“Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology”
Talk delivered by Most Rev. Salvatore Cordileone to Saint Mary’s College
John F. Henning Institute Episcopal Lecture Series
April 14, 2010
Introduction
Thank you for the invitation to speak to you today on the topic of Pope Benedict
XVI’s latest Encyclical. I am indeed honored by this invitation, especially given the long
and close historical relationship between Saint Mary’s College and the Diocese. The
Diocese of Oakland is endowed with a strong presence of institutions of higher education,
which help to give it its vibrancy. Saint Mary’s and the Christian Brothers play no small
role in this.
I am also aware of the lecture series here established in honor of John F. Henning,
a leading example of the good Saint Mary’s College can do. As an outstanding labor
leader and public servant, as SMC President of the Alumni Association and as a member
of the Board of Trustees, it was the integrity of Catholic Social Teaching that guided him
through it all. He is a personal illustration of the basic point I will seek to make in this
talk.
It is indeed an honor, and also an ambitious challenge, for me to speak to a group
of Catholic scholars. I certainly share with you a great love and admiration for the
intellectual life; I come to you, though, not as a fellow intellectual, but as a pastor. While
making my own efforts to research, ponder and synthesize, my reflections will
necessarily be mediated through the lens of the Church’s pastoral concern for her people.
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 2 And this is as it should be, for all of the Church’s many wonderful and varied endeavors
find their ultimate value in the measure of how effective they are in serving the Church’s
pastoral mission of fostering the faithful’s growth in holiness.
General Principles of Catholic Social Teaching
It was on June 29, 2009, that Pope Benedict XVI issued the Encyclical letter,
Caritas in Veritate. In the tradition of the Encyclicals of modern Catholic Social
Teaching going back to Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum of 1891, Benedict surveyed the
existing social conditions and determined what aspect of the Church’s tradition of social
doctrine should be emphasized at this time to assist us in living a life which best
comports with our transcendent dignity and supernatural destiny. Although such social
conditions change from one age to another, this will always remain the duty of the
Church’s chief shepherd and teaching authority.
It is certainly what Pope Leo XIII did in beginning the school of modern Catholic
Social Teaching by issuing that first social Encyclical. Just what were, then, the
circumstances at the time Pope Leo was writing this letter? Remember, at that moment
of history the industrial revolution was in full swing; the plight of workers had become
critical – the demand of their labor had become urgent, but protections were not yet in
place to safeguard their rights. Remember also that at this time the political philosophies
of Marxism and socialism were very much on the rise, as a response to this situation by
promising a society of justice and equality. The problem with these philosophies, though,
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 3 is that they base everything on the material: their concept of the human person is devoid
of any sense of the spiritual or transcendent; instead, social justice is brought about by
conflict, the warfare of the classes which results in revolution leading to a classless
society.
The 20th century, which we have just left, tragically witnessed the horrendous
consequences of these systems. With extraordinary foresight, Pope Leo XIII gave a
Christian response to these circumstances of his time. Yes, his Encyclical’s central
theme was the just ordering of society, but according to criteria that correspond fully to
the nature of the human person: he therefore listed the errors that gave rise to social ills,
excluded socialism as a remedy and expounded with precision and in contemporary terms
“‘the Catholic doctrine on work, the right to property, the principle of collaboration
instead of class struggle as the fundamental means for social change, the rights of the
weak, the dignity of the poor and the obligations of the rich, the perfecting of justice
through charity, [and] the right to form professional associations [labor unions]’”
(“Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,” n. 89). The burning issue of the
day was the labor issue, and the Encyclical Rerum Novarum dealt with the issue “using a
methodology that would become ‘a lasting paradigm’ for successive developments in the
Church’s social doctrine” (ibid., n. 90; emphasis original).
In the nearly 120 years since that landmark Encyclical, Catholic social teaching
has developed a number of general principles and underlying values which apply as well
to all of the other issues of social justice which have emerged over this time. The starting
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 4
point, though, with any aspect of social teaching, or of public or personal morality, for
that matter, is at the beginning: God’s creation of the human being.
