A man finishes a meal at Detroit's Capuchin Soup Kitchen, where hundreds of people receive free meals and groceries, in 2008. (CNS/Reuters/Carlos Barria)
Catholic social teaching is unfortunately the church's best-kept secret.
But because it directly addresses the world's most pressing social justice and peace issues, Catholic social teaching instead needs to come out of hiding and be discovered, read, preached, proclaimed and lived in our parishes, schools, universities, media, homes and society.
Five years ago, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI gave the church and world a very valuable contribution to Catholic social teaching.
His encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate ("Charity in Truth") was given a respectful but short hearing, then put on the shelf to gather dust.
Let's shake off five years of dust and really begin to appreciate this gem.
Foundational to all just solutions to the world's ills is unconditional love. And as our retired Holy Father wrote, "Love -- caritas -- is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force that has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth."
Benedict insists that authentic charity or love needs the assistance of truth. "Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way," he wrote.
He taught that the truth contained in the values of Christianity are "essential for building a good society and for true integral human development."
He emphasized "the truth of Christ's love in society" and added: "Development, social well-being, the search for a satisfactory solution to the grave socio-economic problems besetting humanity, all need this truth. ...
"Without truth, without trust and love for what is true, there is no social conscience and responsibility, and social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in social fragmentation, especially in a globalized society at difficult times like the present."
Pope Emeritus Benedict's insights are right on the mark.
Because the quest for love, a love influenced by truth, is not on the agenda of so many individuals -- especially so many individuals who hold political and corporate power -- social action is indeed largely serving private interests and the logic of power.
Just consider how income and wealth over the last 30 years have dramatically increased for a tiny percentage of the population while the working class' share of the economic pie has stagnated and various programs to assist the poor have been significantly cut.
While some claim that the Great Recession is over, that claim is of no consolation to countless human beings struggling with poverty, hunger, homelessness, unemployment and underemployment. And all of this painful injustice continues while corporate profits are at or near all-time highs and CEOs are raking in astronomical salaries.
A greedy, unjust toxic economic atmosphere is suffocating countless brothers and sisters. Social conscience and responsibility are not in the air.
Although the atmosphere is foul, as disciples of the Lord, we are called to be men and women of hope.
For just as air pollution can be reversed, so too economic pollution can be cleaned up. As Christians, we have the ultimate remedy: the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
For as our retired Holy Father wrote: "The Gospel is fundamental for development, because in the Gospel, Christ, 'in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals humanity to itself.' "
Christ became human to show us what true humanity should reflect: divine
love and absolute truth.
[Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings about Catholic social teaching. His keynote address, "Advancing the Kingdom of God in the 21st Century," has been well received by diocesan gatherings from Salt Lake City to Baltimore. Tony can be reached at tmag@zoominternet.net.]
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