Luke 16, 1-13 + CSDC and CV
CV 47b.
Development programmes, if they are to be adapted to individual situations,
need to be flexible; and the people who benefit from them ought to be directly
involved in their planning and implementation. The criteria to be applied
should aspire towards incremental development in a context of solidarity — with
careful monitoring of results — inasmuch as there are no universally valid
solutions. Much depends on the way programmes are managed in practice. “The
peoples themselves have the prime responsibility to work for their own
development. But they will not bring this about in isolation”[114]. These words of Paul VI are all the more timely
nowadays, as our world becomes progressively more integrated. The dynamics of
inclusion are hardly automatic. Solutions need to be carefully designed to
correspond to people's concrete lives, based on a prudential evaluation of each
situation. Alongside macro-projects, there is a place for micro-projects, and
above all there is need for the active mobilization of all the subjects of civil
society, both juridical and physical persons.
Notes: [114] Paul VI, Encyclical
Letter Populorum Progressio, 77: loc. cit., 295.
In the education of
children, the role of the father and that of the mother are equally necessary
CSDC 242. The family has the responsibility to provide an
integral education. Indeed, all true education “is directed towards the
formation of the human person in view of his final end and the good of that
society to which he belongs and in the duties of which he will, as an adult,
have a share”[550]. This integrality is ensured when children — with the
witness of life and in words — are educated in dialogue, encounter, sociality,
legality, solidarity and peace, through the cultivation of the fundamental
virtues of justice and charity[551]. In the education of children, the role of
the father and that of the mother are equally necessary.[552] The parents must
therefore work together. They must exercise authority with respect and
gentleness but also, when necessary, with firmness and vigor: it must be
credible, consistent, and wise and always exercised with a view to children's
integral good.
Notes: [550] Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council, Declaration Gravissimum Educationis, 1: AAS
58 (1966), 729. [551] Cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris
Consortio, 43: AAS 74 (1982), 134-135. [552] Cf. Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 52: AAS 58
(1966), 1073-1074.
(Lk 16,1-13) You cannot serve God and mammon
1 Then he also said to his disciples,
"A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his
property. 2 He summoned him and said, 'What is this I hear about you? Prepare a
full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.' 3
The steward said to himself, 'What shall I do, now that my master is taking the
position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am
ashamed to beg. 4 I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the
stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.' 5 He called in his master's
debtors one by one. To the first he said, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6 He
replied, 'One hundred measures of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Here is your
promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.' 7 Then to another
he said, 'And you, how much do you owe?' He replied, 'One hundred kors of
wheat.' He said to him, 'Here is your promissory note; write one for eighty.' 8
And the
master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. "For the children
of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are
the children of light. 9 I tell you, make friends for
yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed
into eternal dwellings. 10 The person who is trustworthy in very small matters
is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very
small matters is also dishonest in great ones. 11 If, therefore, you are not
trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth? 12 If
you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is
yours? 13 No servant 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."
CSDC 328. Goods, even
when legitimately owned, always have a universal destination; any type of
improper accumulation is immoral, because it openly contradicts the universal
destination assigned to all goods by the Creator. Christian salvation is an
integral liberation of man, which means being freed not only from need but also
in respect to possessions. “For the love of money is the root of all evils; it
is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith” (1 Tim
6:10). The Fathers of the Church insist more on the need for the conversion and
transformation of the consciences of believers than on the need to change the
social and political structures of their day. They call on those who work in
the economic sphere and who possess goods to consider themselves administrators
of the goods that God has entrusted to them.
[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)]
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