Matthew 6, 24-30 + CSDC and CV

(CV 8c) This continual application to contemporary circumstances began with the Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis,  with which the Servant of God Pope John Paul II chose to mark the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Populorum Progressio. Until that time, only Rerum Novarum  had been commemorated in this way. Now that a further twenty years have passed, I express my conviction that Populorum Progressio deserves to be considered “the Rerum Novarum of the present age”, shedding light upon humanity's journey towards unity.

Men and women are the primary and fundamental way for the Church

CSDC 62b. Society — and with it, politics, the economy, labour, law, culture — is not simply a secular and worldly reality, and therefore outside or foreign to the message and economy of salvation. Society in fact, with all that is accomplished within it, concerns man. Society is made up of men and women, who are “the primary and fundamental way for the Church”[79].

Notes:  [79] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis, 14: AAS 71 (1979), 284.

(Mt 6, 24-30) The universal destination of goods

[24] "No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. [25] "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat (or drink), or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? [26] Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? [27] Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? [28] Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. [29] But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. [30] If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?

CSDC 177. Christian tradition has never recognized the right to private property as absolute and untouchable: “On the contrary, it has always understood this right within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole of creation: the right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone”[372]. The principle of the universal destination of goods is an affirmation both of God's full and perennial lordship over every reality and of the requirement that the goods of creation remain ever destined to the development of the whole person and of all humanity[373]. This principle is not opposed to the right to private property[374] but indicates the need to regulate it. Private property, in fact, regardless of the concrete forms of the regulations and juridical norms relative to it, is in its essence only an instrument for respecting the principle of the universal destination of goods; in the final analysis, therefore, it is not an end but a means[375].

    

Notes: [372] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 14: AAS 73 (1981), 613. [373] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 69: AAS 58 (1966), 1090-1092; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2402-2406. [374] Cf. Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum: Acta Leonis XIII, 11 (1892), 102. [375] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 22-23: AAS 59 (1967), 268-269.

 

[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)]