Caritas Guide

8/7/2019 Caritas Guide

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A publication of the Social Affairs Commissionof the

Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario

Caritas in VeritateOn Integral HumanDevelopmentin Charity and Truth

A GUIDE forDISCUSSION and ACTION


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Aussi d isponible en franais .

Produced by : Publ ished September 2010 by :Jesuit Forum for Social Fai th and Just ice Assembly of Cathol ic B ishops of Ontar io70 St . Mary Street 10 St . Mary Street , Suite 800Toronto , Ontar io M5S 1J3 Toronto , Ontar io M4Y 1P9416-927-7887 416-922-1423


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CONTENTS

Introduction

Notes for Group Leaders

Sessions:

1. Why Caritas in Veritate?

2. Were all in this together, to the ends of the earth

3. Hey, weve globalized the market. Now can we civilize it?

4. The bottom line: too flat for a round planet, too thin for thehuman heart

5. Development: intelligent love of neighbour

6.

The more tools we have, the more soul we need!7. Making peace with nature: a fresh start for allof us

Conclusion

Caritas in VeritateOn Integral Human Development

inCharity and TruthA GUIDE for DISCUSSION an d ACTION


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Introduction n June 29, 2009, Pope Benedict XVIreleased his third major encyclical.Its Latin title (from the opening words of

the letter) is Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth).The English translation is On Integral HumanDevelopment in Charity and Truth.

This is Pope Benedicts first social encyclical,addressed to everyone in the Church and toall people of good will in the world. As such,it fits into the vigorous tradition begun byPope Leo XIII. In 1891, Pope Leo issued a sternletter challenging the misery and exploitationpressing down so unjustly on the labouringclasses as industrialization was in full swing

throughout Europe.

In a very different moment of the worldeconomy (1967), Pope Paul VI offered a letteron international economic development andthe ways it should serve the integral humandevelopment of the peoples of the world.Populorum Progressio (The Progress of Peoples)recognized that questions of social justice nowhave to be understood in global terms andalso, of course, in the light of the Gospel.

The present pope considers Populorum

Progressio a great work of moral teaching andan important prophetic witness. He refers to itas the Rerum Novarum of the present age,and adopts Paul VIs concept of integralhuman development as his own criterion forevaluating the economic and technologicalforces of our own day.

But this new encyclical is no mere update.Pope Benedict is a respected theologian andphilosopher, as well as a man of burningChristian faith. He digs deep to establish aframework of spiritual vision andphilosophical thought. Then he challenges notonly the economic and technological hubris oftoday, but also some contemporary intellectualassumptions that seem to him to shrink ourunderstanding of human reason, human loveand the human soul.

Within that framework, he looks at economic,ecological, inter-cultural, pro-life and socialjustice issues and challenges us all to re-vision them in the light of the creative andredeeming love of God as we meet that love inthe life and gospel of Jesus Christ. He alsochallenges us to hope: because the energy ofGods love, working through human mindsand hearts open to Gods grace, can transformthe turbulent forces of globalization into ajourney towards human unity in the city ofGod a civilization of love.

Dont be confused by the Latin word caritasin the title, or by the very limited meaning that

the word charity now has in everydayEnglish. In this letter, the words charity andlove are used interchangeably. What bothwords point to is the infinite, all-inclusive,creative, redeeming, sanctifying love that isGods own energy. Through grace, it is ourlove too; God plants Gods own unquenchablelove in human hearts so that we can act in theworld with a love that is greater than all theevil we will ever encounter.

In short, this is an important, exciting andmissionary letter. But it is also a tough read!

Most of us need some introductory supportjust to get our teeth into it.

Thats why Ontarios Catholic bishops askedthe Jesuit Forum for Social Faith and Justice toprepare a study and action guide for Caritas inVeritate. They hope it will help many people todiscover this blockbuster of an encyclical andmake it their own in parishes, in schools, inunions, professional and business associations,NGOs or just in the kitchen or living room offriends who want to get together tounderstand this thing.

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Getting to knowC a r i t a s i n V e r i t a t e

Everyone will have a preferred way to readPope Benedicts letter. Some will read itfrom beginning to end; others might preferto sample it in smaller bites. As you read,you will encounter important themes andissues beyond those we cover in thisstarter kit.

Throughout the Guide, you will seenumbers in brackets, such as (5), which willtake you to a numbered paragraph in

Caritas in Veritate. Reading these sections asyou use this Guide will expand yourunderstanding of Pope Benedicts insights.

The encyclical is available in paper-backfrom the Canadian Conference ofCatholic Bishops. A single copy is $6.95(+ tax and shipping costs), with discountsfor orders of 10 or more. You can order byphone:1-800-769-1147; by mail: CCCBPublications,2500 Don Reid Drive, Ottawa,Ontario K1H 2J2; by email:[email protected];

or onlinewww.cccbpublications.ca

.It is also available on the Vatican website atwww.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html

This is a starter kit. It is not comprehensive,nor is it a critical or analytical study. It simplytries to give people, in user-friendly language,a biblical and practical appreciation of theencyclicals central themes and questions. Andbecause this encyclical is a letter about the real

world and how to change it, we hope that yourdiscussion will also be about action actionthat you yourself, or your group or movement,can take in your everyday life.

Many people are worried about some of thedirections of todays world, and also excitedabout the great human possibilities that arethreaded through the capacities of our highly-charged civilization. Many already share someof Pope Benedicts questions, alarms andhopes. Many have already begun restorativeactions some on a large international scale,

some on a face-to-face basis with smallnumbers but great significance.

Theology is about life. The Gospel of JesusChrist is about real change, genuine newbeginnings. Scripture, in both Testaments, tellsstories of particular moments through whichthe God of love reaches out to ordinaryhumans to set in motion a joint venture withthem: a shared work that can start currents ofdivine/human love running through the realworld. God still reaches out in that way:

untiring, full of hope for us.Every one of us can sign on to such a jointventure. All we have to do is to hear Godsgentle call to action, usually close at hand inour concrete life. Thats why every session inthis discussion series has resources that cansuggest significant action, or can connect youwith a courageous action already in motion,somewhere in the world.

The best way to approach the Popes rich andcomplex letter is with others, in a small groupsetting. With internet access, you could visitsome of the original, practical examples ofworld-mending that you find in theresources. You might feel a call to support or to

join some of these actions.

May your study sessions draw you together intrust and in friendship. May Gods Spirit, Whoinspires not only popes but also the unlikeliestof saints, be with you as you seek to be moreresponsible as a Christian in our tumultuousglobal village.


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Notes for group leadersThis Guide is designed for small (5-8) group discussion. We encourage its use inparishes, universities, high schools, unions, businesses and in other professionalsettings.

The leaders role is crucial to the success of these sessions. It is expected that he or shehave some familiarity and experience with Catholic Social Teaching and with the issuesdiscussed in Caritas in Veritate and this Guide.

The following are recommended steps for preparing each session:

1. The reflections in the Guide are meant to be read by all participants before eachsession. Ask your group members to read the reflection, taking the time to look upthe references to Caritas in Veritate. The numbers in brackets throughout the Guide

identify paragraphs in the encyclical where Pope Benedict develops his insights ona particular topic.

2. The leader should become familiar with the Resources offered for each Session.They are located at the end of the reflection and at the conclusion of theside-bar story.

3. Allow about an hour and a half for your session.

4. The leader welcomes everyone and opens with a short prayer.

5. Begin the first session by asking each person to take a couple of minutes tointroduce who they are. This helps to build trust in the group. The emphasis shouldbe on personal stories, rather than on what they do. It helps to ask people to include

an event that has marked their life.

6. Listening is key to group discussion. Limiting each participants sharing to two orthree minutes keeps the momentum going. We recommend sharing in rounds, eachtaking a turn, but passing if wished.

7. Before each round, you might take a minute or two of silence to allow participantsto gather their thoughts. This will encourage reflective sharing rather than debate.

8. Questions for each round are included in the Guide at the end of each Session.

9. The role of the leader is to ensure the discussion begins and ends on time, to readthe questions and ensure maximum participation.

10.Close by agreeing on the date and time for the next session and end witha short prayer.


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Why Caritas in Veritate?hen you think of it, its rather amazingthat at 83 years old, with almost every

newspaper in the world telling him thathis church is in crisis and hed better fix it fast,Pope Benedict XVI released a major encyclicalletter, not on the problems of the church buton the great possibilities and urgent challengesfacing the world. The whole world. Each oneof us included.

Why would he do such a thing?

Popes have been writing this kind ofpassionate and thoughtful letter to the worldfor more than a century now, starting withLeo XIIIs Rerum Novarumin 1891. PopeBenedict strongly affirms these socialencyclicals as an essential element of Catholicteaching. In writing this new one, he isparticularly celebrating the letter that PopePaul VI released in 1967, PopulorumProgressio. That hope-filled letter set out avision of global human development not justeconomic development, but integral humandevelopment as a challenge facing everyonesconscience and as the necessary path toworld peace.