The foundational passage in Sacred Scripture is Genesis 1:26, which tells us that
God created the man and woman “in His image and likeness.” God, moreover, created
them in order to share in His nature, and so the vocation of every human person is that of
divine beatitude. Indeed, as the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World
of the Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, reminds us, the human person is “the
only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake,” and human persons can fully
discover their true self only in giving of themselves (n. 24, par. 2).
This being created in the image of God gives the human person an inherent
dignity. Indeed, the phrase “the dignity of the human person” and other similar
expressions pervade the documents on Catholic social teaching. Because of the origin
and destiny of human beings – which is already written in the human heart and is made
evident in Scripture – Catholic thought sees the human person as primarily a spiritual
being, that is, one who is much more than merely the sum total of bodily functions and
psychological and emotional needs, but rather one who is oriented toward a transcendent
end, which is nothing less than God Himself. This means, then, that all human life is
sacred and worthy of respect, in every stage and in every condition, and this is why the
Church does not shy away from her duty to defend and speak out on behalf of human life
and dignity wherever they may be in a position of vulnerability.
The first foundational value of Catholic social teaching, then, is the inherent
dignity of the human person, along with its corollary principles of the spiritual,
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 5
transcendent nature of the human person and the sanctity of human life. This
dignity also means that every human person is endowed with certain rights and
obligations which must be played out in society. If people “can fully discover their true
self only in giving of themselves,” it means that God has created us to live in society.
The human person, as well as being primarily a spiritual being, is also a social being.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines society as “a group of persons bound
together organically by a principle of unity that goes beyond each one of them”; it is “an
assembly that is at once visible and spiritual, [and] endures through time: it gathers up the
past and prepares for the future” (n. 1880). The Catechism goes so far as to declare
society to be “essential to the fulfillment of the human vocation,” (n. 1886; emphasis
added), and, citing Pope John Paul II’s Encyclical Centessimus Annus, affirms that to
“attain this aim, respect must be accorded to the just hierarchy of values, which
‘subordinates physical and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones’ [CA 36].”
The human person, then, needs to live and participate in society, it is a requirement of
human nature; it is through economic, political and cultural exchange with others, and in
mutual service and fraternal dialogue that people develop their potential and respond to
their vocation (cf. GS 25, par. 1).
This second foundational value, the social nature of the human person, leads us to
a number of principles equally pivotal for our consideration. First of all, a logical
consequence of this understanding of the human person is that the good of each
individual is necessarily related to the common good, which in turn can be defined only
in reference to the human person. That is to say, the human person – as Gaudium et Spes
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 6
instructs us – “is and ought to be the beginning, the subject and the end of all social
institutions” (n. 25, par. 1).
Gaudium et Spes gives us the lapidary definition of the common good as “the sum
total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach
their fulfillment more fully and more easily” (n. 26, par. 1). There must be, then, a
balance and interplay between the individual good and the common good, since the two
are interrelated. This brings us to one of the most constant and characteristic directives of
the Church’s social doctrine, beginning with that first great Encyclical, Rerum Novarum:
the principle of subsidiarity. This can be defined as the principle according to which
“all societies of a superior order must adopt attitudes of help (‘subsiduum’) – therefore of
support, promotion, development – with respect to lower-order societies” (“Compendium
of Catholic Social Teaching,” n. 186). “In this way, intermediate social entities can
properly perform the functions that fall to them without being required to hand them over
unjustly to other social entities of a higher level, by which they would end up being
absorbed and substituted, in the end seeing themselves denied their dignity and essential
place [in society]” (ibid.). This means, then, that the state (nation), a “social entity of a
higher level,” must offer the assistance which “lesser social entities,” such as (especially)
the family, need in order to fulfill the functions proper to them, while at the same time the
state must not do anything to restrict those lesser social entities from doing so.
