This week First Things is hosting the first of our new online symposiums. For our inaugural effort we’ve a variety of thinkers to examine and reflect on Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate .
Yesterday, Michael Novak illuminated the tensions inherent in the encyclical :
I have been trying to steer Catholic social teaching in this direction—beginning with my own thinking—for a long time. So watching Benedict XVI write about caritas so beautifully brings me immense satisfaction.
In all candor, however, if we hold each sentence of Caritas in Veritate up to analysis in the light of empirical truth about events in the field of political economy since 1967, we will find that it is not nearly so full in its veritas as in its caritas .
Today’s entry is a joint statement signed by sixty-eight evangelicals calling for more response and engagement on the issues raised by the pope:
Recent global events awaken us to the importance of sustained Christian reflection on the nature and goal of economic life, both within our own societies and in other parts of the world. Accordingly, as evangelical Protestants we applaud the release of Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) by Pope Benedict XVI. We call on Christians everywhere, but especially our fellow evangelicals in the global North, to read, wrestle with, and respond to Caritas in Veritate and its identification of the twin call of love and truth upon our lives as citizens, entrepreneurs, workers and, most fundamentally, as followers of Christ.
New entries will be posted in the On the Square section and all entries collected on the symposium page .
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