So this kind of letter to the world is part ofPope Benedicts job, part of the contemporarypapal ministry. But maybe there is an evenmore important reason.

Maybe its true, as he insists, that the world isnow at a crucially significant point.

The so-called Cold War is over. The world isno longer frozen into two giant opposing blocsafraid to engage in all-out war with each other.Today the force we call globalization has us

interacting economically and technologicallywith people from every continent, almostevery time we eat a meal, walk through astore, take a prescribed medicine or use theinternet. Everyone is now my neighbourin a more practical way than ever before.

Globalization is a huge fact of contemporary

life. Its full of dangers and distortions,oppression and inequality. It sharpens thedanger of planet-wide pollution. It weakensolder forms of protecting ourselves such asthe nation-state, for example.

But globalization is also full of newpossibilities for helping each other andlearning from each other, world-wide.

Pope Benedict, like John Paul II before him,thinks that the end of the Two Blocs phasedemands a complete re-examination ofdevelopment.(23)He also thinks we neednew forms of governance that can tackleproblems which ignore national borders,driven by the force of economic globalization.We need to set ourselves new rules and todiscover new forms of commitment, to buildon positive experiences and to reject negativeones. The current crisis thus becomes anopportunity for discernment, in which toshape a new vision for the future.(21)

Development there certainly has been. The

pope notes that in some parts of the world,economic growth has lifted billions ofpeople out of misery(21), but it has oftenbeen brutally unfair, grossly unequal andcarried out in a reckless way that puts at riskthe very biosphere, the natural environmenton which we all depend for life itself. We doneed development Pope Benedict even saysthere is a human vocation to development but we need to do it in a just way.

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Moses CoadyIn the 1920s, the people of Nova Scotia facedvery hard times after several decades of

downturn in fishing, mining and agriculture.Little hope remained among the miners,loggers and fishermen until the arrival of twocharismatic priests, cousins Moses Coady andJimmy Tompkins.

Moses Coady insisted that liberation frompoverty could be achieved through adulteducation. He asked: What should people doto get life into this community and what shouldthey think about to enable them to get it?

Dr. Coady and his associates used a practical

strategy of study and action that began withthe immediate economic needs of the people.He showed them how they could establish acredit union, starting very small, expanding aspeoples confidence developed. He encouragedworking together, seeing the possibilities ofcooperation built on mutual trust. They mustbe people of honour and repay loans as quicklyas possible. The participants saw that suchcollaboration could bring great returns.

There is nothing the people cannot get if theywork together, said Coady.

Housing and other cooperatives followed. Theformation of study clubs in which cooperativegroup action was created through a persistentprocess of questioning, debate and learninghad emerged and the Antigonish Movementwas born. It spread or was imitated in manyareas. By the 1940s it became known aroundthe world and adult educators and socialactivists came to study the Antigonish model.In 1959, the Coady International Institute wasestablished.

Moses Coady died that same year. Themovement he fostered to address his mainconcern, the growing gap between rich andpoor, lives on in Nova Scotia and throughoutthe world.

See antigonishreads.ca for more about MosesCoady. For the Coady Institute: www.coady.stfx.ca.

In one section of his long letter, Pope Benedictdescribes the present moment this way:

It must be acknowledged that economicgrowth has been and continues to be

weighed down by malfunctions and dramaticproblems, highlighted even further by thecurrent crisis. This presents us with choicesthat cannot be postponed concerning nothingless than the destiny of man

The technical forces in play,the globalinterrelations, the damaging effects on thereal economy of badly managed and largelyspeculative financial dealing, large-scalemigration of peoples ... the unregulatedexploitation of the earths resources: all ofthis leads us today to reflect on the measures

that would be necessary to provide a solutionto problems that are of decisive impactupon the present and future good ofhumanity.

The different aspects of the crisis areincreasingly interconnected . They requirenew efforts of holistic understanding and anew humanistic synthesis. The complexityand gravity of the present economic situationrightly cause us concern, but we must takeup with confidence and hope the new

responsibilities to which we are called by theprospect of a world in need of profoundcultural renewal, a world that needs torediscover fundamental values on which tobuild a better future.(21)

So the letter was written partly to respond tothis current crisis of uncertainty in the worldseconomy. But what really fuels PopeBenedicts passion is something deeper. Hehad to write this letter because God cares somuch about the state of the world.

God cares more than the most ardent socialjustice activist about the integral, authenticdevelopment of every human being and of thehuman community. God cares aboutinternational development the way goodparents care about the health and educationand maturing of their children because thatis what we humans are: we are Gods ownbeloved family. All of us.


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God is love. God created human persons ascreatures who can, in more ways than weunderstand, reflect Gods own love andwisdom by taking care of each other and of alllife on earth. When we wrecked that pictureby the refusal that Christians call original

sin, God became human in Jesus Christ toopen a way for us to share in healing the lifewe have wounded. God gifts us with reason,and blesses reason with faith, so that we willhave light to see how we can transform sin-wounded situations.

Even more crucially: God gives us love as thecourage and energy to set out on the path thatintelligence and faith light up for us. Love andthe truth of things belong together. Love isntjust a pleasant sentiment. Its the only basis forgood policy and helpful law. Love thinks, love

knows and urgently understands. In love,with Gods grace, we humans can heal theworld we have broken, step by patient,thoughtful step.

Obviously, the word charity in this papalletter (used interchangeably with love both being a translation of the Latin wordcaritas) is all about the great transformingmystery of divine love planted in humanhearts for the life and redemption of theworld. It is certainly not limited to the usual

legal meaning of charity as a donation ofmoney to worthy projects or to those in need.

Thats why it is the Churchs business, and thebusiness of each one of us, to meet responsiblythe right-here-right-now problems of aglobalized world. Its a mandate of Gods love.Its a matter of obedience to Gods call, amatter of holiness: whole-world holiness,our-time holiness. Its what were made for.

This is how Caritas in Veritate opens:

Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ borewitness by his earthly life and especially byhis death and resurrection, is the principaldriving force behind the authentic

development of every person and of allhumanity. Love caritas is anextraordinary force which leads people to optfor courageous and generous engagement inthe field of justice and peace.(1)

We are made for gift. (34)Love is ourvocation. It belongs not only in our homes andfriendships, but in much wider networks oflove. (5) Love belongs in the public andintellectual life of the whole world. And its upto us to plant it and nourish it there.

The first and oldest commandment is:You shall love the Lord your God with all yourheart, and with all your soul, and with all yourstrength, and with all your mind; and yourneighbour as yourself. (Luke 10: 27, based onDeuteronomy 6: 5)

Pope Benedicts letter is about loving Godwith all your mind so that you can see howto love your neighbour in the whole-worldway that our time demands. The world needsus, who are created for love, to find the ways

in which each one of us can help to shape theearthly city in unity and peace, rendering itto some degree an anticipation and aprefiguration of the undividedcity of God. (7)


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Resources

a) Dr. Moses Coady. Masters of Their Own Destiny. (1939) at antigonishreads.ca.

See also biographies:Jim Lotz. The humble giant: Moses Coady, Canadas rural revolutionary.

Ottawa: Novalis (2005); andJim Lotz and Michael Welton. Father Jimmy: the life and times of FatherJimmy Tompkins. Wreck Cove, NS: Breton Books (1997).

b) Ched Myers.The Biblical Vision of Sabbath Economics. Washington, DC: Tell theWord Press (2001). Also at www.chedmyers.org/catalog/sabbath-economics.

This short book consists of seven studies of the scriptural views of Gods dream ofenough for everyone. Its approach is to read the Bible economically in order toread the economy biblically.

c) E.F. Schumacher. Small is beautiful: economics as if people mattered: 25 years later ...with commentaries. Point Roberts, Wash.: Hartley & Marks Publishers (1999).

See also Robin Broad and John Cavanagh. Development redefined: how the marketmet its match. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm Publishers (2009).

d) All you need is love? (2009) Open Space: a pubication of the Jesuit Forum for SocialFaith and Justice www.jesuitforum.ca/sites/default/files/OpenSpace4.pdf

This short publication gives an overview ofCaritas in Veritate.

Discussion questions

1) What struck you most when you read Why Caritas in Veritate?2) Its a matter of obedience to Gods call, a matter of holiness: whole-world holiness,

our-time holiness.

Moses Coady is one example of such whole-world holiness. Can you thinkof other examples, whether historical figures or people from your ownexperience?

3) In your own life, how does your work, your family, your studies, your othercommitments, give you a chance to meet responsibly the right-here-right-now

problems of a globalized world?

4) What other questions or actions have occurred to you as you reflected on thecontent of this Session?


