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'CARITAS IN VERITATE'

Ultimo Aggiornamento: 29/08/2009 20:08
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I am posting two items from Jimmy Akin, a Catholic blogger I have not visited as often as I should (his main interest is Catholic apologetics), who has very sensible things to say about CIV.

First, he engages George Weigel's strongly worded article - which I felt was colored by his personal biases and was far from his usual standard of clear-minded objectivity.

Akins begins by agreeing on certain obvious points: that it is easy to see which parts of the encyclical are Benedict's direct input and which ones he has adopted from his consultants (including the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace [PCJP, as Akins refers to it] that Weigel anathematizes so much for supposedly trying to force their leftwing positions on John Paul II and now, Benedict XVI); and also, that some of the latter views are expressed in language that has nothing of Benedict XVI's characteristic clarity.

This is the second part of Akins's commentary, which expands on my own initial reaction to Weigel's NRO article (posted in Page 1 of this thread).



Reacting to George Weigel's
critique of CIV

by Jimmy Akin

www.jimmyakin.org/
July 13, 2009



... So far Weigel's take on the encyclical is on course. There is the kind of tension between different viewpoints at the Vatican, including the one that predominates at the PCJP, the encyclical is a fusion of ideas of Benedict's and the standard PCJP positions, and there was a big unhappy behind the scenes process for this encyclical's production.

It may even be reasonable to say that at a certain point Benedict threw up his hands and let the PCJP have its way on some things even though he wasn't entirely happy with the way they came out.

Benedict might well feel that there is still room for improvement in the encyclical, though he obviously felt it was "good enough" at this point to be released.

And that's where Weigel goes wrong.

Weigel depicts the Pope as allowing the PCJP passage to stay in the encyclical just so Benedict could maintain peace inside the Vatican.

Nonsense.

Pope Benedict has no problem telling people "no" or undertaking decisions that leave others at the Vatican absolutely mortified. (Summorum Pontificum, anybody? Lifting of the Lefebvrite excommunications--even apart from the Holocaust-denying tendencies of one of the bishops?)

And then there's the fact that he's apparently been saying "no" to the PCJP about this very encyclical for the last several years.

Maybe they wore him down on a few things that he would have liked to have come out better, but he was entirely capable of saying, "You know, guys, I really appreciate the work you've done here, but given the current state of things, I think it best that we shelve this idea."

That kind of thing happens all the time at the Vatican, and Pope Benedict certainly has the wherewithal to shelve an idea that he thinks isn't working.

Also problematic is Weigel's apparent implication that the "red" passages of the encyclical do not represent Benedict's thought.
[In his article, Weigel says the parts that are clearly Benedict are 'gold' while those of the PCJP are 'red' - as in socialist, maybe?]

I think it's fair to say that they may not always have the same intensity in Benedict's mind as the "gold" passages that he felt needed to be in there and inserted on his own personal initiative.

But even if some of them are of lesser importance to Benedict or even if he isn't happy with the precise way they ended up being worded, surely they correspond to his thought in at least a general way. (And possibly a much, much stronger way than that.)

So I think Weigel is simply mistaken with this implication.

This is not some minor speech that the Pope had 'ghost written' for him, and that he read maybe once before he delivered it in public. In documents such as that, the Pope might, indeed, pass over something by accident that doesn't really reflect his thoughts.

This is an encyclical for crying out loud!

The Pope - and his chosen experts - have been over every single word of this. The Pope has spent years wrestling with this thing and personally critiquing the drafts from the PCJP.

This thing has been scrutinized by the Pope and his chosen experts so thoroughly that anything appearing in the document at this date is something Benedict has made his own.

He or may not be entirely happy with the result, but it's his now, and - to come to the last problem I want to mention with Weigel's essay - it's just insulting to the Pope to suggest that the contents of numerous passages in his encyclical do not, at least in general terms, reflect his own views.

[This was my main objection to Weigel's drift - and the most obvious one, quite apart from Weigel's obvious pique that Benedict XVI chose to make Paul VI's social encycclical his reference point rather than John Paul II's.

There seems to be an obvious reason for Benedict's choice - Populorum progressio is an overall view of the issues of development, whereas Centesimus annus specifically addresses the implications on the economy and society of the collapse of Communism.]


I mean, really.

The PCJP is definitely a dicastery that can be subject to legitimate and forceful critique, but Weigel simply goes too far in making them out as the villain.

In the process he, certainly unintentionally, insults Pope Benedict by portraying him as a man so weak as a Vicar of Christ that he can be bullied by a mid-range dicastery into including in an encyclical (one of the most authoritative papal teaching moments) things that don't even reflect his thought.

Or so it seems from what Weigel wrote.

Perhaps he will clarify.

He's usually very insightful, and I'd love to see him interact more with this encyclical.


[And I hope Weigel has had a chance to re-read what he wrote in what must have been a literal 'blind rage'. We can all live with all his objections to the encyclical, except the 'insult' to Benedict XVI.

He must somehow take back that open insult of assuming that Benedict XVI would simply incorporate thoughts he does not share into an encyclical that will bear his name forever, or that he can be imposed upon by anyone in the Curia! There is no way to read those assumptions except as an insult to the Pope.]



Akins's earlier post on CIV is a far more practical exercise, and equally recommended reading:

Early tentative thoughts
on the new encyclical

by Jimmy Akin

July 8, 2009


A reader writes:

"The Pope recently came out with his position on capitalism. Can you explain his position possibly better than what I have read in the papers? Also, I am hearing secular talk on the radio wondering about Papal infallibility and this economic view. On the surface what he has said appears to me to be even further left of Obama! To me that would be worse for the poor, not better!"

