The Church's One Social Doctrine

FORT WAYNE, Indiana, JULY 9, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI's encyclical "Caritas in Veritate" eloquently reiterates the coherence of Catholic social teaching, but it likewise makes manifest the essential links between truth and charity and the real world.

For the Holy Father, charity and truth are not abstract concepts, but must be seen for what they are, "the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity" (No. 1). In this concern, the Holy Father offers a remarkably bold reminder that human life must be at the center of that development.

"Caritas in Veritate" is splendidly faithful to all of the Church's social teachings on the human person's inviolable dignity as well as the transcendent value of natural moral norms. By quoting from every social encyclical since Leo XIII's "Rerum Novarum" in 1891, the Pontiff refutes any misinterpretations of Catholic social teaching that there are two functional typologies, one pre-conciliar and one post-conciliar. Rather, he quotes Pope John Paul II when he states firmly, "there is a single teaching, consistent and at the same time ever new" ("Sollicitudo Rei Socialis," 3). Expressing that sense of newness, "Caritas in Veritate" also offers considerable innovation in its prescription for the present global financial crises by highlighting the right to life in relation to genuine progress.

Read all of Matthew Bunson's "Caritas in Veritate" Provides Synthesis of Old and New.