Reflection on the
Encyclical of Pope Benedict
XVI:
Caritas in Veritate
"It Is Also Possible
to Do Business by Pursuing Aims That Serve Society"
by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone
Vatican Secretary of State
Address Given to the Italian Senate
July 28, 2009
Benedict XVI begins his
Encyclical with a deep, comprehensive introduction in which he
reflects on and analyzes the words of the title which closely
link "caritas" and "veritas": love and truth. This is not only a
sort of "explicatio terminorum", an initial explanation which
seeks to point out the fundamental principles and perspectives
of his entire teaching. Indeed, like the musical theme of a
symphony, the theme of truth and charity then recurs throughout
the document precisely because, as the Pope writes, in it is
"the principal driving force behind the authentic development of
every person and of all humanity" [1].
But, we ask ourselves, which truth and which love are meant?
There is no doubt that today these very concepts give rise to
suspicion especially the term "truth" or are the object of
misunderstanding, and this is especially the case with the term
"love". This is why it is important to make clear which truth
and which love the Pope is addressing in his new Encyclical. The
Holy Father explains that these two fundamental realities are
neither extrinsic to man nor even imposed upon him in the name
of any kind of ideological vision; rather, they are deeply
rooted within the person. Indeed, "love and truth", the Pope
says, "are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of
every human person" [2], the person who, according to Sacred
Scripture, has been created precisely "as an image of the
Creator", in other words of the "God of the Bible, who is both "Agápe"
and "Lógos": Charity and Truth, Love and Word [3].
This reality is testified to us not only by biblical Revelation
but can be grasped by every person of good will who uses right
reason in reflecting on himself [4]. In this regard, several
passages of an important and meaningful Document that came out
just before Caritas in veritate seem to illustrate this view
clearly. The International Theological Commission in recent
months has given us a text entitled "The Search for Universal
Ethics: A New Look at Natural Law". It addresses topics of great
importance which I wish to point out and to recommend especially
in this context of the Senate, that is, an institution whose
main function is legislative. Indeed, as the Holy Father said to
the United Nations Assembly in New York during his Visit last
year to their headquarters [5], sometimes called the "glass
palace", speaking about the foundation of human rights: These
rights "are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts
and present in different cultures and civilizations. Removing
human rights from this context would mean restricting their
range and yielding to a relativistic conception, according to
which the meaning and interpretation of rights could vary and
their universality would be denied in the name of different
cultural, political, social and even religious outlooks". These
reflections do not apply solely to human rights. They apply to
every intervention by the legitimate authority called to
regulate the life of the community in accordance with true
justice by means of legislation that is not the result of a mere
conventional agreement but aims at the authentic good of the
person and of society and hence refers to this natural law.
Now, expounding on the reality of natural law, the International
Theological Commission describes precisely how truth and love
are essential requirements of every person and are deeply rooted
in his being. "In his search for moral good, the human person
should recognize what he is and be aware of the fundamental
inclinations of his nature" [6], which orient him toward the
goods necessary for his moral fulfilment. As is well known, "a
distinction has traditionally been made between three important
forms of natural dynamism.... The first, in common with every
essential being, is comprised of the fundamental instinct to
preserve and develop one's own existence. The second, which is
shared by all living beings, includes the inclination to
reproduce in order to perpetuate the species. The third, which
is proper to man as a rational being, constitutes the
inclination to know the truth about God and to live in society"
[7]. Examining in depth this third form of dynamism which is
found in every individual, the International Theological
Commission declares that it is "specific to the human being as a
spiritual being, endowed with reason, capable of knowing the
truth, of entering into dialogue with others and of forming
social relationships.... His integral well-being is thus closely
linked to community life, which is organized in a political
society by virtue of a natural inclination and not a mere
convention. The person's relational character is also expressed
in his tendency to live in communion with God or the
Absolute....
Of course, it may be denied by those who refuse to admit the
existence of a personal God, but it remains implicitly present
in the search for truth and for meaning that is present in every
human being" [8].
Man, therefore, through the "breadth of reason" [9], is made to
know the truth in its full depth by "broadening [his] concept of
reason", in other words, not limiting himself to acquiring
technical knowledge in order to dominate material reality but
rather opening himself to the very encounter with the
Transcendent and to living fully the interpersonal dimension of
love, "the principle not only of micro-relationships (with
friends, with family members or within small groups) but also of
macro-relationships (social, economic and political ones)" [10].