The principle of subsidiarity, then, “protects people from abuses by higher level
social authority and calls on these same authorities to help individuals and intermediate
groups to fulfill their duties.... Experience shows that the denial of subsidiarity, or its
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 7 limitation in the name of an alleged democratization or equality of all members of society
[the state arrogating to itself the prerogatives properly belonging to individuals, families
and other smaller communities], limits and sometimes even destroys the spirit of freedom
and initiative” (“Compendium of Catholic Social Teaching,” n. 187). On the other hand,
sometimes “circumstances may make it advisable that the state step in to supply certain
functions,” for example, “to stimulate the economy because it is impossible for civil
society to support initiatives on its own,” or when social imbalance or injustice is so
serious that “only the intervention of the public authority can create conditions of greater
equality, justice and peace”; however, because this would be an extraordinary measure, it
should continue only as long as absolutely necessary, and the primacy of the human
dignity of each individual must always prevail (ibid, n. 188).
To sum up these foundational values, then: the beginning point is God’s creation
of the human being in His image and likeness. This endows the human person with an
inherent and inviolable dignity and a transcendent, spiritual nature which, as a
consequence, calls for respecting the sanctity of all human life, especially the most
vulnerable. God also created the human person as a social being; while the ultimate
vocation of every human being is that of divine beatitude, it is within the relationships of
human society that people respond to this vocation. This necessitates a balance between
the good of the individual and of smaller communities on the one hand, and the common
good on the other, a balance which must be worked out according to the principle of
subsidiarity, where higher level societies assist individuals and intermediate level
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 8 societies in exercising their rights and fulfilling their duties while not absorbing such
prerogatives which, in justice, belong to them.
The general principles of Catholic social teaching will obviously take on all kinds
of specific application to a whole myriad of issues, including everything from culture of
life issues to economic justice. The labor issue was the hot topic at the time of Pope Leo
XIII; we have a number of others in our own time as well. Issues of economic justice
certainly are to be included among these. No matter what the issue, though, when a
society veers off into the direction of injustice, it is inevitably because of a mistaken
notion of the human person. All of the foundational values which I have just presented
reflect a characteristically Christian understanding of the human person; or, as Pope John
Paul II would call it, the personalistic view. That is, the human person is to be valued as
a good in and of itself simply because of human dignity, and not treated as a means to an
end. Unfortunately, though, more and more we see a completely contrary view of the
human person prevailing in society today: the utilitarian view. That is, the human person
is not an intrinsic good, but rather has value only insofar as the person can be useful in
some way. This would view persons as no more than units of consumption and
production, which can be dispensed of when they no longer consume or, especially,
produce; the person is used as a means to some ulterior (and, necessarily, less valuable)
end.
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 9 Caritas in Veritate and Human Ecology
It will not be surprising that all of these values and principles which I have just
articulated are woven all throughout Pope Benedict XVI’s recent Encyclical on the
economy, Charity in Truth. But before referencing any particular one, it is necessary to
bear in mind the very premise of the Encyclical, already clear at the outset from its title.
Charity must be connected with truth, and that truth has to do with the correct
understanding of the human person. That truth, moreover, exists in the objective reality
of nature, it is not left up to each individual to decide for himself or herself, as if, “I have
my truth, and you have your truth.” Reason helps us to discern and recognize the truth,
which then must be received by an act of the will. Truth is to be received, it is a gift.
Charity rooted in objective truth is, as he calls it, a “grace”: “Charity is love received and
given. It is ‘grace’” (n. 5).
Therefore, as he says, “Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality” (n.
3). It is, ultimately, dehumanizing: the powerful give not because the need of the giver to
give exceeds the need of the receiver to receive, but instead for some ulterior end,
whether it be simply to assuage a troubled conscience or, worst of all, to keep the weak
dependent on the powerful who can thereby rest secure in their position of power. This,
then, defeats authentic development, which can only come about when such initiatives
respect the truth about the human person. As he says: “The risk for our time is that the de
facto interdependence of people and nations is not matched by ethical interaction of
consciences and minds that would give rise to truly human development. Only in charity,
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 10 illumined by the light of reason and faith, is it possible to pursue development goals that
possess a more humane and humanizing value” (n. 9; emphasis original).
