I translated this essay dutifully only because it is about CIV and was deemed worthy to be on the front page of the Nov. 1, 2009, issue of L'Osservatore Romano. But to a simple layman like me, it makes a rather banal, self-evident and circular argument - which it claims to be theological - about universal brotherhood that does not seem to offer any fresh insights into the encyclical, nor into the concept of brotherhood itself.
The encyclical of universal fraternity
by Rosino Gibellini
Translated from
the 11/1/09 issue of
Caritas in veritate can be defined as the encyclical of universal fraternity because this is the central theological category in Benedict XVI's complex discourse on the social realty of our world in the throes of globalization.
The Pope applies the social doctrine of the Church in a particular way, expressed, precisely, in the category of universal fraternity.
It has been observed that John Paul II often spoke about sociality, a subject Benedict XVI takes back to its theological source, which is fraternity.
The third chapter of the encyclical (Nos. 34-42), is entitled 'Fraternity, economic development and civilian society' and may be considered the theological center of the encyclical.
The concept of fraternity is dear to Joseph Ratzinger's theology, and he had dedicated a course in Vienna to this subject in 1958, when the young theologian was just at the beginning of his professorship in the theological-philosophical seminary of Freising.
The lecture texts would be published in 1960 (when Joseph Ratzinger was already teaching at the University of Bonn) as
Die Christliche Bruederlichkeit (Christian brotherhood) (Munich, 1960; new ed, Munich Kosel-Verlag, 2006; Italian translation, Rome 1962; new translation, Brescia, Queriniana, 2005).
[So many editions for an early book! And the Italian translation came out in 1962, very likely before he even attended the first session of Vatican-II in October 1962. But there was no particular reason they would have picked him out of the multitude so soon at the time - and the Italian publisher must be commended for his prescience. Then to come out in a new Italian translation the year of his election, before the German re-edition, even!]
Christian brotherhood, he explains in this text, is internal to the Church: it is 'the reciprocal fraternity of Christians' who invoke God, trustingly, as 'Abba' (Our Father), as Jesus taught us.
And it is an open fraternity because the Church - Ratzinger cites Von Balthasar - 'is an open space and a dynamic concept'. In fact, it is "the movement of the Kingdom of God penetrating the world, in the sense of eschatological totality". (La fraternita cristiana, p. 100).
This fraternity also has its frontiers - it sees a duality between Church and non-Church. But "the fraternal Christian community is not against everyone - on the contrary!" and "it is clear that the work of Jesus is not aimed only at part, but at everyone, at the unity of mankind" (ivi, p.94).
Christian fraternity cannot be reduced to philanthropy, it is not assimilable to stoic cosmopolitanism or the Enlightenment kind, but it is an expression of 'true universalism' because it is placed "at the service of everyone" through
agape ('love') and
diakonia (service).
In this text, the difference between universal brotherhood in the Enlightenment and in Christianity is well evidenced. It is true that the Enlightenment amplified the concept of 'brother', speaking of universal brotherhood on the basis of common human nature.
But a brotherhood that extensive can become an unrealistic and vague expression of humanitarianism, as in the words of Schiller's great Hymn to Joy: "Embrace each other, millions!"
Christian fraternity, instead, opens up persons to each other and becomes universal brotherhood in agape and diakonia, love and service, thus bringing down barriers in the concreteness of life situations. This is the theme advocated in the encyclical.
Caritas in veritate in fact affirms that true brotherhood, operating beyond every barrier and frontier, is born from giving, whose logic is introduces into the economic,social and political fabric:
The human community that we build by ourselves can never, purely by its own strength, be a fully fraternal community, nor can it overcome every division and become a truly universal community.
The unity of the human race, a fraternal communion transcending every barrier, is called into being by the word of God-who-is-Love.
In addressing this key question, we must make it clear, on the one hand, that the logic of gift does not exclude justice, nor does it merely sit alongside it as a second element added from without; on the other hand, economic, social and political development, if it is to be authentically human, needs to make room for the principle of gratuitousness as an expression of fraternity.
According to the Pope, in this time of globalization that mankind has entered, and in which it becomes 'ever more inter-connected' (No. 42), human beings as individuals and as communities need a fundamental ethical criterion.
This criterion is a theological category, universal brotherhood, which makes us consider ourselves members of the same 'human family'.
[How is this different, as a definition, from the Enlightenment idea of universal brotherhood on the basis of one common human nature?]
If one were to cite just one statement from the encyclical, to get to the center of the vision it proposes, one could choose this:
Globalization is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon which must be grasped in the diversity and unity of all its different dimensions, including the theological dimension. In this way it will be possible to experience and to steer the globalization of humanity in relational terms, in terms of communion and the sharing of goods.
This is the most strictly theological part, in which the concrete indications for the social and economic contents of the encyclical that propose the vision of universal brotherhood constitute the key to reading it and the logical consequence of 'rationality' and 'sharing' as fundamental criteria and as 'theological' orientation.
In order to be "able to generate a new vision and muster new energy in the service of a truly integral humanism" (No.78).
As the OR does not qualify the author with a single line of biodata, I Googled him, but although I can find no biodata in Italian or in English, it appears Mr. Gibellini - described as a theologian, but a lay one, it appears - is the author of several books on theology, including a Panorama of the Theology of the 20th Century and one on Liberation Theology.
This would explain why he is able to cite one of Joseph Ratzinger's early and rarely cited books, and provide us with a neat little biographical tidbit to add to what we know.
Gibellini is also the current editor of the Italian edition of Concilium, the post-Vatican II magazine that Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Yves Cognar and Joseph Ratzinger abandoned for being too progressive to found Communio.
It makes me think the OR published the essay because of who the author is, not because of its intrinsic value.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/11/2009 11:13]