"Veritas" and "caritas" themselves point out to us the
requirements of the natural law which Benedict XVI places as a
fundamental criterion for moral reflection on the current
socio-economic reality: "'Caritas in veritate' is the principle
around which the Church's social doctrine turns, a principle
that takes on practical form in the criteria that govern moral
action" [11].
Using a cogent expression, the Holy Father thus affirms that
"the Church's social teaching... is "caritas in veritate in re
sociali": the proclamation of the truth of Christ's love in
society. This doctrine is a service to charity, but its locus is
truth" [12].
What the Encyclical suggests is neither ideological nor
exclusively reserved to those who share belief in the divine
Revelation. Rather, it is based on fundamental anthropological
realities such as, precisely, truth and charity properly
understood or, as the Encyclical itself says, given to the human
being and received by him, but neither planned nor willed by him
[13]. Benedict XVI wants to remind everyone that it is only by
being anchored to this double criterion of "veritas" and
"caritas", inseparably bound together, that it is possible to
build the authentic good of the human being who is made for
truth and love. According to the Holy Father, "only in charity,
illumined by the light of reason and faith, is it possible to
pursue development goals that possess a more humane and
humanizing value" [14].
After this indispensable introduction, of which I have chosen to
highlight some of the anthropological and theological aspects of
the Papal text that may have attracted fewer comments from
journalists, I would now like to explain just a few points,
without claiming to cover the vast content of the Encyclical.
Moreover, authoritative commentators have already published
specific reflections on it in L'Osservatore Romano and
elsewhere.
An important message that comes to us from Caritas in veritate
is the invitation to supersede the now obsolete dichotomy
between the financial sphere and the social sphere. Modernity
has bequeathed to us the idea on the basis of which, if we are
to be able to operate in the field of the economy, it is
essential to achieve a profit and to be motivated chiefly by
self-interest; as if to say that if we do not seek the highest
profit we are not proper entrepreneurs. Should this not be the
case, we must be content with belonging to the social sphere.
This conceptualization, that confuses the market economy that is
the genus with its own particular species which is the
capitalist system, has led to identifying the economy with the
place where wealth or income is generated, and society with the
place of solidarity for its fair distribution.
Caritas in veritate tells us instead that it is also possible to
do business by pursuing aims that serve society and are inspired
by pro-social motives. This is a practical way, if not the only
one, of bridging the gap between the economic and the social
spheres, given that an economic activity which did not
incorporate the social dimension would not be ethically
acceptable. It is likewise true that a social policy concerned
only with redistribution, that failed to reckon with the
available resources, would not be sustainable in the long run:
in fact, production must precede distribution.
We should be particularly grateful to Benedict XVI for wishing
to emphasize the fact that economic action is not separate from
or alien to the cornerstones of the Church's social teaching
such as: the centrality of the human person, solidarity,
subsidariety, the common good.
It is necessary to supersede the current concept which expects
the Church's social teaching and values to be confined to social
activities, while experts in efficiency would be charged with
guiding the economy. It is the merit and certainly not a
secondary one of this Encyclical to contribute to remedying this
gap which is both cultural and political.
Contrary to what people think, efficiency is not the fundamentum
divisionis for distinguishing between what is business and what
is not, for the simple reason that "efficiency" is a category
that belongs to the order of means and not of ends. Indeed,
efficiency is indispensable in order to achieve as well as
possible the purpose one has freely chosen to give one's action.
The entrepreneur who gives priority to efficiency that is an end
in itself risks being caught by one of the most frequent causes
of the destruction of wealth today, as the current economic and
financial crisis sadly confirms.
To expand briefly on this theme, to say "market" means saying
"competition", in the sense that the market cannot exist where
there is no competition (even if the opposite is not true). And
there is no one who can fail to see that the fruitfulness of
competition lies in the fact that it implies tension, the
dialectic that presupposes the presence of another and the
relationship with another. Without tension there is no movement,
but the movement this is the point to which tension gives rise
can also be fatal; in other words it can generate death.
If the purpose of economic action is not synonymous with
striving for a common goal as the Latin etymology "cum-petere"
would clearly indicate but rather with Hobbes' theory, "mors tua,
vita mea" [your death is my life], then the social bond is
reduced to commercial relations and economic activity tends to
become inhuman, hence ultimately inefficient. Therefore, even in
competition, "the Church's social doctrine holds that
authentically human social relationships of friendship,
solidarity and reciprocity can also be conducted within economic
activity, and not only outside it or "after" it. The economic
sphere is neither ethically neutral, nor inherently inhuman and
opposed to society. It is part and parcel of human activity and
precisely because it is human, it must be structured and
governed in an ethical manner" [15].