Ultimately, Truth and Love are a person: Jesus Christ, by whom and for whom
everything was created. The two, then, cannot be separated, but rather form a dynamic
unity. This means that our integral development as human persons, individually and as a
community, decisively becomes real as we lovingly seek the Truth and allow it to form us
and to shape and motivate our action in the world in accord with the demands of Love.
This principle is the foundation upon which Pope Benedict stands in addressing the world
as it faces the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression and the continuing
difficulties of development in third world countries that go with it. In the midst of this
crisis, Pope Benedict brings us back to basics, reminding us that integral human develop
requires the difficult task of subordinating the material and technical to the spiritual and
moral, and not allowing financial mechanisms free reign outside the civic and political
aspects of society.
The title of my talk, “Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology,”
reflects the reality that we must order our society according to this hierarchy of values –
that is, order our society correctly – if we are to attain authentic development and
enduring justice. It is the basis of the principle according to which everything is inter-
related, something we can readily understand at the level of the physical environment.
Air and water do not know political boundaries. A polluted river in one country will be
polluted in its neighboring country; bad air quality in one city will affect the communities
surrounding it, especially when they are downwind from their big neighbor. Growing up
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 11 in the city nestled between Los Angeles and Mexico, these are realities I have
experienced first hand.
These are also realities about which we are all committed to improving. The
Church is certainly no exception, but the Christian perspective does so in a way that
places the primacy on the spiritual: cognizant of the truth that our natural and physical
environment is God’s creation and expression of His love for us, and His gift to us as our
home in which we seek our salvation, the Church exhorts us to be good and respectful
stewards of our environment. Indeed, the Church proposes that there is a covenant
between us and our physical world. In most eloquent terms, Benedict sets out the
profound responsibilities of our environmental stewardship:
Human beings legitimately exercise a responsible stewardship
over nature, in order to protect it, to enjoy its fruits and to cultivate
it in new ways, with the assistance of advanced technologies, so
that it can worthily accommodate and feed the world’s population.
On this earth there is room for everyone: here the entire human
family must find the resources to live with dignity, through the
help of nature itself – God's gift to his children – and through hard
work and creativity. At the same time we must recognize our grave
duty to hand the earth on to future generations in such a condition
that they too can worthily inhabit it and continue to cultivate it.
This means being committed to making joint decisions ‘after
pondering responsibly the road to be taken, decisions aimed at
strengthening that covenant between human beings and the
environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 12
whom we come and towards whom we are journeying’ [n. 50;
emphasis original].
We all understand the urgent need to care for the natural environment, and the
complexities that this involves because of everything in the environment being
interconnected. This, though, is a basic operating principle of all of creation, and so
applies in all the other areas of life as well. We certainly understand its application to the
economy, and if there ever could have been any doubt, the current global economic crisis
has done away with that. It applies at the level of physical health, in which the various
systems of the body are interconnected. It also applies, therefore, on the spiritual and
moral levels. Moreover, all of these different levels are, among themselves,
interconnected, with each one affecting all the others.
This is why the Church calls our attention to the relationship between the moral
order and the physical order. Just as we must be concerned for the ecology of our
physical environment, so must we also be concerned with human ecology – our own
proper moral order. In Caritas in Veritate, Benedict picks up this theme which Pope
John Paul II had addressed in Centesimus Annus, where he says:
Although people are rightly worried – though much less than they
should be – about preserving the natural habitats of the various
animal species threatened with extinction, because they realize that
each of these species makes its particular contribution to the
balance of nature in general, too little effort is made to safeguard
the moral conditions for an authentic ‘human ecology’. Not only
has God given the earth to man, who must use it with respect for
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 13
the original good purpose for which it was given to him, but man
too is God's gift to man. He must therefore respect the natural and
moral structure with which he has been endowed [CA, n. 38;
emphasis original].
