A Reflection on Encyclicas Caritas en Varitae
In the encyclical entitled Caritas en
Varitae, or Charity in Truth, by his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, we see an
outline of what mankind is called to do in order to establish peace and justice
among Gods earth. We must spread these truths in the manner of charity not by
simple acts of giving spare change or unused goods to organizations, but a
charity in which we give ourselves to the cause of peace and justice. This is
what we are called to do, and we can all do it in our own special way.
One of the biggest things I took from the
encyclical was our duty and responsibility here on earth. We have a
responsibility not only to ourselves, but to the earth itself, and all of its
inhabitants. One line that grabbed my attention is as follows. “When a society
moves towards the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding
the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man's true good. If personal
and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other
forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away.” This is
inherently true as all forms of value are somewhat intertwined, whether they be
reinforced by aesthetics, or perception, or our sense of duty. Our duty to one
another is to love each other and to spread the peace and justice of our Lord.
We must do these things because they are right to do so.
In many places of the world we see
liberation and freedom from oppression at the cost of war. Too often we analyze
simple monetary measures, negligible calculated risks, and we continue on our
merry way. We must stop to recognize oppression where it stands, and stop it
from spreading like a forest fire. It must been foreseen and calculated by
those with the ability to stop these unnatural acts of evil and hate. It is
said that the only ingredient for the success of evil is for good men to do
nothing. This is how we must see the circumstances: a spreading, ravaging
forest fire that must be stopped immediately. Too often, these things are
evaluated as a hurricane. We see it coming, we tell everyone and we don’t
always believe it, and when it hits us…it hits hard. Life does that, and
humanity is left to pick up the pieces of the aftermath, both physically and
emotionally for the good of history.
This leads me into another part of the
encyclical “Caritas en Veritae”. His Holiness writes: “Otherwise, if the only basis of human rights is to be found in the
deliberations of an assembly of citizens, those rights can be changed at any
time, and so the duty to respect and pursue them fades from the common
consciousness. Governments and international bodies can then lose sight of the
objectivity and “inviolability” of rights. When this happens, the authentic
development of peoples is endangered.” What he tells us here is that too often
we allow institutions to declare what are rights, and we give in
conceptualization to institutionalism, and it leads to a desensitization of
sorts that allows governments to be the prescriber of justice. If we allow
justice to be a government movement, and not of the people, then that justice
is simply defined as ‘that which is written and agreed upon by the officials’.
Anything can become just under such a system, and exploitation will run
rampant.
There is a factor of our rights that are inviolable, and that are
undeniable. Sure a government can outlaw a righteous, moral practice. But when
a tyrannical leadership calls upon its police or military to act upon that law
and to enforce the undermining of justice in its most natural form, a form we
ourselves can recognize by the nature of our hearts and minds, action must be
taken. A proper reaction would be for those soldiers and police to refuse their
governments orders, and to join the citizenry in a revolution. This is what
happens when the people of the world look to social programs and government for
salvation from our worldly issues. When governments attempt to participate in
social justice movements such as welfare, it degrades society by degrading the
symbol of work ethic and erodes the mindset and cultural values that emphasize
hard work or a life of failures. It separates us from hard working and
prosperity.
The helping of others needs not to be a program that the government
creates, setting obscure standards and qualifications so broad that it enables
loopholes, but rather a system of the love of man that sees the pain of another,
and cannot stand to allow it to continue. This is the virtue and the love that
God has shown us through his son. This is our calling, to spread peace and
justice. Whether we are Christian or not, atheist or Islam, we must recognize
that pain and suffering come from the body, and that charity and love come from
the heart. This is the truth, and in our truth is the power of man to spread
the charity of his heart. This is the revelation that God has revealed to us;
we have the power to maximize the fulfillment of our experience here on earth,
and it is up to the people to do it through our own intuition – not the
establishments and institutions, for they are the painters of pictures with
lines, labels, and laws. All of which cut off one man from another, and with it
our hearts, our talents, and our charity.
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