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Were al l in this together, to the ends of the earth ver and over again in the long letterCaritas in Veritate, this thought appears inone form or another: as society becomes

more globalized, it makes us neighbours butdoes not make us brothers and sisters.

We have increasingly immediate impacts oneach other internationally, but not necessarilya deepening concern for each other. The nextstep needs the grace of God: but what anawesome step! Gods call to us, now that ourtechnology and our economy connect us sotightly world-wide, is to accept and love theentire human race as our family, under God.Then we need to think in that way, and plan inthat way, designing institutions, laws andcustoms to prevent exploitation and act asnetworks of love. (5)

Thats not just a feeling or an idea. Its a huge,complex task that needs the effort of all of us.Globalization invites us Christians and otherservants of God into whole-world holiness.Today, the ways in which we developeconomic relations, international law,protection for migrants, responsibletechnology and care of the environment arethe big-picture ways the institutional ways

in which we grow in our vocation to love. (7)

God has been inching us towards big-picture,no-boundaries love for a long, long time. Andweve been resisting and finding it hard, eversince the beginning, as we see in the book ofGenesis and the story of Cain and Abel.

This call to care for the common good is onetheme that runs all the way through theHebrew scriptures and then, without missinga beat, straight into the Gospels. Sometimes inthose Gospels you can feel a shock-wave hit

the disciples as Jesus points out one more ofthe countless practical consequences of beingcalled to love everyone.

One of those moments comes in the famousstory of the feeding of the five thousand

people who come crashing uninvited into alovely quiet retreat the apostles were enjoyingwith Jesus in a deserted place. (Luke 9: 12)Jesus and the apostles were tired and needed abreak. But when the crowd arrived, with alltheir needs, Jesus welcomed them and wentinto teaching mode. It got late, but no one wasleaving.

So the Twelve, trying to be practical, said toJesus something like: Please stop. Werehungry. Theyre hungry. Tell them to go awayand get something to eat, and we can relax.

But Jesus said, in effect: If theyre hungry,thats our problem. What can you offer themto eat? The disciples were stunned. Ourproblem? Half a years wages wouldnt getthem each a sandwich! What do you want usto do, find a Food Basics here in AlgonquinPark?

The solution started small. Jesus asked hisfriends to find out what supplies they had inhand and to share those out. They did. And

the miracle grew from there. Everyone hadenough.

The disciples shouldnt have been sosurprised. In the scriptures that they hadknown all their lives, there are a hundredways of insisting that every good economicresource land, food, work, money,knowledge is meant to be handled in a waythat benefits everyone in the community.

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Tommy Douglas:the greatest CanadianIn 2004, Canadians voted Tommy Douglas

the Greatest Canadian of all time following anationwide contest.

At the age of 10, he was in hospital due tocomplications from a bone infection. Hisparents had no money to pay for a specialistand were told the boys leg would have to beamputated. A visiting surgeon offered tooperate for free if his students could attend.This experience served as the inspiration forDouglas dream of universally accessiblemedical care.

I felt that no boy should have to depend

either for his leg or his life upon the ability ofhis parents to raise enough money to bring afirst-class surgeon to his bedside I came tobelieve that people should be able to getwhatever health services they requireirrespective of their individual capacity to pay.

A Baptist minister, Tommy Douglas becamethe Premier of Saskatchewan in 1944 as theleader of the provincial CooperativeCommonwealth Federation (CCF) party.

In April 1959, Douglas announced his

governments intention to introduce auniversal and comprehensive medical careinsurance program for the province. It wasstrongly opposed by the College of Physiciansand Surgeons and by 1961 there was a fiercedoctors strike. Tommy Douglas, however,showed Canadians that it was possible todevelop and finance a universal medical caresystem.

When the legislation came into effect in 1962,the premiums were $12 a year per person or$24 for families. The people of Saskatchewan

would collectively pay for those who weresick and all could be reassured that a terribleillness in the family would not lead tobankruptcy.

For more information, go to www.tommydouglas.ca.

Your family owns a farm, and the crops haveripened? The first thing you do is organize abig feast for the whole community, includingespecially those who dont own land of theirown like the Levites and the aliens who liveamong you and also the orphans and

widows so that they may eat their fill withinyour towns. (Read Deuteronomy 26:1-12 toget the picture.)

You have money that your family doesntimmediately need? Then lend it to someone inthe community who is in need and dontcharge interest. You shall not lend (a needyperson) money at interest, nor give him yourfood for profit. I am the Lord your God, whobrought you out of the land of Egypt, to giveyou the land of Canaan and to be your God.(Leviticus 25: 37)

In hundreds of ways, devout Israelites learnedthat the economy God will bless is a covenanteconomy, just as God is a covenant-makingGod. Abundance is indeed a blessing its adimension ofshalom but it is given as ablessing for the whole community, not onlyfor owners. And that doesnt happenautomatically, as in a rising tide lifts allboats. New wealth, in fact, often creates newpoverty, bigger gaps, new exclusions.Abundance becomes a blessing for all as a

result of Gods commandments, which areeminently real-life, and which insist onsharing.

To read Exodus and Deuteronomy withattention to how the economy of the PromisedLand worked when its people lived covenantis to marvel at how many of the religious lawsof ancient Israel were instructions abouteconomic sharing.

To read Caritas in Veritate is to marvel at howintricately the social magisterium of the

Catholic Church cares about the contemporaryglobal economy, wanting it to grow withglobal social justice as its true goal.


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With wise local and international governanceand a culture of communion, the globaleconomy can in so many ways supportintegral human development of the wholeperson and of every person. And thats whatGod cares about.

In the Western world, since the days ofAdam Smith, capitalisms devotees havetended to insist that economic growth is thefruit of self-interest, not of solidarity.Meanwhile, the economy featured in divinerevelation and in Catholic social teaching isall about solidarity. (Fortunately, citizens andgovernments in the West have not always

agreed with Smiths way of thinking, and havebuilt many marvels of concern for everyone like the progressive tax system, free schooling,publicly supported health care the list couldgo on and on!).

Solidarity, says Caritas in Veritate, is first andforemost a sense of responsibility on the partof everyone with regard to everyone. (38)

Everyone???

Biblical Israel understood everyone to mean,first and foremost, other Israelites; other heirsof the covenant with the God of Israel. Peopleoutside that covenant should be treated justlyand not exploited. But since they werepotential enemies, you could keep yourdistance. You could, for example, chargeinterest on loans to a foreigner. Theywerent us.

Caritas in Veritate insists that in the age ofglobalization, everyone means everyone. Thewhole world is us. We have to think hard,

and plan afresh and carefully, if we are to liveup to this emerging opportunity for familyliving in the whole human family.

How will we manage water resources witheveryone in mind? (43) How will we makeenergy available, not just for those with thebiggest buying power, but for poor countriesand peoples? (49) How will we govern massmedia so that they wont bulldoze minority

cultures into irrelevance, and trample ondelicate strands of traditional wisdom? (73)How will we establish internationalsupervision of financial transactions for thecommon good and not merely for one-sided,short-term profit? (45) How will we learn tolive in a way that respectfully recognizes thelimits and rhythms of the naturalenvironment? (48-51)

The letter bristles with difficult questions likethese. It also brims with confidence thathuman beings have the gifts to be able to deal

with global questions: respectfully, justly, andwith compassion. God made us with thatpotential.

If we clear serious breathing space for truth inthe public forum; if we keep political lifecentered on its task of protecting the commongood; if we seize every opportunity topromote a civilization of love thenwere well on the way.


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Resources

a) Bishops Conference of England and Wales. Choosing the Common Good. 2010. Available atwww.catholicchurch.org.uk/Catholic-Church/Publications/choosing_the_common_good

Choosing the Common Goodpresents some of the principles and values needed to build a justand civil society. In it, the Bishops of England and Wales present key themes of Catholic socialteaching, pointing out that, The common good refers to what belongs to everyone by virtueof their common humanity.

b) Water: let justice flow. www.devp.org

The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace 2010-2011 educationcampaign with a focus on social movements that advocate for water as a basic human right.

c) Maude Barlow. Toward an Understanding of the Commons in Our Water Commons. p. 6-9.www.canadians.org/water/publications/water commons/index.html.

Maude Barlow explains how an ancient notion of the Commons can help us to worktowards a way of life where the dignity of every person is honoured. The atmosphere and

oceans, languages and culture, the stores of human knowledge and wisdom, the informalsupport systems of community, the peace and quiet we crave, the generic building blocks oflife these are all aspects of the commons.

d) Jubilee South at www.jubileesouth.org

Jubilee South is an amazing example of how a network of ordinary citizens can work togetherto bring about a more just social order. It began its work with the Jubilee Years efforts towards thecancellation of Third World debt, which it considers immoral and illegitimate. Today, its goal is

building a new world economic order that is people-centered, equitable, gender-fair,

sustainable and democratic.

