Matthew 26, 17-25 + CSDC and CV

(CV 41b) With good reason, Paul VI taught that “everyone who works is a creator”[101]. It is in response to the needs and the dignity of the worker, as well as the needs of society, that there exist various types of business enterprise, over and above the simple distinction between “private” and “public”. Each of them requires and expresses a specific business capacity. In order to construct an economy that will soon be in a position to serve the national and global common good, it is appropriate to take account of this broader significance of business activity. It favours cross-fertilization between different types of business activity, with shifting of competences from the “non-profit” world to the “profit” world and vice versa, from the public world to that of civil society, from advanced economies to developing countries.

Notes: [101] Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 27: loc. cit., 271. 

The Church shows how these values are either affirmed or denied

CSDC 197c. Respect for the legitimate autonomy of earthly realities prompts the Church not to claim specific competence of a technical or temporal order[429], but it does not prevent her from intervening to show how, in the different choices made by men and women, these values are either affirmed or denied[430].

Notes: [429] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 36: AAS 58 (1966), 1053-1054. [430] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 1: AAS 58 (1966), 1025-1026; Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 13: AAS 59 (1967), 263-264.

(Mt 26, 17-25) Man's dignity demands that he act according to a knowing and free choice

[17] On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples approached Jesus and said, "Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?" [18] He said, "Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, 'The teacher says, "My appointed time draws near; in your house I shall celebrate the Passover with my disciples."'" [19] The disciples then did as Jesus had ordered, and prepared the Passover. [20] When it was evening, he reclined at table with the Twelve. [21] And while they were eating, he said, "Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me." [22] Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another, "Surely it is not I, Lord?" [23] He said in reply, "He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will betray me. [24] The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born." [25] Then Judas, his betrayer, said in reply, "Surely it is not I, Rabbi?" He answered, "You have said so."

CSDC 135. Man can turn to good only in freedom, which God has given to him as one of the highest signs of his image[251]: “For God has willed that man remain ‘under the control of his own decisions' (Sir 15:14), so that he can seek his Creator spontaneously, and come freely to utter and blissful perfection through loyalty to Him. Hence man's dignity demands that he act according to a knowing and free choice that is personally motivated and prompted from within, neither under blind internal impulse nor by mere external pressure”[252]. Man rightly appreciates freedom and strives for it passionately: rightly does he desire and must form and guide, by his own free initiative, his personal and social life, accepting personal responsibility for it[253]. In fact, freedom not only allows man suitably to modify the state of things outside of himself, but it also determines the growth of his being as a person through choices consistent with the true good[254]. In this way man generates himself, he is father of his own being[255], he constructs the social order[256]. 

Notes: [251] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1705. [252] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 17: AAS 58 (1966), 1037; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1730-1732. [253] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, 34: AAS 85 (1993), 1160- 1161; Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 17: AAS 58 (1966), 1038. [254] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1733. [255] Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, De Vita Moysis, II, 2-3: PG 44, 327B-328B: “unde fit, ut nos ipsi patres quodammodo simus nostri ... vitii ac virtutis ratione fingentes”. [256] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 13: AAS 83 (1991), 809-810.

[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)]