost always adversarial. Society becomes brittle and violent. Natural community, such as marriage, is much weakened. People's mobility and pursuit of one's own dreams, even in conflict with others, have become something of a priority in our culture. This doesn't foster the kind of relationship that is necessary to live humanely.

You can see it in all kinds of ways. Violence is the most obvious. Modern culture is based upon opposition and contention: the media needs oppressors and victims or there isn't a story; courts are set up for winners and losers; and politics is those in power and those who have lost power. It's all conflict.

The Church's role is to say, while there is conflict to a certain level, the highest level is one of harmony and peace, mutual love and love of God. Our job is to call people to that level, which isn't only higher, but also more global. It is more universal. It is broader. That is what is sometimes missing in the public conversation and in the institutions of our country...