Kevin Schmiesing, research fellow at the Acton Institute, was interviewed by Ave Maria Radio recently on Caritas in Veritate.  Schmiesing explains how the idea of human development and progress figure as central themes of the encyclical.  It is important to remember that our ethical advancement must be ahead of material human development, and our ethics must be paired with our personal development.  Furthermore, Schmiesing explains that Caritas in Veritate warns against an all encompassing role for the state.

Read more on Caritas in Veritate: Schmiesing and Jayabalan Radio Interviews…

Kishore Jayabalan, director of Istituto Acton (the Acton Institute’s Rome office), was interviewed by Vatican Radio concerning the authentic human development concerns of the whole person, which is a topic discussed in Caritas in Veritate. Jayabalan discussed how development schemes throughout the world should look at the aspirations of each individual person.  Furthermore, in Caritas in Veritate there is a mention of a “breathing space” used a few times in the encyclical.  This breathing space aspect means developing a vibrant and diverse society and not allowing central planning to decide every aspect of a person’s life; it is also important to place the individual at the center of the development.

Read more on Caritas in Veritate: Jayabalan and Gregg Radio Interviews…

In his commentary, “The Pope, the Rabbi, and the Moral Economy,” Samuel Gregg compares recent statements by Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, and Pope Benedict XVI, on the market economy and other social questions. “Benedict and Sacks rigorously deny that markets are intrinsically flawed,” Gregg writes. “Each also maintains that there are fundamental limits to state power. They do, however, insist that morality’s ultimate sources come from neither state nor market.”

Read more on Acton Commentary: The Pope, the Rabbi, and the Moral Economy…

Energy has been a hot topic not just in the United States but throughout the world.  From cap-and-trade legislation to the talks that occurred at the G8 Summit, energy is making headlines everywhere.  Caritas in Veritate also addresses the issue of energy; however, it is in a different light from that which is occurring in the politics.

Read more on Caritas in Veritate: The United States, an Over-Consumer in Energy?…

Joan Lewis, EWTN’s Rome bureau chief, covered Pope Benedict XVI’s general audience address on Wednesday, July 8 , during which the pontiff publicly commented on his landmark social encyclical “Caritas in Veritate” the day after it was officially released by the Vatican. Below is a summary of Benedict’s address to visitors in Rome, including Lewis’s own translation.

Yesterday, the Vatican released Pope Benedict’s third encyclical, “Caritas in veritate,” along with an official summary of the 144-page document that has six chapters and a conclusion. In addition, there was a very worthwhile two-hour press conference with summaries of the document’s salient points, as well as a Q&A session between reporters and Cardinals Martino and Cordes, Archbishop Crepaldi and Prof. Stefano Zampagni.

But surely the best summary of Pope Benedict’s just-released encyclical is the one he himself gave at today’s general audience, held in the Paul VI Hall and highlighting the moral criteria that must underpin economic choices.

In only 1,300 words (the encyclical has 30,466), the Pope explained the document’s contents and his intention in writing it. He began by explaining that Caritas in veritate was inspired by a passage from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians where “the Apostle speaks of acting according to the truth in love: ‘Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ’.” Thus, said Benedict, “charity in truth is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity. For this reason, the entire social doctrine of the Church revolves around the principle ‘Caritas in veritate’. Only with charity, illuminated by reason and by faith, is it possible to pursue development goals that possess more human and humanizing values.”

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One of Pope Benedict XVI’s great emphases in his new social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, is the idea of gift. A gift is something that we have received without earning. As the Pope wisely notes, “The human being is made for gift,” even though man is often “wrongly convinced that he is the sole author of himself, his life and society.”

The truth is that we are not the authors of our own lives. We did not earn or create the conditions that make our lives what they are. We did not merit our genetic code, and we are not worthy of the parents that we had growing up. Neither do we have ourselves to thank for our societies and the opportunities that they hold. To some degree, hard work, creativity, and self-cultivation can enable us to better ourselves and our lives. That this is even the case is not because of our own efforts, though. We are not the reason that merit can lead to success.

We live lives gifted to us in a world gifted to us by God. God is not random, and He has reasons for giving each of us the gifts that He has. We do not by any means know what those reasons are much of the time, but we can use our reason to search for them. Reason shows us that we as humans are social beings, meant to live in coexistence with one another and to seek the common good and the wellbeing of everyone. The gift of our lives and our own particular gifts are meant to benefit the whole of humanity and not just ourselves. As Caritas in Veritate puts it, gift “takes first place in our souls as a sign of God’s presence in us, a sign of what he expects from us.” Gift, then, is the basis for duty. We have not earned what we have and are or the world in which we live; therefore, we do not have license or entitlement over our gifts. We have duties to use them for the common good.

What, then, is the best way to organize society such that the gifts given to each are used for the benefit of all? One possibility is to empower a central authority to identify the gifts of each person, then to have that authority determine how we are to use our gifts. This is the totalitarian tendency, the desire for an authority to have total control over the resources gifted to persons and to all people. Read more on A Theory of Gift, Duty, and Rights Based on Caritas in Veritate…

Throughout Caritas in Veritate there is a strong message to help the poor.  This is an age old belief held by many.  It can be found throughout the Bible and is preached by Christians and members of differing faiths.

Read more on Caritas in Veritate: How to Help the Poor…

A number of journalists and some pundits on the religious left are aiming to own Caritas in Veritate, the new papal encyclical on economics. To them, the encyclical is a polemic against globalization and even the free market itself.

Read more on Caritas in Veritate Not a Leftist Manifesto…

Andrew Abela, 2009 Novak Award recipient from the Acton Institute, offered a business perspective on Pope Benedict XVI’s new social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, to the Catholic news service Zenit.  In the interview, Abela talked about ways the encyclical could point the way out of the global financial crisis:

Read more on Zenit: Abela on Caritas in Veritate…

Recently the Acton Institute dedicated a resource page on its website to Pope Benedict XVI’s new social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate.  The resource page contains blog posts and articles about Caritas in Veritate from policy experts and staff members from the Acton Institute.  Furthermore the resource page will be updated with new content and provide an in-depth analysis on Caritas in Veritate.

Read more on Resource Page on Caritas in Veritate…