Luke 10, 25-28 + CSDC and CV
CV 37a. The
Church's social doctrine has always maintained that justice must be applied
to every phase of economic activity, because this is always concerned with
man and his needs. Locating resources, financing, production, consumption and
all the other phases in the economic cycle inevitably have moral implications.
Thus every economic decision has a moral consequence. The social sciences
and the direction taken by the contemporary economy point to the same conclusion.
Perhaps at one time it was conceivable that first the creation of wealth could
be entrusted to the economy, and then the task of distributing it could be
assigned to politics. Today that would be more difficult, given that economic
activity is no longer circumscribed within territorial limits, while the
authority of governments continues to be principally local. Hence the canons of
justice must be respected from the outset, as the economic process unfolds, and
not just afterwards or incidentally.
The principle of subsidiarity protects people from abuses
CSDC 187a. The
principle of subsidiarity protects people from abuses by higher-level social
authority and calls on these same authorities to help individuals and
intermediate groups to fulfill their duties. This principle is imperative
because every person, family and intermediate group has something original to
offer to the community. Experience shows that the denial of subsidiarity, or
its limitation in the name of an alleged democratization or equality of all
members of society, limits and sometimes even destroys the spirit of freedom
and initiative. The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to certain forms of
centralization, bureaucratization, and welfare assistance and to the
unjustified and excessive presence of the State in public mechanisms. “By
intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social
Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase
of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking
than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an
enormous increase in spending”[400].
Notes: [400] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus
Annus, 48: AAS 83 (1991), 854.
(Lk 10, 25-28) You shall love the Lord, your God, with all
your heart
25 There was a scholar of the law who
stood up to test him and said, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal
life?" 26 Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you
read it?" 27 He said in reply, "You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all
your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." 28 He replied to him, "You
have answered correctly; do this and you will live."
CSDC 32. Meditating on
the gratuitousness and superabundance of the Father's divine gift of the Son,
which Jesus taught and bore witness to by giving his life for us, the Apostle
John grasps its profound meaning and its most logical consequence. “Beloved, if
God so loves us, we also ought to love one another. No man has ever seen God;
if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 Jn
4:11-12). The reciprocity of love is required by the commandment that Jesus
describes as “new” and as “his”: “that you love one another; even as I have
loved you, that you also love one another” (Jn 13:34). The commandment of
mutual love shows how to live in Christ the Trinitarian life within the Church,
the Body of Christ, and how to transform history until it reaches its fulfillment
in the heavenly Jerusalem.
[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)]
No comments:
Post a Comment