Well, the advantage by no means small that Caritas in veritate
offers us is to give special consideration to the concept of
market, typical of the tradition of the thought of civil
economics, according to which it is possible to live the
experience of human sociality within a normal economic life and
not outside or beside it. This concept might be defined as an
alternative, both regarding the concept that sees the market as
a place for the exploitation and abuse of the weak by the
strong, and the concept which, in line with
anarchic-liberalistic thought, sees it as a place that can
provide solutions to all the problems of society.
This way of doing business is differentiated from that of the
traditional Smithian economy, which sees the market as the only
institution truly necessary for democracy and freedom. The
Church's social doctrine, on the other hand, reminds us that a
sound society is certainly the product of the market and of
freedom, but there are needs that stem from the principle of
brotherhood that can neither be avoided nor be referred solely
to the private sphere or to philanthropy. Rather, the Church's
social doctrine proposes a humanism with various dimensions, in
which the market is not combated or "controlled" but is seen as
an important institution in the public sphere a sphere which far
exceeds State control which, if it is conceived of and lived as
a place that is also open to the principles of reciprocity and
of giving, can construct a healthy civil coexistence.
I shall now examine one of the themes in the Encyclical which
seems to me to have attracted some public interest because of
the newness of the principles of brotherhood and free giving in
economic activity. "Social and political development, if it is
to be authentically human", Pope Benedict XVI says, needs "to
make room for the principle of gratuitousness" [16]. "Internal
forms of solidarity" are essential. The chapter on the
cooperation of the human family is significant in this regard.
In it the Pope stresses that "the development of peoples
depends, above all, on a recognition that the human race is a
single family", which is why "thinking of this kind requires a
deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation". And
further: "The theme of development can be identified with the
inclusion-in-relation of all individuals and peoples within the
one community of the human family, built in solidarity on the
basis of the fundamental values of justice and peace" [17].
The key word that today expresses this need better than any
other is "brotherhood". It was the Franciscan school of thought
that gave this term the meaning it has retained over the course
of time and that constitutes the complement and exaltation of
the principle of solidarity. In fact, whereas solidarity is the
principle of social organization that permits those who are
unequal to become equal through their equal dignity and their
fundamental rights, the principle of brotherhood is that
principle of social organization which permits equals to be
different, in the sense that they are able to express their plan
of life or their charism in different ways.
Let me explain more clearly. The periods we have left behind us,
the 19th century and especially the 20th century, were marked by
great battles both cultural and political in the name of
solidarity. This was a good thing; only think of the history of
the trade union movement and of the fight to obtain civil
rights. The point is that a society oriented to the common good
cannot stop at solidarity because it needs a solidarity that
reflects brotherhood, given that while a fraternal society also
shows solidarity, the opposite is not necessarily true.
If one overlooks the unsustainability of a human society in
which the sense of brotherhood is lacking and in which
everything revolves around improving transactions based on the
exchange of equivalents or to increasing transfers actuated by
public structures for social assistance it then becomes clear
why, in spite of the quality of the intellectual forces at work,
we have not yet found a credible solution to the great trade-off
between efficiency and equity. Caritas in veritate helps us to
realize that society can have no future if the principle of
brotherhood is lost. In other words, society cannot progress if
the logic of "giving in order to have" or of "giving as a duty"
is the only one that exists and develops. This is why neither
the liberal-individualistic vision of the world, in which
(almost) everything is exchange, nor the State-centred vision of
society, in which (almost) everything is based on obligation,
are reliable guides to lead us out of the shallows in which our
societies today have run aground.
Then we ask ourselves the question: why is the perspective of
the common good as it has been formulated by the Church's social
doctrine, which was banished from the scene for at least two
centuries, re-emerging like an underground river? Why is the
transition from national markets to the global market that has
taken place over the last 25 years rendering the topic of the
common good timely once again? I note in passing that what is
occurring is part of a broader movement of ideas in economics, a
movement whose goal is the link between a religious sense and
economic performance. On the basis of the consideration that
religious beliefs are of crucial importance in forging people's
cognitive maps and in shaping the social norms of behaviour,
this movement of ideas is seeking to investigate how far the
prevalence in a specific country (or territory) of a certain
religious matrix influences the formation of categories of
economic thought, welfare programmes, educational policies and
so forth. After a long period, during which the celebrated
theses of secularization appeared to have had the last word on
the religious question at least insofar as the economic field is
concerned what is happening today appears truly paradoxical.