What the reader is querying about is the new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, that Pope Benedict released yesterday.

Actually, the document does not ever use the word "capitalism" or "socialism" - which seems to be by design. The Pope is not trying to comment on particular economic systems but on general principles.

Within that framework, he actually has good things to say about the market. This is not an anti-market encyclical, so beware of the oversimplifications that the mainstream media is going to offer.

Thus far I have read through the encyclical once, but I need to go back and do further reading and digesting.

Because of the pressing news cycle (even stepped on as the encyclical release was by the Michael Jackson funeral), though, here are a few early thoughts:

1) Do not put weight on anything you read in the newspaper or on secular talk radio regarding the encyclical. The mainstream media simply does not "get" religion, and they are too incompetent on matters of religion to report accurately anything that the pope says or does. Sorry, but it's the truth.


2) In particular (and this will be an even greater temptation on talk radio), there is a tendency on the part of the MSM to read everything in terms of a liberal/conservative dichotomy. This political, polarized reading should not be imposed on the encyclical.

When you read it, it quickly becomes clear that it does not fit neatly into either a liberal or a conservative box. It says things that are challenging no matter what one's political persuasion is.


3) Consequently, it is not possible from the encyclical to simply compare the Pope's views to Obama's and say which is in what direction from the other. This is a complex, multi-axis matrix, not something that can be reduced to a simple left/right spectrum.


4) Because of the complexity, it would be possible to pick an item--or several items--out of the encyclical and take them out of context and say, "The Pope sounds to the left of anything Obama has proposed so far." It would be equally possible to do the reverse and say, "The pope sounds to the right of anything Obama has proposed so far."


5) Either of the above would be a mistake. One reason is the multi-axis nature of the document. Another is that the Pope includes important qualifiers that have to be given their full weight. If you lop off the qualifiers then you distort the picture.


6) Yet another reason is that, as the pope points out in the encyclical, the Church does not have specific, technical solutions to propose.

Figuring those out are the task of the laity, and it is precisely in this area where most politics is generated. In other words, "left" and "right" are often agreed upon the goals that need to be achieved (full employment, combatting poverty, helping families thrive, making sure children are educated, etc.).

The point of dispute is how these things are to be done, and that is the point that the Church tries to leave to the laity.


7) It therefore simply is not productive to engage in Pope/President political comparisons. So don't.


8) That being said, there are points in the encyclical where, at least in general terms, the Pope seems to go beyond his stated intention not to offer technical solutions and to make proposals that at least point in the direction of particular solutions.

There is a blurry line here between theory and application, and pastoral concern for human well-being will always present churchmen with a temptation to cross that blurry line and at least recommend particular applications that seem right to them.


9) When that happens we need to take seriously what they say, particularly in the case of the Pope, the Vicar of Christ.

At the same time, we must not put greater weight on what they say than what they themselves do, and thus we must remember that they are not teaching infallibly.

In the new encyclical, Benedict XVI does not even remotely come close to using the kind of language that popes use when signalling that they are speaking infallibly.

There simply is no attempt on the part of Benedict XVI to engage his charism of infallibility here, and so anything the reader has heard on talk radio regarding the encyclical calling infallibility into question is just nonsense. See point #1, above.


10) Because the document is not proposing anything infallibly, it is in principle open to revision in the future. This is particularly so because by its very subject matter it is an intervention of a prudential nature, seeking to apply general principles to a particular set of socio-economic problems in the world today.

In describing documents of this nature, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (then-headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger), wrote:

When it comes to the question of interventions in the prudential order, it could happen that some Magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies.

Bishops and their advisors have not always taken into immediate consideration every aspect or the entire complexity of a question.

But it would be contrary to the truth, if, proceeding from some particular cases, one were to conclude that the Church's Magisterium can be habitually mistaken in its prudential judgments, or that it does not enjoy divine assistance in the integral exercise of its mission.

In fact, the theologian, who cannot pursue his discipline well without a certain competence in history, is aware of the filtering which occurs with the passage of time. This is not to be understood in the sense of a relativization of the tenets of the faith.

The theologian knows that some judgments of the Magisterium could be justified at the time in which they were made, because while the pronouncements contained true assertions and others which were not sure, both types were inextricably connected.

Only time has permitted discernment and, after deeper study, the attainment of true doctrinal progress (Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian 24).


11) It is quite likely that a person reading the encyclical will find himself challenged at various points, no matter what his native political instincts are. This is part of the Pope's intention.

He wants to challenge everybody and shake them out of the uncritical political orbits that people find themselves sliding into.

One should therefore avoid two mistakes in reading the document:
(a) One should not casually dismiss things that seem to conflict with one's previous views; this is the Vicar of Christ talking, and we need to take what he says seriously.

(b) One should not simply seize on things that seem to confirm one's prior views and absolutize them.

There is a very substantial element of nuance to what the pope says, he is deliberately leaving room for legitimate diversity of opinion even as he makes certain proposals, and he is not attempting to engage his infallibility and thus is deliberately leaving much of what he says open to future revision.


12) The most constructive course is not to rush to conclusions regarding the encyclical but to read it, meditate on it, take a willing, open perspective, and allow oneself to be challenged by what it has to say, regardless of where one is coming from.



[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/08/2009 13:50]
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