Caritas in Veritate!

The long awaited (and delayed) social encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI was released today. A full version of the encyclical can be found at Whispers in the Loggia. In the coming days I will be posting on this, but at the moment this excerpt from an interview with Supreme Knight Carl Anderson today seems most appropriate:

Anderson also responded to some analyses of the encyclical that try to describe it as promoting either a liberal or conservative political viewpoint by saying, “I think that’s precisely the wrong way to look at the encyclical, and I think that Benedict would be very disappointed if that’s the kind of analysis we give it.”

“What we ought to be doing is reading the encyclical and seeing what we can learn from it, what we might change as a way of doing our work as a result from it, and not to see whether or not it validates one position,” he added.

Anderson explained that when we divide the encyclical or use it to justify one position over another, “we fall into an error that I think Benedict himself would be the first one to attempt to correct.”

He observed that the issues dealt with by the Pope, such as defense of marriage, protection of human life, and a call to reform the United Nations, are not really questions of the political right or left. Rather, they flow from a comprehensive and consistent understanding of the human person.

In addition, Anderson noted that many Americans may see the Pope’s call for “just redistribution” as a left-leaning proposal, but when viewed in a global perspective, the idea takes on a new light.

“When you look in Africa where you see dictators that are presidents of countries that retire from office with billions of dollars in their Swiss bank accounts while their people are living on one dollar a day, is that just redistribution? Is that a question of the left or is that a question of the right?”

Explaining that these topics are human issues rather than those belonging to any political party, Anderson said that discussions of right and left have no place in analyzing the Pope’s encyclical and putting it into practice.

“I think Christians, particularly Catholics, have to move beyond that if they want to truly see with the eyes of the Gospel,” he told CNA. “Because there was a Gospel before there was a left and a right, and there will be a Gospel after.”

SOURCE: Catholic News Agency (http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=16487, retrieved 7 July 2009)