Pope Benedict echoes this view and emphasizes the intimate and unbreakable
relationship between the proper moral outlook of society and its ability to respect nature.
He writes:
In order to protect nature, it is not enough to intervene with
economic incentives or deterrents; not even an apposite education
is sufficient. These are important steps, but the decisive issue is the
overall moral tenor of society. If there is a lack of respect for the
right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation
and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to
research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of
human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology.
It is contradictory to insist that future generations respect the
natural environment when our educational systems and laws do not
help them to respect themselves. The book of nature is one and
indivisible: it takes in not only the environment but also life,
sexuality, marriage, the family, social relations: in a word, integral
human development. Our duties towards the environment are
linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in
himself and in relation to others. It would be wrong to uphold one
set of duties while trampling on the other. Herein lies a grave
contradiction in our mentality and practice today: one which
demeans the person, disrupts the environment and damages society
[n. 51; emphasis original].
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 14
Let’s go back to the beginning. The creation account in Genesis says: “God
created man in His image; in the divine image He created him; male and female He
created them” (Gen 1:27). “Man” here is obviously meant in its inclusive sense,
humanity as a corporate whole. Humanity can only exist as male and female. Hence, it
is the masculinity and femininity of the human race that reflects the image of God, a
Trinity of Persons. Pope Benedict picks up on this point in his Encyclical when he says,
“The Trinity is absolute unity insofar as the three divine Persons are pure relationality.
The reciprocal transparency among the divine Persons is total and the bond between each
of them complete, since they constitute a unique and absolute unity. God desires to
incorporate us into this reality of communion as well: ‘that they may be one even as we
are one’ (Jn 17:22). The Church is a sign and instrument of this unity” (n. 54).
There is much talk in the Church these days, especially here in the Diocese of
Oakland with our rich ethnic diversity, of unity in diversity. I also know that inclusive
excellence is one of the priorities of St. Mary’s College. We have the source of all of this
in the Trinity: a differentiation of Persons in perfect unity, an inclusion which is not
simply excellent but, indeed, perfect. Moreover, God has established a human institution
by which He could model for us His inner life of unity and inclusion. That institution is
marriage, in which a husband and wife fully and unreservedly give themselves to each
other. Benedict puts it this way at number 54 of Caritas in Veritate: “Just as the
sacramental love of spouses unites them spiritually in ‘one flesh’ (Gen 2:24; Mt 19:5;
Eph 5:31) and makes out of the two a real and relational unity, so in an analogous way
truth unites spirits and causes them to think in unison, attracting them as a unity to itself.”
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 15 “Sacramental love of spouses”: remember, a sacrament uses a physical reality to connect
us with spiritual, transcendent truth. In marriage, a man and woman are physically joined
in a one-flesh union, while each retains their own identity. The mystical meaning of
marriage underlying its physical reality connects us with, and helps us understand, the
mystery of the Trinity. This is why marriage is the iconic human relationship for unity in
diversity: the man and woman are and remain diverse but united by their mutual
complementarity. Thus, marriage becomes the paradigm also of inclusive excellence.
Accordingly, the first structure of human ecology is the family founded on
marriage. It is in the environment created by the spouses’ mutual gift of self that
“children can be born and develop their potentialities, become aware of their dignity and
prepare to face their unique and individual destiny” (CA 39). The family founded on
marriage, then, is the first vital cell of society.
In light of all this, while to the ill-informed it would seem a complete non-
sequitur, to the well-formed Catholic it comes as no surprise that, early on in this
Encyclical addressing the current global economic crisis, Pope Benedict references Pope
Paul VI’s Encyclical Humanae Vitae on the transmission of human life and responsible
parenthood, and Pope John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae on the sanctity of human life, as
foundational to the entire discussion. We see people not as an asset or a liability
depending on their condition, but as a gift, a resource, indeed the greatest resource
regardless of their condition, an intrinsic good.
