Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Pope Benedict XVI's latest encyclical Caritas in Veritate, occupied the newspaper columns for several days: with attention mainly on any possible economic and social indications the text might offer . Nevertheless, the Letter clearly states “the Church offers no technical solutions”; in fact that task is not encompassed in the missionary mandate entrusted to the Apostles, and their successors, or in the epistemological statute of the Church's Social Doctrine, which, as it was so clearly affirmed by the Servant of God John Paul II in the Encyclical Centesimus Annus, is a theological discipline pertaining to moral theology.
If it contains none of the technical solutions sought in vain, then what contribution can the Papal Encyclical offer? Among the various reflections on different areas of Catholic Social Doctrine and other considerations, one, which would appear to be particularly important, beyond the present economic emergency, sketches what could be a real “ anthropological turning point”: a conception of man able to retrieve his relationship with reality, both at the noetic level ( capacity of knowledge) and, as a consequence, on the moral level (behaviour).
The “ anthropological turning point ” proposed by the Holy Father consists in the “primacy of receiving oneself over acting”. The Encyclical states: “ Charity in truth places man before the astonishing experience of gift. Gratuitousness is present in our lives in many different forms, which often go unrecognised because of a purely consumerist and utilitarian view of life. The human being is made for gift, which expresses and makes present his transcendent dimension. Sometimes modern man is wrongly convinced that he is the sole author of himself, his life and society. […]Gift by its nature goes beyond merit, its rule is that of superabundance. It takes first place in our souls as a sign of God's presence in us, a sign of what he expects from us. Truth — which is itself gift, in the same way as charity — is greater than we are, as Saint Augustine teaches[88]. Likewise the truth of ourselves, of our personal conscience, is first of all given to us. In every cognitive process, truth is not something that we produce, it is always found, or better, received. Truth, like love, “is neither planned nor willed, but somehow imposes itself upon human beings” (CV n. 34).
The present day cultural climate, especially in the West, appears to have completely forgotten the logic of the gift, of total gratuitousness, so man no longer thinks of himself as a 'gift', engrossed up as he is with his claim of being himself, the “measure” of everything. This condition, besides being unrealistic from the philosophical point of view (since primarily evident is the fact that in no way does man produce the truth, at the most, with reasoning, the truth can be recognised, since it gives itself), it is also existentially sad, since it reduces even further “room for hope”, feeding a culture of action which, in time, becomes alienating.
Whereas the proposed “ anthropological turning” is instead a powerful call to understand oneself as a “gift”, and to rediscover that “receiving” and “receiving oneself” take precedence over acting, in that balance between “ora et labora” inherited from St Benedict and which, in fact, built Europe. Compared with the “turning points” of the last century, which resulted in agonising anthropocentrism, the turning proposed by Benedict XVI would appear to be of extraordinary farsightedness and effective realism. We can only hope that it will be picked out and picked up with the same prophetic spirit. (Agenzia Fides 24/9/2009; righe 39, parole 571)