It is not difficult to explain the return to the contemporary
cultural debate in the perspective of the common good, a true
and proper symbol of Catholic ethics in the social and economic
field. As John Paul ii explained on many occasions, the Church's
social teaching should not be considered as yet another ethical
theory as regards the numerous theories already available in
literature. Instead it should be seen as their "common grammar",
since it is based on a specific viewpoint, the preservation of
the human good. In truth, while the various ethical theories are
rooted either in the search for rules (as happens in the
positivist doctrine of natural law), or in action (as in Rawls'
neo-contractualism or neo-utilitarianism), the social doctrine
of the Church embraces "being with" as its Archimedean point.
The ethical sense of the common good explains that in order to
understand human action we must see it from the perspective of
the acting person [18] and not from the viewpoint of the third
person (as does natural law) or of the impartial spectator (as
Adam Smith had suggested). In fact since the moral good is a
practical reality, it is known first and foremost by those who
practise it rather than by those who theorize about it. They can
identify it and hence choose it unhesitatingly every time it is
questioned.
Next, let us speak of the principle of free giving in the
economy. What would be the practical consequence of applying the
principle of free giving in economic activity? Pope Benedict XVI
replies that the market and politics need "individuals who are
open to reciprocal gift" [19]. The consequence of acknowledging
that the principle of gratuitousness has a priority place in
economic life has to do with the dissemination of culture and of
the practice of reciprocity.
Together with democracy, reciprocity defined by Benedict XVI as
"the heart of what it is to be a human being" [20] is a founding
value of a society. Indeed, it could also be maintained that
democratic rule draws its ultimate meaning from reciprocity.
In what "places" is reciprocity at home? In other words, where
is it practised and nourished? The family is the first of these
places: only think of the relationships between parents and
children and between siblings. It is in the context of one's
family that the relationship characteristic of brotherhood and
based on giving develops. Then there are the cooperative, the
social enterprise and associations in their various forms. Is it
not true that the relationship between family members or the
members of a cooperative are relations of reciprocity? Today we
know that a country's civil and economic progress depends
fundamentally on the extent to which reciprocity is practised by
its citizens. Today there is an immense need for cooperation:
this is why we need to extend the forms of free giving and to
reinforce those that already exist. Societies that uproot the
tree of reciprocity from their land are destined to decline, as
history has been teaching us for years.
What is the proper role of the gift? It is to make people
understand that beside the goods of justice are the goods of
gratuitousness and, consequently, that the society whose members
are content with the goods of justice alone is not authentically
human. The Pope speaks of "the astonishing experience of gift"
[21].
What is the difference? The goods of justice are those that
derive from a duty. The goods of giving freely are those that
are born from an obbligatio. That is, they are goods born from
the recognition that I am bound to another and that, in a
certain sense he is a constitutive part of me. This is why the
logic of gratuitousness cannot be simplistically reduced to a
purely ethical dimension. Indeed, gratuitousness is not an
ethical virtue. Justice, as Plato formerly taught, is an ethical
virtue, and we are all in agreement as to the importance of
justice; but gratuitousness concerns rather the supra-ethical
dimension of human action because its logic is superabundance,
whereas the logic of justice is the logic of equivalence. Well,
Caritas in veritate tells us that to function well and to
progress, a society needs to have in its economic praxis people
who understand what the goods of gratuitousness entail, in other
words, who understand that we must let the principle of
gratuitousness circulate anew in the channels of our society.
Benedict XVI asks us to restore the principle of gift to the
public sphere. The authentic gift affirming the primacy of
relationship over its reciprocation, of the inter-subjective
bond over the good that is given, of personal identity over
assets must find room for expression everywhere, in every
context of human action, including the economy. The message that
Caritas in veritate offers us is to think of gratuitousness
hence brotherhood as a symbol of the human condition and thus to
see the practice of giving as the indispensable prerequisite for
the State and the market to function, with the common good as
their goal. Without the widespread practice of giving, it would
still be possible to have an efficient market and an
authoritative (and even just) State, but people would certainly
not be helped to achieve joie de vivre. Because, even if
efficiency and justice are combined, they are not enough to
guarantee people's happiness.