Sex and marriage are, indeed, foundational to everything, because people come
about through the sexual union of man and woman. The Pope cites Evangelium Vitae at
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 16 this point when he says, “The Church forcefully maintains this link between life ethics
and social ethics, fully aware that ‘a society lacks solid foundations when, on the one
hand, it asserts values such as the dignity of the person, justice and peace, but then, on the
other hand, radically acts to the contrary by allowing or tolerating a variety of ways in
which human life is devalued and violated, especially where it is weak or marginalized’”
(n. 15).
The Pope even uses the phrase “openness to life,” so pivotal in Humanae Vitae’s
discussion of the responsible transmission of human life in marriage, in reference to
authentic economic and social development. He says, “Morally responsible openness to
life represents a rich social and economic resource. Populous nations have been able to
emerge from poverty thanks not least to the size of their population and the talents of
their people. On the other hand, formerly prosperous nations are presently passing
through a phase of uncertainty and in some cases decline, precisely because of their
falling birth rates; this has become a crucial problem for highly affluent societies” (n. 44;
emphasis original). He concludes: “In view of this, States are called to enact policies
promoting the centrality and the integrity of the family founded on marriage between a
man and a woman, the primary vital cell of society, and to assume responsibility for its
economic and fiscal needs, while respecting its essentially relational character” (n. 44;
emphasis original).
Think about it: if the family is the primary cell of society, and if that cell is
infected, then all of society will be infected. And we can go further: marriage is the
primary cell of the family. If, therefore, the marriage is infected, namely, disordered by
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 17 notions contrary to the truth of the human person and the purposes of marriage as
established by the Creator in the order of nature, then so will the family and,
consequently, all of society. As the first vital cell of society, the family founded on
marriage is the basis of social justice and education.
Caritas in Veritate and Catholic Higher Education
The principle of the family as the primary subsidiary society is a defining factor in
the Catholic understanding of education, which considers husbands and wives, in virtue
of their sharing in the creative wisdom of the Father through procreation, to be, by right
and duty, the first educators of their children. The Catholic community has always been
intensely aware of the critical fact of human ecology, and so has always seen the
Church’s and the school’s role as assisting parents, not replacing them. A sign of this
awareness and concern are the Church’s teaching orders, which live the charism of their
founders to assist parents in the education of their children. The loving and intimate
relationship between the teaching orders and parents is itself also a vital element of
human ecology. It is a living example of the primacy of the family and marriage in
human ecology and of the way in which education takes its purpose, direction and
authenticity from and in relation to marriage and the family. I would, then, like to take
this opportunity to acknowledge the role and work of the Brothers of the Christian
Schools in this regard. It is a great privilege of the Diocese of Oakland to have schools
conducted in the charism of St. John Baptist De LaSalle, the principal patron of all
teachers. His spiritual sons today continue their work as the spiritual brothers of their
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 18 students. LaSalle clearly saw the relationship between the family founded on marriage
and the work of his order. In Meditations for the Time of Retreat, LaSalle counseled his
brothers:
You, then, whom God has called to this ministry, work according
to the grace that has been given to you to instruct by teaching and
to exhort by encouraging those who are entrusted to your care,
guiding them with attention and vigilance in order to fulfill toward
them the principal duty of fathers and mothers toward their
children.
This relationship between the family and education is very meaningful for
undergraduate education. College is a time when young people emerge into the world
and start to stand on their own. It is a time of a critical transition into full adulthood.
As persons who receive their essential dignity from God, students, and all persons,
also receive the capacity to transcend and overcome any social order that does not fully
respect human ecology and move toward truth and love. However, students, and all
persons, are conditioned in an important way by the social structures in which they live.
