Matthew 19, 27-30 + CSDC and CV

(CV 29d) When the State promotes, teaches, or actually imposes forms of practical atheism, it deprives its citizens of the moral and spiritual strength that is indispensable for attaining integral human development and it impedes them from moving forward with renewed dynamism as they strive to offer a more generous human response to divine love [71]. In the context of cultural, commercial or political relations, it also sometimes happens that economically developed or emerging countries export this reductive vision of the person and his destiny to poor countries. This is the damage that “superdevelopment”[72] causes to authentic development when it is accompanied by “moral underdevelopment” [73].

Notes: [71] Cf. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est, 1: loc. cit., 217-218. [72] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 28: loc. cit., 548-550. [73] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter  Populorum Progressio, 19: loc. cit., 266-267.

Pope John XXIII: The social question is becoming universal and involves all countries

CSDC 94a. The 1960s bring promising prospects: recovery after the devastation of the war, the beginning of decolonization, and the first timid signs of a thaw in the relations between the American and Soviet blocs. This is the context within which Blessed Pope John XXIII reads deeply into the “signs of the times”[163]. The social question is becoming universal and involves all countries: together with the labour question and the Industrial Revolution, there come to the fore problems of agriculture, of developing regions, of increasing populations, and those concerning the need for global economic cooperation. Inequalities that in the past were experienced within nations are now becoming international and make the dramatic situation of the Third World ever more evident.

Notes: [163] Cf. John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris: AAS 55 (1963), 267-269, 278-279, 291, 295- 296. 

(Mt 19, 27-30) Transcendence of salvation and autonomy of earthly realities

[27] Then Peter said to him in reply, "We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?" [28] Jesus said to them, "Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. [29] And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life. [30] But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

 CSDC 45. Jesus Christ is the Son of God made man in whom and thanks to whom the world and man attain their authentic and full truth. The mystery of God's being infinitely close to man — brought about in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, who gave himself on the cross, abandoning himself to death — shows that the more that human realities are seen in the light of God's plan and lived in communion with God, the more they are empowered and liberated in their distinctive identity and in the freedom that is proper to them. Sharing in Christ's life of sonship, made possible by the Incarnation and the Paschal gift of the Spirit, far from being a mortification, has the effect of unleashing the authentic and independent traits and identity that characterize human beings in all their various expressions. This perspective leads to a correct approach to earthly realities and their autonomy, which is strongly emphasized by the teaching of the Second Vatican Council: “If by the autonomy of earthly affairs we mean that created things and societies themselves enjoy their own laws and values which must be gradually deciphered, put to use and regulated by men, then it is entirely right to demand that autonomy. This ... harmonizes also with the will of the Creator. For by the very circumstance of their having been created, all things are endowed with their own stability, truth, goodness, proper laws and order. Man must respect these as he isolates them by the appropriate methods of the individual sciences or arts”[48].

Notes: [48] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 36: AAS 58 (1966), 1054; Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree Apostolicam Actuositatem, 7: AAS 58 (1966), 843-844.

 

[Initials and Abbreviations.- CSDC: Pontifical Council for Justice And Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church; -  SDC: Social Doctrine of the Church; - CV: Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in truth)]