In Caritas in veritate Pope Benedict XVI reflects on the
profound (and not on the immediate) causes of the current
crisis. It is not my intention to review them and I shall limit
myself to summing up the three principal factors of the crisis,
identified and examined.
The first concerns the radical change in the relationship
between finance and the production of goods and services which
has gradually been consolidated in the past 30 years. From the
mid-1970s various Western countries have based their promises of
pension funds on investments that depended on the sustainable
profitability of the new financial instruments, thereby exposing
the real economy to the caprices of finance and generating the
growing need to earmark value-added quotas to the remuneration
of savings invested in these. The pressure on businesses
deriving from stock exchanges and private equity funds have had
repercussions in various directions: on directors, obliged to
continuously improve the performance of their management in
order to receive a growing number of stock options; on
consumers, to convince them to buy more and more, even in the
absence of purchasing power; on businesses of the real economy
to convince them to increase the value for the shareholder.
And so it was that the persistent demand for increasingly
brilliant financial results had repercussions on the entire
economic system, to the point that it became a true and proper
cultural model.
The second factor that contributed to causing the crisis was the
dissemination in popular culture of the ethos of efficiency as
the ultimate criterion of judgement and the justification of the
financial reality. On the one hand, this ended by legitimizing
greed which is the best known and most widespread form of
avarice as a sort of civic virtue: the greed market that
replaces the free market. "Greed is good, greed is right",
preached Gordon Gekko, who starred in Wall Street, the famous
1987 film.
Lastly, in Caritas in veritate the Pope does not omit to reflect
on the cause of the causes of the crisis: the specificity of the
cultural matrix that was consolidated in recent decades on the
wave of the globalization process on the one hand, and on the
other, with the advent of the third industrial revolution, the
revolution of information technology. One specific aspect of
this matrix concerns the ever more widespread dissatisfaction
with the way of interpreting the principle of freedom. As is
well known, there are three constitutive dimensions of freedom:
autonomy, immunity, and empowerment.
Autonomy means freedom of choice: one is not free unless one is
in a position to choose. Immunity, on the other hand, means the
absence of coercion by some external agent. It is substantially
negative freedom (in other words it is "freedom from"). Lastly,
empowerment (literally: the capacity for action) means the
capacity to choose, that is, for achieving the objectives, at
least in part or to some extent, that the person has set
himself. One is not free even if one succeeds (even only
partially) in realizing one's plan of life.
As can be understood, the challenge is to bring together all
three dimensions of freedom: this is the reason why the paradigm
of the common good appears as a particularly interesting
perspective to explore.
In the light of what has been said above, we can understand why
the financial crisis cannot claim to be an unexpected or
inexplicable event. This is why, without taking anything from
the indispensable interventions in a regulatory key or from the
necessary new forms of control, we shall not succeed in
preventing similar episodes from arising in the future unless
the evil is attacked at the root, or in other words, unless we
intervene by dealing with the cultural matrix that supports the
economic system. This crisis sends a double message to the
Government authorities. In the first place, that the sacrosanct
criticism of the "intervening State" can in no way ignore the
central role of the "regulatory State". Secondly, that the
public authorities at different levels of government, must
allow, indeed enhance, the emergence and reinforcement of a
pluralist financial market. A market, in other words, should
allow different people to work in conditions of objective parity
to achieve the specific aim they have set themselves. I am
thinking of the regional banks, of cooperative credit banks,
ethical banks, of various ethical foundations. These are bodies
that not only propose creative finance to their branches but
above all play a complementary, hence balancing, role with
regard to the agents of speculative finance. If in recent
decades the financial authorities had removed the many
restrictions that burden agents in alternative finance, today's
crisis would not have had the devastating power that we are
experiencing.
Before concluding, I would like to thank Hon. Mr Renato Schifani,
President of the Senate of the Italian Republic, for permitting
me to explain to this qualified audience several features of
Benedict XVI's latest Encyclical.
In a certain way it is as if today the Holy Father were
returning to the Headquarters of the Senate of the Republic,
where, in the Library of the Senate on 13 May 2004, the
then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger gave an unforgettable "lectio
magistralis" on the theme: "Europe. Its spiritual foundations
yesterday, today and tomorrow".