Students in a particular way are conditioned by the education they receive. Education
and all of the elements of society can either help or hinder the student to live in
accordance with truth and love and authentic human ecology (cf. CA, n. 38).
Therefore, it is critically important that education understand and respect human
ecology. In Caritas in Veritate, Benedict lays out some basic concepts, all of which are
consonant with Ex Corde Ecclesiae and Fides et Ratio, which I believe are central to an
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 19 undergraduate education that helps students live in accordance with truth, love and
authentic human ecology. I would like to briefly touch upon a few of the essential
elements of such an education, which I hope will be readily apparent from the points I
have just made.
First and foremost, a college must have a robust marriage culture. There must be
a deep understanding of the significance of the mutual self-giving of spouses and the
complementarity of the sexes. This understanding is essential to the mission of a
Catholic college, as reflected in St. Mary’s College own mission statement where it
pledges: “to affirm and foster the Christian understanding of the human person which
animates the educational mission of the Catholic Church.” There can be no correct
understanding of social justice without first understanding the family founded on
marriage, the first vital cell of society. Further, respect for the family founded on
marriage as the proper place for the procreation and education of children is inextricably
connected to the subordination of the material and technical to the ethical and spiritual.
Inclusive excellence actually proceeds from the family founded on marriage as the
reflection of the relational unity of the Trinity.
Next, a college must acknowledge that truth and love are gifts from God which
can never be separated. Truth and love are not our constructs, not our making (cf. CIV,
n. 52). The notion of gift is the very foundation of Pope Benedict’s reflections in Caritas
in Veritate. This is one of the reasons why both Fides et Ratio and the St. Mary’s
College Mission Statement affirm that wonder is our opening to knowledge. Living
deeply in the understanding that our whole world is the gratuitous utterance of the Word
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 20 of God leads us to have a special regard for the study of philosophy and theology. It also
leads us to a more profound realization of the person of Jesus Christ as our way, our truth
and our life, and of the relationship between the sacramental life of the College and its
academic pursuits.
Finally, an interdisciplinary understanding of the person and society is essential
for human ecology. As the Holy Father says:
Often it is thought that development, or the socio-economic
measures that go with it, merely require that they be implemented
through joint action. This joint action, however, needs to be given
direction, because ‘all social action involves a doctrine’. In view
of the complexity of the issues, it is obvious that the various
disciplines have to work together through an orderly
interdisciplinary exchange. Charity does not exclude knowledge,
but rather requires, promotes, and animates it from within….
Faced with the phenomena that lie before us, charity in truth
requires first of all that we know and understand, acknowledging
and respecting the specific competence of every level of
knowledge. Charity is not an added extra, like an appendix to
work already concluded in each of the various disciplines: it
engages them in dialogue from the very beginning [CIV 30].
This means that the various disciplines have to work together through an orderly
interdisciplinary exchange if we are to achieve human development and respect human
ecology. Moreover, the liberal arts provide the intellectual capability for such
interdisciplinary exchange.
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 21
This is where Catholic higher education is uniquely poised to provide a service
that our country, and western society as a whole, desperately need at this point in history.
People generally cannot make these connections anymore: knowledge, and even our
understanding of the human person, have become compartmentalized; ethics has been
divorced from business and science; there is no longer an understanding of the relation
between personal morality and social justice, as reflected in everything from court
decisions to school curricula. This last point was brought home to me in a rather
disquieting way a little over a year ago, when I had flown up here from San Diego for the
announcement of my appointment as the bishop of the Diocese. I was being given a tour
of the city, and I especially wanted to see the inner city neighborhoods. Every so often I
would see a billboard typically showing a picture of an African-American man holding a
baby in his arms with the words above, “Take Time to be a Father Today.” I was
encouraged by what I perceived to be some sort of a campaign to promote fatherhood.
