Creating a more humane society in Barbados- Reflections on Pope Benedict’s

Encyclical “Charity in Truth”

(Seminar 21 September 2009 facilitated by Emeritus RC Bishop Anthony

Dickson)

CARITAS IN VERITATE : ECONOMIC ISSUES

Presentation By Fr. Michael Campbell-Johnston SJ

One of the more radical demands of CHARITY IN TRUTH is the Pope’s

clear call for a new world order. In paragraph 67 he speak of “a strongly felt need,

even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations

Organisation, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance so that

the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth”. Why does it need real

teeth ? The simple reason is that the present world order has shown itself to be

incapable of defending the poor and the weak from discrimination against them by the

rich and the powerful. The scandalous gap between nations, the massive inequality

between them and within them is growing all the time. It is intolerable, as has so

often been pointed out, that 225 people have greater wealth than the annual income of

2,600 million people from poorer countries: or the fact that the fortune of just 3

people outweighs the GNP of the 48 poorest countries in the world where 600 million

people live.

The wealthy countries, and especially their leaders, are well aware of this. In

the year 2000 the largest gathering ever of Heads of State signed a declaration which

committed them to achieve 6 specific development goals with clear targets by the year

2015. They concerned poverty, hunger, education, infant mortality, AIDS, etc. But

the nearer we come to 2015, the more these millennium goals are receding and

showing themselves to be unrealisable. This, it seems to me, is the principal concern

behind the Pope’s recent encyclical.

He starts with a strong confirmation of the definition of integral human

development given by Pope Paul VI in the great encyclical Populorum Progressio

(the Development of Peoples). Integral human development “has to promote the good

of every man and of the whole man”. (14) Pope Benedict claims this message is just

as relevant today as when first proclaimed and that Pope Paul’s Letter deserves to be

considered “the Rerum Novarum of the present age”, the foundation document of

the Church’s social teaching today. As he says: “The truth of development consists in

its completeness: if it does not involve the whole man and every man, it is not true

development. This is the central message of Populorum Progressio, valid for today

and for all time” (18). However, in the 40 years that have passed since this

encyclical was written, many new problems have arisen which need to be analysed

carefully and which oblige us “to re-plan our journey, to set ourselves new rules and

to discover new forms of commitment….. in which to shape a new vision for the

future” (21). This sums up the aim of Charity in Truth.

The Pope identifies the following 6 problems directly concerned with

economic issues:

1) Making profit the exclusive goal of economic activity. For, as he says,

“once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper

means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks

destroying wealth and creating poverty” (21).

2) “The world’s wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities are on

the increase. In rich countries, new sectors of society are succumbing to

poverty and new forms of poverty are emerging. In poorer areas some

groups enjoy a sort of ‘superdevelopment’ of a wasteful and consumerist

kind which forms an unacceptable contrast with the ongoing situations of

dehumanizing deprivation” (22) This is due to a variety of causes among

which are: corruption, illegality, large multi-national corporations, a

refusal to share knowledge and technology.

3) “Progress of a merely economic and technological kind is insufficient”

(23). If this is recognised and acknowledged, then there should be “a

comprehensive new plan for development” (23).

4) The power of the State and its public authorities is often severely limited

“by the new context of international trade and finance, which is

characterized by increasing mobility both of financial capital and means of

production, material and immaterial” (24).

5) The development and growth of the global market make it harder for trade

unions and other similar agencies to provide effective systems of social

security. The Pope refers to the problems of unemployment, partial

employment and migrant workers.

6) Though “the elimination of world hunger has also, in the global area,

become a requirement for safeguarding the peace and stability of the

planet” (27), many countries and communities no longer have access to

sufficient food or water and cannot choose freely their use of agricultural

land or farming techniques.

These more specifically economic problems, together with others relating to

respect for life, culture, religious freedom, moral issues and scientific research, can

often militate against the true development of the individual or society and thus lead

to the “systemic increase of social inequality” (32). This, in turn, can encourage “new

forms of colonialism and continued dependence on old and new foreign powers” (33),

sometimes heightened through “grave irresponsibility within the very countries that

have achieved independence” (33).