It is interesting to note how, in that discourse, among other
things the future Pontiff touched on certain topics that we
rediscover today in his most recent Encyclical. Let us think,
for example, of the affirmation of the profound reason for the
dignity of the person and of his rights: "they are not created
by the legislator", the then- Cardinal Ratzinger said, "nor are
they conferred upon citizens, "but rather they exist through
their own law, they are always to be respected by the
legislator, they are given to him in advance as values of a
superior order". This validity of human dignity prior to any
political action and any political decision refers ultimately to
the Creator; he alone can establish values that are based on the
essence of the human being and are intangible. That there are
values that cannot be manipulated by anyone is the true and
proper guarantee of our freedom and of human greatness; the
Christian faith sees in this the mystery of the Creator and of
the condition of the image of God who has conferred them on
man". In Caritas in veritate Benedict XVI repeats that "human
rights risk being ignored" when "they are robbed of their
transcendent foundation" [22], that is, when people forget that
"God is the guarantor of man's true development, inasmuch as,
having created him in his image, he also established the
transcendent dignity of men and women" [23].
Further, in the "lectio magistralis" given five years ago, the
current Pontiff recalled that "a second point in which the
European identity appears is marriage and the family. Monogamic
marriage, as a fundamental structure of the relationship between
a man and a woman and at the same time as a cell in the
formation of the State community, was forged on the basis of
biblical faith. It has given its special features and its
special humanity to Western and Eastern Europe, also and
precisely because the form of fidelity and renunciation outlined
here must always be acquired anew, with great effort and much
suffering.
Europe would no longer be Europe if this fundamental cell of its
social edifice were to disappear or to be essentially altered".
In Caritas in veritate this warning is extended until it becomes
universal, we might say global, and reaches all who are
responsible for public life; we read in it, in fact: "It is thus
becoming a social and even economic necessity once more to hold
up to future generations the beauty of marriage and the family,
and the fact that these institutions correspond to the deepest
needs and dignity of the person. In view of this, States are
called to enact policies promoting the centrality and the
integrity of the family founded on marriage between a man and a
woman, the primary vital cell of society, and to assume
responsibility for its economic and fiscal needs, while
respecting its essentially relational character" [24].
Of course, Caritas in veritate is addressed, as it says in its
official title, to all the members of the Catholic Church and to
"all people of good will". Yet, because of the principles it
illumines, the problems it tackles and the guidelines it offers,
it seems to me that this Papal Document which gave rise to so
many expectations beforehand and then to so much attention and
appreciation, especially in the social, political and economic
contexts can find a special echo in this institutional
Headquarters of the Senate of the Republic. I am convinced that,
over and above differences in training and in personal
conviction, those who have the delicate and honourable
responsibility of representing the Italian people and of
exercising legislative power during their mandate, may find in
the Pope's words a lofty and profound inspiration for carrying
out their mission so as to respond adequately to the ethical,
cultural and social challenges which call us into question today
and which, with great lucidity and completeness, the Encyclical
Caritas in veritate sets before us. My hope is that this
document of the ecclesial Magisterium which I have endeavoured
to describe to you today, at least in part, may find here the
attention it deserves and thus bear positive and abundant fruit
for the good of every person and of the entire human family,
starting with the beloved Italian Nation.
--- --- ---
Notes
[1] Caritas in veritate, n. 1
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., n. 3.
[4] "Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity.
That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith,
through which the intellect attains to the natural and
supernatural truth of charity" (ibid.).
[5] Discourse to the General Assembly of the United Nations
Organization, 18 April 2008.
[6] The Search for Universal Ethics: A New Look at Natural Law,
n. 45.
[7] Ibid., n. 46.
[8] Ibid., n. 50.
[9] Discourse to the University of Regensburg, 12 September
2006.
[10] Caritas in Veritate, n. 2
[11] Ibid., n. 6.
[12] Ibid., n. 5.
[13] "Truth which is itself a gift, in the same way as charity
is greater than we are, as St Augustine teaches. Likewise the
truth of ourselves, of our personal conscience, is first of all
given to us. In every cognitive process, truth is not something
that we produce, it is always found, or better, received. Truth,
like love, 'is neither planned nor willed, but somehow imposes
itself upon human beings'" (Caritas in Veritate, n. 34).
[14] Ibid., n. 9.
[15] Ibid., n. 36.
[16] Ibid., n. 34.
[17] Ibid., nn. 53-54.
[18] Cf. Veritatis Splendor, n. 78.
[19] Cf. ibid., nn. 35-39.
[20] Ibid., n. 57.
[21] Ibid., n. 34.
[22] Ibid., n. 56.
[23] Ibid., n. 29.
[24] Ibid., n. 44.
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