Mark 6, 30-34 + CSDC and CV

Mark 6, 30-34 + CSDC and CV

CV 74b. Yet the rationality of a self-centred use of technology proves to be irrational because it implies a decisive rejection of meaning and value. It is no coincidence that closing the door to transcendence brings one up short against a difficulty: how could being emerge from nothing, how could intelligence be born from chance? [153] Faced with these dramatic questions, reason and faith can come to each other's assistance. Only together will they save man. Entranced by an exclusive reliance on technology, reason without faith is doomed to flounder in an illusion of its own omnipotence. Faith without reason risks being cut off from everyday life [154]. 

Notes: [153] Cf. Benedict XVI, Address to the Participants in the Fourth National Congress of the Church in Italy, Verona, 19 October 2006; Id., Homily at Mass, Islinger Feld, Regensburg, 12 September 2006. [154] Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on certain bioethical questions Dignitas Personae (8 September 2008): AAS 100 (2008), 858-887.

The distinction between the political and religious spheres

CSDC 571a. The political commitment of Catholics is often placed in the context of the “autonomy” of the State, that is, the distinction between the political and religious spheres [1194]. This distinction “is a value that has been attained and recognized by the Catholic Church and belongs to the inheritance of contemporary civilization”[1195].

Notes: [1194] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 76: AAS 58 (1966), 1099-1100. [1195] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life (24 November 2002), 6: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City 2002, p. 11.

(Mk 6, 30-34) The inalienable dignity of the human person

[30] The apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught. [31] He said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while." People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat. [32] So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place. [33] People saw them leaving and many came to know about it. They hastened there on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them. [34] When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

CSDC 37. The Book of Genesis provides us with certain foundations of Christian anthropology: the inalienable dignity of the human person, the roots and guarantee of which are found in God's design of creation; the constitutive social nature of human beings, the prototype of which is found in the original relationship between man and woman, the union of whom “constitutes the first form of communion between persons”[38]; the meaning of human activity in the world, which is linked to the discovery and respect of the laws of nature that God has inscribed in the created universe, so that humanity may live in it and care for it in accordance with God's will. This vision of the human person, of society and of history is rooted in God and is ever more clearly seen when his plan of salvation becomes a reality.

Notes: [38] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 12: AAS 58 (1966), 1034.

[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)].