Discussion questions1) What struck you most when you read: Were al l in this together,to the ends of the earth?2) When you pay your taxes, do you think youre serving the common good and

practising whole-world holiness? Why, or why not?

3) In an increasingly globalized society, the common good and the effort toobtain it cannot fail to assume the dimensions of the whole human family ...in such a way as to shape the earthly city in unity and peace ... . (7)

What are some ways in which you, your family, your parish, your school, yourworkplace, can shape the earthly city in unity and peace?

4) What other questions or actions have occurred to you as you reflectedon the content of this Session?


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Hey, weve globalized the market.Now can we civi l ize it?or many lifetimes, a see-saw struggle has

been going on in the worlds public life.On one side is the energy of private

enterprise, with its vision, initiative and plainold boundless greed, intent on opportunitiesto create wealth. On the other side is the push-back from civil society (including churches)saying, in a thousand ways, Wealth is to beshared! Make room for the common good!Every generation sees some victories and somedefeats for the share-the-wealth side. The mainscene of this struggle has been the nation-state.Now this same struggle is truly global, andwere all part of it.

One of the most impressive aspects ofPope Benedicts letter is its sense of urgencyabout the new possibilities positive andnegative built into right now, into thismoment of history. Caritas in Veritate sizzleswith awareness of new dangers, but also newopportunities, at every level of our humanlife together.

Investment and trade can now leap acrossoceans at the click of a mouse, with

astonishing technology ready to make ithappen. That wide-open situation hascausedvast economic growth. It has lifted billionsof people out of misery (21) in somecountries. But, left to itself, it is breathtakinglyunfair. The gap between the rich world and thepoor world has increased. And inside manycountries (including Canada), the social andeconomic distance is growing between thewinners and the losers in todays game ofrapid economic change.

People everywhere are anxiously aware that

their livelihood can be whisked out fromunder them by decision-makers theyve nevermet. The great global hustle makes it hard forordinary people (and their governments) toplan ahead for a stable, fruitful, family-friendly life.

For generations, national governments have

been assigned decisive responsibility forcommon good roles such as protectingworkers, regulating conditions of productionand making crucially important services (likeeducation) available to citizens on the basis ofneed rather than of purchasing power. Thesedays national governments have to competewith each other in attracting and keepingforeign investment well, any investment and therefore jobs.

Corporate decision-makers search the worldlooking for conditions that will lower theirproduction costs and maximize their freedomof action. That puts downward pressure onwages and benefits, and on social securityprograms in countries that have them. And ittends to reward governments which offercheap labour, few worker protections,toothless unions (or no unions at all), anddont offer social programs covered partly outof business taxes.

Well, says Pope Benedict, this is the momentto insist internationally that the market

belongs to everyone in their full humandignity and equality and it must not becomethe place where the strong subdue theweak. (36)

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Fair Trade: connectingconsumers with farmersAfter working overseas and seeing,first-hand how our trading system

exploits the growers and producersof many food items we buy in oursupermarkets in Canada, Eric Sauvand two friends established LaSiembra Co-operative in 1999 toprovide some alternatives.

They began with hot chocolate,sugar and cocoa, operating out of acommunity kitchen at First UnitedChurch in Ottawa. They choseCocoa Camino for their product labeland were the first in North Americato be registered importers of fairtrade certified cocoa and sugar.

La Siembra (planting time inSpanish) formed its structure on thesame democratic, participatory andtransparent ways of their producerpartners. They believe the workerco-op model is an essential elementof a sustainable economy.

The employees are member-owners

of the co-op and participatedemocratically in the operation of thecompany. It is an example ofequitable business practices that canhelp to build better communities forproducers and consumers alike.

The worker-owners of La SiembraCo-operative are committed to amodel of fair trade rooted in thegrowing social solidarity economy.

For more information:

www.cocoacamino.com

He insists, for example, that, the repeatedcalls issued within the Churchs socialdoctrine ... for the promotion of workersassociations that can defend their rights must... be honoured today even more than in thepast, as a prompt and far-sighted response to

the urgent need for new forms of cooperationat the international level, as well as the locallevel. (25)

This is our chance to develop new forms ofinternational governance able to providesome of the standards, some of the protections,some of the oversight that national govern-ments have developed over time. Or might notyet have developed: Pope Benedict adds that amajor focus of international aid should be onconsolidating constitutional, juridical andadministrative systems in countries that do

not yet fully enjoy these goods. (41) Poorernation-states may need aid to develop thetools to keep commerce in balance with thehuman needs of their own societies.

But nation-states cant do it all. The Pope isaware of what a fine balancing act goodinternational governance demands. The

principle of solidarity (were one humancommunity), he says, must always stay linkedwith the principle of subsidiarity (people needroom to claim responsibility for their ownactions and their own communities inharmony with their cultures).

Globalization certainly requires authority,(but) this authority must be organized in asubsidiary and stratified way, if it is not toinfringe upon freedom and if it is to yieldeffective results in practice. (57, 58)

Business itself has to do some of the social-justiceheavy lifting. Out-sourcing production to apoorer country shouldnt be outlawedaltogether, because the investment can begood for the poorer country.


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But out-sourcing puts Boards of Directors awhole world away from workers. It canweaken any companys sense of responsibilitytowards workers, suppliers, the naturalenvironment and the broader society, saysthe Pope. (40)

Investors can become like high-level bombers very effective, but so high up they dont seethe human damage they are causing.

Pope Benedict insists that the struggle forsocial responsibility has allies within business many far-sighted managers today arebecoming increasingly aware of theprofound links between their enterprise andthe territory or territories within which itoperates but such people need supportfrom all the rest of us, as citizens, as

consumers, as investors, as legislators, and asday-by-day promoters of a global socialconscience. (40)

We should make friends and allies with local,national and international business leaderswho have shown that they are sensitive tosocial and ethical concerns.

Movements that start with the passion of a fewactivists can now reach millions of peoplethrough the internet and the media. Think of

the way Development and Peace supportsactivists working for justice in dozens ofcountries. More examples of global solidarityactivism are being born every year. Is this anew way of developing those networks oflove the Pope praises early in his letter? (5).

Ordinary citizens now need to grow a true globalconscience. The opportunities for responsibleaction are endless. We can deepen consumereducation so that more people will stopbuying products of companies that areharming people or the environment and will

instead buy from companies that are takingcare of the societies theyre in. We can supportfair trade. We can support unions that arefinding ways to strengthen their counterpartsin poorer, harsher local circumstances. (64)

We can promote ways of globalizing somepatterns of taxation so that fiscal resources canmeet urgent needs that are beyond poorernation-states. And, as missionaries havealways done, some of us can go where the needcalls,to spend time face-to-face with brothers

and sisters struggling for what theircommunities desperately need.

The problems are awful. But there has neverbeen a time in history when so many ordinarypeople can take an active part in building local andglobal solutions!

Over and over again, Caritas in Veritateencourages us: God made you for this kind oflove and responsibility! No, we cant do it byourselves, but God is there to give energy andwisdom.

The unity of the human race, a fraternalcommunion transcending every barrier, iscalled into being by the word of God-who-is-Love. (34)

And God-who-is-Love does this barrier-melting work through grace given to you andme and our children!


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Resources

a) John Dillon. An idea whose time has come: adopt a Financial Transactions Tax. May 2010.http://www.kairoscanada.org/fileadmin/fe/files/PDF/Publications/PBP24-FTT.pdf

See also Caritas in Veritate, paragraphs 65 to 67.

This innovative idea sees a very small charge on all financial market transactions, such as tradingcurrencies or buying bonds, to be used to fund programs to fight climate change and worldpoverty and make financial institutions pay their fair share of the costs of the global economiccrisis a simple way to civilize a voracious market, say its supporters.

b) Transfair Canada at www.transfair.ca.Ten Thousand Villages at www.tenthousandvillages.ca .

The idea of fair trade started in the 1980s when a few people worried about how the newFree Trade Agreements would affect small-scale coffee farmers in Latin America. They startedtiny, garage-sized projects so consumers in the North could buy their coffee at prices that werefair to the growers, even if it meant paying a little more than the price at the big retail grocery

stores. Today you can find Fair Trade products in almost every corner of Canada and in manycountries world-wide.

c) The Millennium Development Goals at www.undp.org/mdg.

Believe it or not, in September 2000 all 192 member states of the United Nations agreed to theeight Millennium Development Goals and a number of targets to reach each one by 2015.The goals include such things as reducing extreme poverty and hunger, providing primaryeducation for all, improving maternal health, environmental sustainability and developing aglobal partnership for development.

See also CIDSE at www.cidse.org.

