Joseph Bottum

And it is precisely to this question of the prophetic power of Populorum Progressio that Benedict turns in Chapter 2, paragraphs 21 through 33: “After so many years, as we observe with concern the developments and perspectives of the succession of crises that afflict the world today, we ask to . . . . Continue Reading »

The death of Robert McNamara on July 6 has generated some reflections, here and there: a little remembering of the man’s strange place in history. One of the most interesting accounts of his role as secretary of defense appeared in the December 2000 issue of First Things : Adam . . . . Continue Reading »

In Chapter 1, paragraphs 10 through 20, Benedict takes up Paul VI’s forty-year-old encyclical letter, Populorum Progressio . George Weigel notes the long hunger among some more left-leaning Catholics to revive Paul VI’s work and pit it against the economics implied in John Paul II’s . . . . Continue Reading »

Hmm. Looks like I was wrong in my prediction that the American media would ignore the new encyclical in favor of stories about President Obama’s visit with the pope. Turns out the media isn’t even waiting for the president’s trip to Rome in order to ignore the encyclical. Here’s . . . . Continue Reading »

A friend writes to note the line in paragraph 29 of Caritas in Veritate : “Violence puts the brakes on authentic development and impedes the evolution of peoples towards greater socio-economic and spiritual well-being.” Does this mark, he asks, an advance in the neo-Latin of the Vatican? . . . . Continue Reading »

The surprise of the encyclical is the praise of Paul VI, whose “ Populorum Progressio deserves to be considered ‘the Rerum Novarum of the present age,’ shedding light upon humanity’s journey towards unity.” Love in truth, says Benedict, “is a great challenge for the . . . . Continue Reading »

In paragraphs 5 and 6 comes the turn: “Development, social well-being, the search for a satisfactory solution to the grave socio-economic problems besetting humanity, all need this truth. What they need even more is that this truth should be loved and demonstrated.” We need to see the . . . . Continue Reading »

George Weigel writes : “Those with eyes to see and ears to hear will concentrate their attention, in reading Caritas in Veritate, on those parts of the encyclical that are clearly Benedictine, including the Pope’s trademark defense of the necessary conjunction of faith and reason and his . . . . Continue Reading »

The role of reason remains central through the opening of the encyclical: Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective . . . . Continue Reading »

The first thing to ask about Caritas in Veritate , Charity in Truth, is why the in truth ? “Charity is at the heart of the Church’s social doctrine,” the second paragraph of the new encyclical declares, to no surprise, at all: What else could a Christian account of the social realm . . . . Continue Reading »