Then, at one point we drove past a school where I saw a sign on the widow, facing out to
the street, announcing, “Vote No on Proposition 8.” Then, when we reached the end of
the block, I look across the street, and what did I see? A billboard announcing, “Take
Time to be a Father Today.” The disconnect here could not be more obvious: one cannot,
at one and the same time, both affirm the importance of fatherhood and deny the need for
children to be connected to their mothers and fathers. Indeed, this is the very purpose of
marriage. Nature connects mothers to their children, but society needs a cultural
mechanism to do that with fathers, and that mechanism is marriage. We are now reaping
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 22 the bitter fruits of the demise of fatherhood, and they are most especially evident in our
inner city neighborhoods.
While this should be immediately perceptible to reason alone, as Catholics we can
go way beyond that. We are aided by the light of revelation, which not only helps us to
perceive divine truths but also to understand with greater clarity natural truths already
accessible to reason alone. We have a body of moral teaching and of social teaching,
both based on the truth of the human person and both necessary, together, for a healthy
society and the flourishing of the individual. This is the lens through which we view all
of life, and will consequently affect our attitudes and actions in all that we do.
Thus, from our Catholic perspective on education, human ecology and integral
human development, we understand that it is not enough that our young people be smart,
competent and ambitious. They must also be honest, sober and chaste. It means nothing
if they have the capacity for ingenuity, productivity and multi-tasking if they lack the
capacity for empathy, compassion and generosity; if they are good at making money but
not keeping their promises; if they have lots of material things to enjoy but cannot be
faithful in their primary commitments in life. We do them a grave disservice if we teach
them to be globally literate and culturally competent, but not virtuous; to be passionate
but not exercise moderation and self-restraint; to respect the integrity of the environment
but not the integrity of marriage. They will fall woefully short of the mark, and
ultimately fail in life, if they learn to believe in themselves without first believing in God,
and are encouraged to dream big dreams and pursue those dreams if they are not educated
in knowing, loving and serving God in this life so they may be happy with Him in the
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 23 next. A culture of career might make people wealthy, but it will never make them wise,
or, for that matter, human in the fullest sense of the word. In fact, it will make and keep
some people poor. Only a culture of vocation, reflected in a thriving marriage culture,
will make people authentically human, and therefore truly happy.
Conclusion
We are, at this precise historical moment, at a critical juncture in our society with
regard to the most basic question in life: what does it mean to be a human being? Failing
to answer this question correctly will hasten our ultimate demise. I referenced early in
this talk the materialistic ideologies of the last two centuries which promised justice but
produced the most brutal regimes in human history, because of their misunderstanding of
the human person. We are witnessing a similar phenomenon in our country now: the
social and sexual revolutions which exploded in the 60’s promised freedom, but have
produced oppression, people trapped in poverty, cycles of violence, despair. This is all a
result of the same mistake: seeing the human person as a purely material reality, devoid
of any spiritual and transcendent meaning. As a Catholic institution of higher education,
Saint Mary’s College can serve the unique and invaluable role – as I truly believe God is
calling you to do – of reversing our nation’s slide toward self-destruction, serving as
nothing less than an instrument of God’s salvation by teaching our young people how to
make the connections that promote a true human ecology.
I began my reflections referring to the relationship between Saint Mary’s College
and the Diocese. Even more precious, though, than our long history together is the
Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 24 patroness we share in common: Mary the Mother of God and Queen of the World. She is
our guide to the proper understanding of the human person, the image of all that God
created the human person to be and model of what it means to live the truth in charity. In
her indispensable role in God’s plan of salvation for the human race, she lived her life in
complete service to the Truth and Love: her Son Jesus Christ. With him and her husband
Saint Joseph, God gifts us with the paradigmatic subsidiary society and pattern of true
inclusive excellence. Allow me to conclude, then, with the Opening Prayer for the Mass
of the Feast of the Holy Family, and let us strive to live this prayer every day of our lives:
Oh God, You have given us the Holy Family of Your Son as the
perfect model for our families. Kindly grant that we may practice
their virtues in family life and unite us by the bond of Your love,
that we may enjoy with them the eternal happiness of Your home.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.