CIDSE is an international alliance of Catholic development agencies, including Development and

Peace. Its work covers resources for development; climate justice; food, agriculture andsustainable trade; and business and human rights.

d) Wayne Ellwood. The no-nonsense guide to globalization, 2nd Edition. Toronto: NewInternationalist Publications and Between the Lines (2006).

The revised edition of this well-received book examines the key issues arising fromglobalization the competition for energy resources; the debt and economic crises, the linksbetween the "war on terror", the arms trade and privatization. The final chapter examines civilsociety alternatives to corporate globalization, including the World Social Forum and theMake Poverty History campaign.

e) No Sweat Uniforms. A number of Ontario Catholic School Boards have joined together to ensure

that uniforms and equipment are ethically produced. Seehttp://en.maquilasolidarity.org/resources/nosweat/schoolpolicies


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1) What struck you most when you read: Hey, weve global ized themarket. Now can we civi l ize it?2) In a global economy, groups in theNorth and South must work together for

employment with dignity, fair wages and working conditions, and healthyworkplaces and communities. (Maquila Solidarity Network:http://en.maquilasolidarity.org .)

MSN supports the Ethical Trading Action Group, a coalition of faith, labour andnon-governmental organizations advocating for labour practices based on ...international standards. Its members include the Canadian Autoworkers Union;Canadian Labour Congress; CUPE; Ontario Secondary School TeachersFederation; and the Steelworkers Humanity Fund.

Why is it important that workers and their unions in the global North workwith their counterparts in the South for just labour practices?

3) In our globalized world, do you think it would make much difference if youdecided to use and promote fair trade coffee, tea, sugar, cereal, etc. in yourhome or parish?



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The bottom l ine: too flat for a roun d planet,too thin for the human heartver since Pope Leo XIII, with his

thunderous 1891 encyclical RerumNovarum that roared against the misery

and exploitation pressing down so unjustlyon the labouring classes, the official socialteaching of the Catholic church has notsounded particularly business friendly.Ownership friendly, yes, in some ways.Work friendly, for sure. But a long way fromthe kind of capitalist ideology still held insome circles, that sees the single-focus drivetowards maximum profit as a kind of sacredenergy that should never be blocked becauseevery other good thing trickles down from it.

Caritas in Veritate is truly enthusiastic aboutbusiness enterprise but only if we make surethat it leaves lots of room for everyones heartand soul. Pope Benedict wants us all to noticethat good business can include, indeed can bebuilt on, the generosity, mutuality andspontaneity that can turn work into one ofthe great joys of human life in community.

Many people in the Western world still believein a centuries-old doctrine about the primacy

of the profit motive. Business is only business,this doctrine insists, when it puts the bottomline first and last. The responsibility of thebusiness leader is to maximize the return onhis - and the shareholders - investment.

Pope Benedict organizes the whole thirdchapter ofCaritas in Veritate to argue that thisis no iron-clad law, nor is it a natural law.Space needs to be created within the marketas a normal part of the working, planning andinvesting world for economic activity carriedout by people who are not acting according to

the logic of pure profit. In the formal languagein the encyclical:

Economic life must be understood as a

multi-layered phenomenon: in every one ofthese layers, to varying degrees and in waysspecifically suited to each, the aspect offraternal reciprocity must be present.In the global era, economic activity cannotprescind from gratuitousness, which fostersand disseminates solidarity and responsi-bility for justice and the common goodamong the different economic players. (38)

Gratuitousness is a word that has droppedout of Canadian English but in the encyclical itmeans something like in the spirit of a gift.The word includes the idea of generosity andthe joy of giving. It also implies freedom ofaction, a spirit of spontaneity.

Pope Benedict observes that society doesntwork very well unless this spirit of gift isencouraged, delighted in, taken seriously. Inits own theological way, Caritas in Veritatemakes a contribution to the growing debate inCanada (and other countries) about how tomake legal and regulatory room for socialenterprise organizations set up to provide a

needed public good, but which makethemselves sustainable by doing some thingsfor (carefully regulated) profit.

The idea of a business whose main purpose isto help less privileged people carve out abetter foothold in the marketplace, or to help awhole community remain viable in hard times,is not a new idea.

The co-op movement, credit unions, theCanadian Wheat Board are all well-knownexamples in the Canadian economic scene.

Indeed if we knew more of the histories ofnormal family business start-ups, we might

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You wil l bealtogether joyfulYou shall count seven weeks. Begin tocount the seven weeks from the time thesickle is first put to the standing grain.Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeksto the LORD your God with the tributeof a freewill offering from your hand,which you shall give as the LORD yourGod blesses you.

And you shall rejoice before the LORDyour God, you and your son and yourdaughter, your male servant and your

female servant, the Levite who is withinyour towns, the sojourner, the fatherless,and the widow who are among you, atthe place that the LORD your God willchoose, to make his name dwell there.You shall remember that you were aslave in Egypt; and you shall be carefulto observe these statutes.

You shall keep the Feast of Boothsseven days, when you have gathered inthe produce from your threshing floor

and your winepress. You shall rejoice inyour feast, you and your son and yourdaughter, your male servant and yourfemale servant, the Levite, the sojourner,the fatherless, and the widow who arewithin your towns.

For seven days you shall keep the feastto the LORD your God at the place thatthe LORD will choose, because theLORD your God will bless you in allyour produce and in all the work of yourhands, so that you will be altogether joyful.

The Book of Deuteronomy16: 9-15

notice that a burning practical desire to helpthe local community has always been a hugesource of entrepreneurial energy. Me-to-We(the business offshoot of the Ontario-basedcharity Free the Children) is a current, localexample.

So an economy of neighbourly love is not anew idea but it is definitely an idea whosetime has come again. Currently the mostfamous example on the world scene is thehuge network of micro-credit centres, servicesand businesses that have sprung from theGrameen Bank in grindingly poor Bangladesh.

Grameen Bank and Muhammad Yunus (itsfounder) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006,so impressive are the results of his reinventionof banking to make active entrepreneurialroom for the poorest women and men inBangladeshs villages and rural areas.

Muhammad Yunus calls his idea socialbusiness. Social business needs many of thesame skills, and some of the same methods, asprofit-maximizing business, but it is adifferent institution. It needs its own kind of

professional training, its own organs ofcommunication, and it needs legal space tobreathe.

Caritas in Veritate wants the modern world tomake ample room for business enterprises thathave social justice, a healthy environment andjoy in work as their primary goal.

Alongside profit-oriented private enterpriseand the various types of public enterprise,there must be room for commercial entitiesbased on mutualist principles and pursuing


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social ends to take root and expressthemselves. It is from their reciprocalencounter in the marketplace that one mayexpect hybrid forms of commercialbehaviour to emerge, and hence anattentiveness to ways of civilizing the

economy.(38)

Is this Utopian fuzziness? Is it a confusing,trendy novelty that will blow over? Aha, is itthe perfect cover for a legion of future conartists who will claim legal and tax-relatedsupports because of social benefit, whileactually milking people for all theyre worth?

Sure, all of those evils, and more, can afflictsocial business and any other organizedhuman enterprise. Were a sinful people,remember? But, from Gods point of view, theidea of an economy of solidarity is as old asthe need to work, and as fundamental as thecommandment Thou shalt love thyneighbour as thyself.

The first books of the Bible illustrate thisconviction dramatically. In the story of thebeginning of Creation, work is no problem at

all: its as natural as breathing. Humans areplaced by God in earths fertile gardenprecisely to till it and keep it. (Gen. 2: 15)And ownership isnt an issue: things areGods.

Then the story darkens. The newly-createdhumans decide they would rather exploretheir own ideas and ignore Gods wisdom.By the time the first kids have grown up, theneighbourhood of Eden is no paradise. Workbecomes problematic: Cursed is the groundbecause of you. In toil you shall eat of it all the

days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shallbring forth for you (Gen. 3: 17-18). Jealousyand murder leap into the picture. As the storycontinues, it is in the spirit of Cain the brother-killer, and his brawling descendants, thateconomic development first takes shape. Readthe fourth chapter of Genesis with theeconomy in mind and youll see what wemean.

But light comes into the growing darkness.The Book of Exodus begins the story of howGod leads a chosen people out of an economythat is rich and brilliant, but enslaving thatshow Egypt was remembered by the Israelites

who had once been its slaves. God leads thispeople through a long apprenticeship ofcourage and obedience to sacred law. Thenthey can begin anew and build an economythat reflects Gods saving will.

In that economy, profit is shared with thecommunity, loans are an act of neighbourlysupport, land is treated respectfully, workalternates with days and weeks of rest andcelebration (for everyone!) and the commongood thrives.

It is the reversal of the thorns and thistlesprophecy. It is what a working economyshould be: a resilient foundation for acommunitys joy.

