"Charity in Truth" - Pope Benedict's Encyclical Letter on Integral Human Development : (October 2009)

On the 29th June, feast of Sts Peter and Paul, Pope Benedict XVI published what is perhaps his most significant Encyclical to date. The occasion was the fortieth anniversary of Pope Paul VI's encyclical on the "Progress of Peoples".

He is anxious to point out the continuing importance of that document within the tradition of Papal social teaching. Indeed he suggests that it is as significant a document as the great Rerum Novarum of Leo XIII. He calls this document "Charity in Truth". In the introduction he stresses the intrinsic relationship between charity and the search for truth. A commitment to truth will guarantee the authenticity of human charitable behaviour. Charity, he reminds us, flows from the interpersonal love of the Trinity which is at once the source and exemplar of charity.

"Charity is love received and given. It is grace (charis)".

Fr Perry Gildea - Vincentian Fathers

Cliftonville Road, Belfast 15

Its source is the wellspring of the Father's love for the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Love comes down to us from the Son. It is creative love, through which we have our being; it is redemptive love, through which we are recreated. Love is revealed and made present in Christ and 'poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit' (Rom 5:5). As the objects of God's love, men and women become the subjects of charity, they are called to make themselves instruments of grace, so as to pour forth God's charity and weave networks of charity." (5)

"Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity."

"That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and the supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance and communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality...Truth frees charity from the constraints of emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing space." (3)

Charity supported by truth is the source of all human and moral obligation. Pope Benedict is putting social morality centre stage of Christian moral teaching.

"Charity goes beyond justice, because to love is to give, to offer what 'is mine' to the other, but it lacks justice, which prompts us to give the other what is 'his (or hers)' what is due to him by reason of his being or his acting...If we love others with charity then first of all we are just towards them." (6) To love someone is to desire that person's good and to take effective steps to secure it." (7)

Archived Reflections....click here

Having discussed the relationship between charity as gift and vocation informed by a commitment to truth Benedict then directs his attention to Paul VI's great encyclical which he is at pains to remind us was inspired by the theology and perceptions of the recently concluded Vatican Council's Constitution on the "Church in the Modern World" (Gaudium et Spes).

"Paul set out from this vision to convey two important truths...that the whole church, in all her being and acting - when she proclaims, when she celebrates, when she performs works of charity - is engaged in promoting integral human development...and authentic human development concerns the whole of the person in every single dimension." (11)

Speaking of the human solidarity inspired by true charity, Benedict has the following observation which could have come from St Vincent or Ozanam whose lives were motivated by the same conviction.

"Only through an encounter with God are we able to see in the other something more than just another creature, to recognise the divine image in the other, thus truly coming to discover him or her and to mature in a love that 'becomes concern and care for the other'. (11)"

Fr Perry (October 2009)

Pope Benedict XVI