It would be unreasonable to expect Pope Benedict to provide ready-made

solutions to all these problems, but the document does identify a number of

requirements, some quite specific, if they are to be faced realistically. Here I mention

five of them, hopeful that they may be relevant to our situation here in Barbados.

1) Economic development, as well as development in the social and political

fields, “if it is to be authentically human, needs to make room for the principle of

gratuitousness as an expression of fraternity” (34). In other words, a purely

consumerist or utilitarian view of life leads to the false conviction that man is self-

sufficient or that the economy is autonomous and free from any moral influence. This

is clearly contrary to human nature and the good of society. As the Pope says: “The

economy needs ethics in order to function correctly – not any ethics whatsoever, but

an ethics which is people centred” (45). And this applies to the accounts and

investment funds of banks and the whole world of finance. As he notes,

“‘Ethical financing’ is being developed, especially through micro-credit and, more

generally, micro-finance. These processes are praiseworthy and deserve much

support. Their positive effects are also being felt in the less developed areas of the

world” (45).

2) This, in turn, will require markets that permit “the free operation, in conditions

of equal opportunity, of enterprises in pursuit of different institutional ends” (38).

This introduces the possibility for commercial entities not necessarily concerned with

profit-making but with community service in a variety of ways. It would also require,

as Pope Paul VI saw, “the creation of a model of market economy capable of

including within its range all peoples and not just the better off” (39). This is “a

profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise……. A growing conviction

that business management cannot concern itself only with the interests of the

proprietors, but must also assume responsibility for all the other shareholders who

contribute to the life of the business: the workers, the clients, the suppliers of various

elements of production, the community of reference” (40).

3) Of relevance to the present situation is the insistence that “what should be

avoided is a speculative use of financial resources that yields to the temptation of

seeking only short-term profit, without regard to the long-term sustainability of the

enterprise, its benefit to the real economy and attention to the advancement, in

suitable and appropriate ways, of further economic initiatives in countries in need of

development” (40). To achieve this, he claims that the entire financial system must be

aimed at sustaining true development and be well regulated “so as to safeguard

weaker parties and discourage scandalous speculation” (65)

4) Much emphasis is also given to the encouragement of micro-projects and the

need for the active mobilization of all the subjects of civil society (47). Consumers

associations are important both for the benefits they bring and to help consumers

realise that they have “a specific social responsibility which goes hand in hand with

the social responsibility of the enterprise” (66). Also required are flexible aid

programmes which must be considered “a valid means for creating wealth for all”

(60). But, to repeat, it is “the entire financial system that has to be aimed at sustaining

true development” (65) This would seem a direct invitation to banks and similar

institutions to make their resources and expertise more available to the community at

large, especially so that “poor people should be helped to derive real benefit from

micro-credit” (65).

5) A special call is made for the ethically responsible use of technology which, in

itself, can never be considered self-sufficient. It is rather “a response to God’s

command to till and to keep the land that he has entrusted to humanity, and it must

serve to reinforce the covenant between human beings and the environment, a

covenant that should mirror God’s creative love” (69). For the natural environment

“is more than raw material to be manipulated at our pleasure; it is a wondrous work of

the Creator containing a ‘grammar’ which sets for ends and criteria for its wise use,

not its reckless exploitation” (48). And the problem of climate change is very closely

linked to that of energy. “The fact that some States, power groups and companies

hoard non-renewable energy resources represent a grave obstacle to development in

poor countries” (49). What is needed is “a worldwide redistribution of energy

resources so that countries lacking those resources can have access to them” (49).

There are doubtless other reforms required but if at least some of the above

are introduced, then it will be possible to become the protagonists, rather than the

victims, of the process of globalization that is affecting the whole world. For it is a

process that “is neither good nor bad. It will be what people make of it” (42). But

this will require on the part of all a sustained commitment to “promote a person-based

and community-oriented process of worldwide integration that is open to

transcendence” (42).

The Pope concludes this important letter by asserting that “without God man

neither knows which way to go, nor even understands who he is” (78). Consequently

he insists that the greatest service to development is a Christian humanism “that

enkindles charity and takes its lead from truth, accepting both as a lasting gift from

God. Openness to God makes us open towards our brothers and sisters and towards

an understanding of life as a joyful task to be accomplished in a spirit of solidarity”

(78).

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