You work your land, you share its fruits withneedy neighbours, you thank your God, andthen you celebrate, because the Lord yourGod will bless you in all your produce and inall the work of your hands, so that you will bealtogether joyful. (Deut. 16:15)


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Resources

a) Josh Wingrove. Marc and Craig Kielburgers do-gooding social enterprise.The Globe and Mail. March 19, 2010. See also Me to We at www.metowe.com and Savethe Children at www.freethechildren.com.

Free The Children was founded by 12-year-old Craig Kielburger in 1995 when he

gathered 11 school friends to begin fighting child labour overseas. Today, Free TheChildren is the world's largest network of children helping children with more than onemillion young people involved in 45 countries. Me to We is a social enterprise, aprofit-generating business which supports Free The Childrens programs.

b) Muhammad Yunus. Banker to the poor: micro-lending and the battle against worldpoverty (1999) and Building Social Business: the new kind of capitalism that serveshumanitys most pressing needs.New York: PublicAffairs (2010).

See also the Grameen Bank at www.grameenfoundation.org and the Yunus Centre athttp://muhammadyunus.org .

c) The Ontario Cooperative Association at www.ontario.coop.

Did you know that there are some 1,300 co-operatives and credit unions in Ontario?And that almost 1.4 million Ontarians are members of a co-op? If you want to find outmore about a housing, food, child care or any of the 20 categories of co-ops in theprovince that are near you, just visit the website and enter your postal code.


1) What struck you most when you read: The bottom l ine: too flat for around planet; too thin for the human heart ?2) Is it indeed Utopian fuzziness when Caritas in Veritate wants the modern

world to make room for business enterprises that have social justice, a healthyenvironment and joy in work as their primary goal. Why, or why not?

3) In 2005, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon began an experiment in local eating.Their 100-Mile Diet inspired thousands of individuals ... to change the way theyeat. Locally raised and produced food [is] ... better tasting, better for theenvironment, better for local economies and better for your health.. (Visit theirwebsite, full of practical ideas, at http://100milediet.org).

Have you tried a 100-mile-meal? Is the concept of eating locally-produced foods

worth pursuing? Does it hold any biblical meaning for you?



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Integral human development:bui lding peace from the ground upPeople in South Kivu, Democratic Republic ofthe Congo (DRC), have suffered repeatedconflicts between armed groups, includinggovernment and armed militias. At issue is thecontrol of valuable mineral resources diamonds, gold and coltan (used in cell phones).As in many countries, all aspects of mining canlead to conflict.

Both military and armed militias recruit theirsoldiers from the under-employed young men

of South Kivu. These soldiers depend on thesame villages for food, water and money,pillaging what they need.

The Bishops Conference of the DRC1 hasestablished a community project, whichsupports women in particular with a smallrevolving loan fund to buy seeds, animals andfarming tools. They also have a literacy group.In just 10 months, more than 3,000 womenand girls have learned to read; as many as 600women have borrowed money. With theprofits earned from growing food, eachwoman repays her loan and money is lent toanother.

The young men also need productivelivelihoods to keep them from joiningparamilitaries. Sustainable agriculture is anoption if they can access small loans to getstarted. They can now go before the womensrevolving loan committee to make a request. Inthe process, women are seen in a new light andcommunity reconciliation begins. The projectis now self-sufficient and each small loans

effort earns enough that women can use someof the profits to continue literacy training.

1Supported by the Canadian Catholic Organization for

Development and Peace. Visit www.devp.org to learnmore about the international development work of theCatholic Church in Canada and how you can participate.

Development: intel l igent love of neighbourouldnt it be interesting to ask severaldifferent people what they thinkdevelopment means. What would

your MP say if you asked: What does theGovernment of Canada mean by internationaldevelopment?

You might get a different answer if you askedsomeone from a country with a very longhistory Ethiopia, perhaps, or Iraq, or China:what is development and do you thinkCanadians understand what it is?

A life-long missionary who has lived onanother continent might have a deeplypersonal take on development. How do youthink a Canadian mining executive mightdefine development? Or an Inuit woman inNunavut? Or an activist with the OntarioCoalition Against Poverty? How do you thinkMother Teresa would have defineddevelopment?

Pope Benedict is emphatic about how thesocial teaching of the Catholic Church definesdevelopment. For him, development is ahuman vocation, which involves becomingmore deeply human all the days of your life.

Pope Benedict quotes Paul VI in PopulorumProgressio: In the design of God, every man iscalled upon to develop and fulfill himself, forevery life is a vocation. Pope Benedict adds:

This is what gives legitimacy to theChurchs involvement in the whole questionof development. If development wereconcerned only with technical aspects ofhuman life, and not with the meaning ofmans pilgrimage through history incompany with his fellow human beings, nor

with identifying the goal of that journey,then the Church would not be entitled tospeak about development. (16)

W


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But because development is about humanity,the Church cant stop talking about it. ThePope even says,

The whole Church, in all her being andacting when she proclaims, when she

celebrates, when she performs works ofcharity is engaged in promoting integralhuman development.(11)

Hey, what happened to wells and bridges andtransportation? What happened to schools andclinics and hospitals and universities, goodlaws, fair and competent police and judicialsystems, freely elected governments,agricultural productivity, the capacity to doscientific research towards the solution of realproblems? Arent those the things Canada ishelping to pay for when we offer development

assistance?

Of course all those things belong in thepicture. Extreme poverty is an enemy of theauthentic human development this Popeesteems so highly. Hunger is an enemy.Feeding the hungry is an ethical imperativefor the universal Churchanda requirementfor safeguarding the peace and stability ofthe planet.(27) And that doesnt just meanfood aid.

The Pope calls for a long-term perspective fordealing with food security improving ruralinfrastructures, irrigation systems, transport,markets. He underlines the importance ofdiscovering appropriate technology that respectstraditional as well as new farming techniques,testing to be sure they are respectful of theenvironment and attentive to the needs of themost deprived peoples.(26)

But the most crucial element of thisperspective is respect for the people themselves,involving them in choices and decisions that

affect the use of agricultural land.

Authentic development is about humanpersons and their communities. You cant callit good development if you increase foodproduction by driving people off the land andinto urban unemployment and uselessness,while huge machines produce export crops on

land that used to be their livelihood.

Speaking of unemployment, the Pope sees thatas another enemy of authentic development.Chronic unemployment, or even long-termuncertainty about whether or not you can getgood steady worktends to create new formsof psychological instability, giving rise todifficulty in forging coherent life-plans,including marriage. This leads to situationsof human decline.

Being out of work or dependent on public

or private assistance for a prolonged periodundermines the freedom and creativity of theperson and his family and socialrelationships, causing great psychologicaland spiritual suffering.

I would like to remind everyone, especiallygovernments engaged in boosting theworlds economic and social assets, that theprimary capital to be safeguarded and valuedis man, the human person in his or herintegrity. The human person is the source,

the focus and the aim of all economic andsocial life. (25)

Yes, people need shelter and food and water.These are human rights so obvious that weneedto cultivate a public conscience thatconsiders food and access to water asuniversal rights of all human beings, withoutdistinction or discriminationbecause foodand water have such an important placewithin the pursuit of other rights, beginningwith the fundamental right to life. (27)

Here is where the essentials really begin.Respect for life is development. If you cantwelcome every human life, yourdevelopment plan will start to shrink andtwist that radical respect for the other which isso essential to integral development.


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Openness to life is at the centre of truedevelopment. ... The acceptance of lifestrengthens moral fibre and makes peoplecapable of mutual help.(28)

Obviously this vision of respect for life is a

religious conviction. Religious awareness istough; it can sometimes hang on to humanlycrucial truths that are being forgotten andrushed past in our technological, economic, orideological enthusiasms. Thats why the Popesees religious freedom as essential to gooddevelopment. (29)

Culture is as essential to integral developmentas food, water, good public institutions, oranything else you can name. One of the mostpassionate undercurrents ofCaritas in Veritateis respect for the culture of each people, a care

not to trample on cultures by one-sidedglobalization. It takes wisdom and patience toknow how to listen cross-culturally. If wedont approach culture with wisdom andrespect, we can crush whole worlds ofmeaning and beauty.

One-sided globalization shrinks the subtleheritage of truth, just as environmentalirresponsibility kills off species.

The risk for our time is that the de facto

interdependence of people and nations is notmatched by ethical interaction of consciencesand minds that would give rise to trulyhuman development .

The sharing of goods and resources, fromwhich authentic development proceeds, isnot guaranteed by merely technical progressand relationships of utility, but by thepotential of love that overcomes evil withgood, opening up the path towardsreciprocity of consciences and liberties.(9)

So thats how this wonderful letter sees ablessed future for development. Yes, itneeds money and technology and (especially)sharing, but mostly it needs respectful, justand intelligent love of other people.

Love is rich in intelligence and intelligenceis full of love. (30)

Thats why development is a vocation. It is amultidimensional call from God to eachhuman being and to everyone together.Integral development is about the whole ofthe person in every single dimension. (11)Its also about the quality and breadth of

human community. Our Creator leads usalong a challenging journey whose goal is acivilization animated by love (13) thatwelcomes every human being.

The journey unfolds in real history, with all itssweat and tears and mistakes, all its brillianceand daring and patience. But its bigger thanhistory. In more ways than we canunderstand, todays rapid globalization caninteract with Gods eternal plan to bring all ofus together as one family, united in love andtruth, each one radiant with the human

perfection God planted in us as a wondrouspossibility, before we were conceived.


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Resources

a) Pope Paul VI. Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio (On the Development ofPeoples).1967.

www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_26031967_populorum_en.html

b) Seth Klein and Armine Yalnizyan.Creating a Just Society: Reducing poverty,inequality will spur economic recovery.(2010)

See alsoArmine Yalnizyan. The Rich and the Rest of Us: The Changing Face ofCanadas Growing Gap(2007). Toronto: Canadian Centre for PolicyAlternatives. www.policyalternatives.ca

c) The story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in the Gospel of Luke: Chapter 16,verses 19 to 34.

d) Nylni Declaration on Food Sovereignty: outlines the pillars of sustainabledevelopment. www.nyeleni.org/?lang=en&lang_fixe=ok


1) What struck you most when you read:Development intel l igent love ofneighbour ?2) With an ever-increasing rich/poorgap, people lose the feeling of being

neighbours, human beings on a common journey of life. Have you, or hassomeone you know, had the experience of feeling uncomfortable, or excluded,when you were with people of a different income bracket from your own?

3) What is your personal experience, or that of your family or neighbours, withunemployment or underemployment? What labour or social policies would yousupport to increase opportunities for Canadians who are trying to find work?

4) What other questions or actions have occurred to you as you reflected on the

content of this Session?


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The more tools we have, the more soul we needrue development does not consistprimarily in doing. The key todevelopment is a mind capable of

thinking in technological terms and, at thesame moment, grasping the fully humanmeaning of human activities ... .

Even when we work through satellites orthrough remote electronic impulses, ouractions always remain human, an expressionof our responsible freedom . Humanfreedom is authentic only when it respondsto the fascination of technology withdecisions that are the fruit of moralresponsibility. Hence the pressing need forformation in an ethically responsible use of

technology. (70)

If youre old enough to remember practisinghow to get into the nearest nuclear falloutshelter, then you dont need anyone to explainto you that technology brilliant, scientificallyconceived and designed technology can killus all as easily as it can figure out how toprotect the lungs and brain of a seriouslypremature infant.

The nuclear news today is about the slow,

careful work of countless internationaldiplomats as the world inches towardsmutually agreed abolition of nuclear weapons.People heave a sigh of relief that thesuperpowers of the Cold War years did not, infact, commit Mutually Assured Destruction,even while we worry about what terroristsmight do with black-market nuclear materials.

Technology. Its wonderful. And its alsointensely dangerous. Caritas in Veritate calls it:

a profoundly human reality, linked to theautonomy and freedom of man. Intechnology we express and confirm thehegemony of the spirit over matter . Itreveals man and his aspirations towardsdevelopment, it expresses the inner tensionthat impels him gradually to overcomematerial limitations.

Technology, in this sense, is a response toGods command to till and to keep the land(cf. Gen. 2:15) that God has entrusted tohumanity. It must serve to reinforce the

covenant between human beings and theenvironment, a covenant that should mirrorGods creative love.(69)

Well, if technology expresses and confirms therule of the spirit over matter, what happenswhen the spirit doing the ruling is sick?

What happens when owners of a powerfultechnology in mining, for example are sointent on reaping wealth from it, that theydont stop to understand and care about the

Aboriginal inhabitants of the land they wantto mine, even when the area will be ruined asa homeland?

Or what about intellectual property rightsthat can keep new technologies away frompoorer people, even when life itself is at stake?A famous example of what the Pope callsexcessive zeal for protecting knowledgethrough an unduly rigid assertion of theright to intellectual property, especially inthe field of health care (22)has been thedifficulty of getting AIDS medications into

poorer countries.

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Are they draining the human juice out oftraditional cultures without offering wisdomand balance in return? The media arefundamentally important in engineeringchanges in attitude towards reality and thehuman person,says Caritas in Veritate. How

can we work to make sure that this dazzlingtechnological network is used to promoteuniversal participation in the common searchfor what is just?(73)

Being smart about technology can solve somevery real problems. But in some culturalsettings, a technological mindset can makepeople feel as if there are no natural and morallimits, no need for reverence in the face of aCreation that we did not invent.

Pope Benedict worries about this attitude most

of all when it comes to the manipulation ofhuman life by biotechnology. In vitrofertilization, research using human embryos,cloning and designing animal-human hybrids:all these techniques feed into a sense that wehave mastered lifes mystery and that its alljust sophisticated mechanics.

Then why not push ahead with eugenics, whynot make euthanasia easy, why worry aboutabortion? Because, says Caritas in Veritate, thehuman being is also spiritual, and is a creature

of God, not of science. Human dignity is aquestion that goes much deeper than anyquestion of convenience or central planning.

Faced with these dramatic questions, reasonand faith can come to each others assistance.Only together will they save man. Entrancedby an exclusive reliance on technology,reason without faith is doomed to flounderin an illusion of its own omnipotence. Faith

without reason risks being cut off fromeveryday life.(74)

Its true. The more we live within a network oftechnological wizardry, the more we needwisdom and spiritual depth. Without that, wecould end up with a conscience that can nolonger distinguish what is human (75). Forreal wisdom, we need God. We need theGospel of Jesus, because, as the Pope says,Jesus in the very revelation of the mystery ofthe Father and his love, fully revealshumanity to itself ... . When God is eclipsed,

our ability to recognize the natural order,purpose, and the good begins to wane. (18)

But when persons attuned to Gods wisdombecome skilled in the use of todays powerfultechnologies, they can love their neighboursas themselves with an effectiveness ourgrandparents couldnt imagine. Hows that fora new mission field?

Resources

a) Jennifer Moore. Taking stock of Canadas mining industry: Ecuadorian landmark lawsuit challengesCanadian mining impunity. Briarpatch magazine (May 2010) briarpatchmagazine.com/taking-stock-of-canada%E2%80%99s-mining-industry.

See also Two Million Tons a Day: A mine waste primerfrom MiningWatch Canadawww.miningwatch.ca/sites/miningwatch.ca/files/Mine_Waste_Primer.pdf

In Latin America, Canadian mining companies have been the focal point of widespread protests overhuman rights abuses, water contamination, destruction of rainforests and the deaths of communityactivists. In Canada, solid wastes from mining operations are in the tens to hundreds of millions of tons ofwaste for a single mine.


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b) Canadian Mining Called to Account. CCODP Education Campaign:www.devp.org/devpme/eng/advocacy/miningforjustice-eng.html

c) Douglas Roche. God and the Culture of Peace: A Theology of the Street.Regis College, University ofToronto, Chancellors Lecture. 2009. roche.apirg.org/public_html/index.html

d) Robert Kenner, Director. Food, Inc. Participant Media. Publisher: Magnolia Home Entertainment. 2009.

Robert Kenner draws on reporting by Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan(The Omnivore's Dilemma) to explore how meat and vegetables produced by agribusiness are unhealthyand environmentally-harmful. Available on DVD in libraries and video stores.

e) Brewster Kneen. Control of Seedson the Forum on Privatization and the Public Domainwww.forumonpublicdomain.ca .

See also Vandana Shiva. The Future of Food and Seed. 2009. From OpEd News.www.opednews.com/articles/Vandana-Shiva-Organicolog-by-Rady-Ananda-090401-47.html(also available online in video format).

Discussion Questions

1) What struck you most when you read: The more tools we have, the more soulwe need?2) Seed is created to renew, to multiply, to be shared, and to spread. Seed is life itself.(Vandana Shiva)

By the end of the 20th century, the development and distribution of seed was almostentirely in the hands of a very few giant corporations which consider seeds as privateproperty to be developed, owned, bought and sold not for public good but simply forprivate profit. (Brewster Kneen)

What could be the impact on your access to nutritious food when corporations controlseeds rather than farmers who save seeds from their own crops for re-use year afteryear?

3) What is your favourite technology, one that you yourself use? How has itdeveloped/deepened you as a human being? In what ways might it also be bad foryou or for your neighbourhood, community?



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Making peace with n ature: a fresh start for al l of ushen God said to Cain: What have you done?Listen! Your brothers blood is crying out tome from the ground!

Now be accursed and driven from the ground,which has opened its mouthto receive your brothers blood from your hand.When you till the ground,it shall no longer yield to you its strength.You will be a fugitive and a wanderer on theearth. (Genesis 4: 10-13)

When the poor and needy seek for water,and there is none,And their tongue is parched with thirst,I the Lord will answer them,I the God of Israel will not forsake them.

I will open rivers on the bare heightsAnd fountains in the midst of the valleys;I will make the wilderness a pool of water,And the dry land springs of water.I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia,the myrtle, and the olive;I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane andthe pine togetherso that all may see and know, all may considerand understandthat the hand of the Lord has done this, the HolyOne of Israel has created it. (Isaiah 41: 17-20)

We live in a time of fear for the future of theearth on which we live, the air we breathe andthe water without which all of uswould die.

The feeling of threat to Mother Earth runs sodeeply that todays science-minded people canhear their own anxiety echoed in warningsthat come to us from our pre-scientificancestors in faith.

Many powerful passages in the ancientScriptures link loss of soil fertility and ofbiodiversity to human arrogance, abuse offaith and injustice, especially to the poor.

Equally, the biblical tradition links abundanceof natures yield to a restoration of justice,mercy, and human responsiveness to God.

Thirty or forty years ago, biblical passages thatmade such connections sounded poetic butprimitive to most readers in the Western

world. We wouldnt dream of taking themliterally. But nowadays, those same cries andwhispers echo the sense of urgencycommunicated by teachers like David Suzuki,Wendell Berry, Al Gore, Maria Mies,Vandana Shiva and many others.

There is a sense that we must wake up fromcenturies of carelessness and indifference tothe earth or else we might all follow thepolar ice cap into slow extinction.

Not everyone agrees, of course, on what weshould do as we wake up! Arguments abouthow bad or not-so-bad the ecological situationis and (especially) about what we must doabout it, are a staple of our public life.

Many feel the need for change now in ourtreatment of the natural environment.Countless organizations, large and small, are

springing up to protect the oceans, or to save aparticular watershed or forest. Other groupswork to change the way mining is carried out,and to argue for strict limits on where drillingfor oil will be permitted.

There is a revival of respect for smaller-scale,careful, mixed farming, rather than vastfactory farms that turn out freight-trains-fullof one product only, often by methods that arecruel to animals and exhausting to the soil.Other movements promote new and old waysof getting all of us to be less dependent on oil

and other greenhouse-gas-producing sourcesof energy.

On the other hand, many people andgovernments feel stuck in the way things are.Courageous changes are often proposed. Butwhen it comes to a vote, or to a decisionaround the boardroom table, resistance tochange often seems unconquerable.

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Remember what happened a few years agowhen Liberal leader Stphane Dion proposedchanging the tax system to discourage carbon-based fuels and to hasten the development of agreen economy? He and his party wentdown to defeat. The next Liberal campaign

quietly buried Dions so-called carbon tax.

We get scared. We get overwhelmed by howcomplicated the challenge is.

There are indeed some really big problems.Sometimes a major industry is crucial tokeeping a whole town working, and a wholecountry paying its debts. Yet everyone knowsthat the industry is strangling somethingprecious and natural that we will alwaysneed a river system, for example.

In Canada, the most dramatic dilemma rightnow is embodied in the oil sands (or tarsands) in Alberta terrible for theenvironment and for the Indigenous peoplewho have always lived there; wonderful forCanadas export performance, for well-paidjobs, for fuel and for Albertas politicalinfluence.

Canadas dirty oil is controversial in severalcountries. Here at home, the topic is almosttoo hot to touch politically. People of

conscience like Bishop Luc Bouchard inwhose diocese much of the oil sands action ishappening struggle to find a responsibleway forward. You can sample Pope Benedictscarefully balanced struggle over energy issuesin paragraph 49ofCaritas in Veritate.

We get scared but we are also having ourconsciences raised, and some of us arethinking hard. And thats exactly whyPope Benedict considers that we in thisgeneration face an awesome moral andspiritual opportunity.

In his 2010 World Peace Day (January 1)speech, the Pope wrote: The ecological crisisoffers an historic opportunity to develop acommon plan of action aimed at orientingthe model of global development towardsgreater respect for creation, and for anintegral human development. It should beevident that the ecological crisis cannot be

viewed in isolation from other relatedquestions, since it is closely linked to thenotion of development itself, and to ourunderstanding of man in his relationship toothers and to the rest of creation. Theecological health of the planet calls for a

profound, long-term review of our model ofdevelopment.

It gets even more challenging. We do need abreakthrough in socio-economic thinking. Wedo need economic plans based on healthier,more inclusive goals. But Pope Benedict saysthat something deeper and broader is at stake:we need a cultural renewal:

The world needs a profound culturalrenewal (it) needs to rediscoverfundamental values on which to build abetter future. ... The crisis thus becomes anopportunity for discernment, in which toshape a new vision for the future. (21)

What an exciting project! To join in a world-wide, peaceful struggle to re-think and re-imagine all of business as usual, to bring itcloser to the vision that is in the Creators ownheart! Yes, it will take everything weve got creative, unusual business skills, and

thoughtful, careful science; better politics, andnew international laws and agencies.

But the gifts of ordinary people for everyday-life changes are equally in demand. Yourgreat-grandmothers recipes might suddenlyhave much to teach us. Someones wonderfulidea about how to re-introduce composting,even in big cities, might seem practical ratherthan eccentric. And as we go deeper, peoplewill see the urgency of long-buried questionsabout life-rhythms and priorities like morecommitment to family life and to localcommunity life, to unborn life and tovulnerable people, and to the peaceful thingswe can do together that consume very littleand cost almost nothing. Everything matters,and everyone counts.


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The Tar Sands:the worlds largest energyprojectOur message to both levels of government, toAlbertans, to Canadians and to the world whomay depend on oil sands for their energysolutions, is that we cannot be sacrificedany longer.Chief Rosanne Marcel, Mikisew Cree First Nation

More than 360,000 First Nations people liveon the Athabasca River downstream fromthe tar sands. Fort Chipewyan is home to theMikisew Cree. Water quality there has beenfound to be hazardous and studies show anunusual number of diseases and cancer withmany deaths.

Fort Chipewyan Doctor John OConnor,said: There have been several differentkinds of cancer, as well as what we callauto-immune diseases like rheumatoidarthritis, lupus, various skin rashes.The cancerous diseases have been thebiggest concern.

Extraction of oil from the tar sands requiresfrom 3.5 to 5 barrels of water for one barrelof oil. Only 10% can be returned to the riversystem. Most ends up in lake-size tailingsponds filled with water and toxic material

which form a thick toxic sludge. Mining onesquare meter of bitumen creates six squaremeters of tailings. These toxic lakes nowoccupy 140 sq km of forest and are visiblefrom space.

Following a report it commissioned in 2007,Suncor admitted that one of its oldest tailingponds had been leaking millions of litres ofwaste-water daily into the groundwaterwhich flows into the Athabasca River.

Canada, once a global leader in tacklingozone pollution and acid rain, has noeffective climate change policy. It has

abandoned its Kyoto Protocol targets andnow ranks 59th out of 60 countries onresponsible climate action.

Source: CBC Edmonton. November 2008

As Caritas in Veritate puts it: On this earththere is room for everyone: here the entirehuman family must find the resources to livewith dignity, through the help of natureitselfGods gift to his children and

through hard work and creativity. Thismeans being committed to making jointdecisions aimed at strengthening thatcovenant between human beings and theenvironment which should mirror thecreative love of God, from whom we comeand towards whom we are journeying. (50)

At the heart of all this, what we most need isfaith. Without faith, we stay stuck in fear. Butfaith, nourished by love in truth, drives outfear. Faith shows us that we were made for suchresponsibilities. We are the daughters and sons

of the Creator of all things, entrusted from thebeginning with the care of earths wondrousgarden.

Yes, we have gone a long way towardsmaking a junkyard out of Eden. But we alsoknow that our God is a Redeemer: that Godhas already come, in our flesh, to invite us tojoin with him in making all things new.(Rev. 21: 5) Gods Spirit, who can renew theface of the earth, (Psalm 104: 30) will help us.It will be our integral human development

and our joy to find our particular,vocational ways to meet the enormouschallenge of this time.

Only if we are aware of our calling, asindividuals and as a community, to be part ofGods family, will we be able to generate a newvision and muster new energy in the service ofa truly integral humanism. The greatest serviceto development, then, is a Christian humanismthat enkindles charity and takes its lead fromtruth, accepting both as a lasting gift from God.Openness to God makes us open towards ourbrothers and sisters and towards anunderstanding of life as a joyful task to beaccomplished in a spirit of solidarity.(78)


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Resources

a) The Earth Charterat www.earthcharterinaction.org.

The Earth Charter

Documents

Caritas Guide