Social teachings of the church pre

• Encyclicals are circular letters concerned with matters which
affect faith and morals’
• All encyclicals are meant for the Roman Catholic Church but
social encyclicals speak to all people of good will.
• The Catholic social encyclicals constitute “a systematic and
authoritative articulation of Catholic thinking on economics
and business matters”

• Social encyclicals address the issues
related to the right of workers and
economic justice.
• Caritas in Veritate (CV) is among the
social encyclicals.
• CV was published by pope Benedict XVI
on June 29, 2009 on the solemnity of the
holy apostles Peter and Paul which was
few days to the G8 summit meeting that
was held in Italy but had been
anticipated in 2007.

• . This encyclical followed the themes of
Populorum Progressio by Paul VI, calling it the
Rerum Novarum of the present age.
• The publication came after the 2008 financial
crisis which most economist considers to be the
worst financial crisis since the Great Depression
of the 1930s.
• The encyclical addressed the question of how to
integrate human development in charity and
truth.

ISSUES ADDRESSED IN CV
• Naughton (2011) pointed out that among the
issues addressed includes:
• globalization and the current crisis of the
relationship between ethics and economics,
• the purpose of business,
• the meaning of business ethics,
• the role of technology

• problems related to development and
poverty,
• issues of global ecology,
• responsibility towards stakeholders,
• virtues in managing business,
• new forms of business and business ethics
• and economic life in general.

• The encyclical examined and applied several principles
of the Catholic Social Teachings.
• The Catholic Social Teachings has it sources from
scriptures among others which forms the principles.
• The principles applied in CV were
• centrality of the human person,
• the common good,
• principles of solidarity and
• the universal destination of goods.

ENCYCLICALS ON ECONOMIC JUSTICE
• The catholic Church have always
responded to the issues that regards to
the well being of not only the catholic but
the world at large.
• The following were the documents in the
Catholic church that addresses the issues
of economic justice

Year Author Latin Title English Title
1891 Leo XIII Rerum Novarum The Condition of
Labour
1931 Pius XI Quadragesimo Anno After Forty Years
1961 John XXIII Mater et Magistra Christianity and Social
Progress
1965 Vatican II Gaudium et Spes Pastoral Constitution
on the Church in the
Modern World
1967 Paul VI Populorum Progressio On the Development of
Peoples

1979 CELAM Puebla Conference
Documents
1981 John Paul II Laborem Exercens On Human Work
(90th Anniversary)
1986 USCCB Economic Justice for
All
1987 John Paul II Sollicitudo Rei
Socialis
On Social Concern
(20th Anniversary of
on the Development
of Peoples)

1991 John Paul II Centesimus Annus On the Hundredth
Anniversary
2009 Benedict XVI Caritas in Veritate Charity in Truth
(intended for the
40th Anniversary of
on the Development
of peoples in 2007,
but was delayed.)

LOVE IN TRUTH (CARITAS IN VERITATE)
• Love is the moral foundation for economic and
business ethics.
• Love grows with the truth and entails justice

–“to love is to give, to offer what is ‘mine’ to the
other; but it never lacks justice, which prompts
us to give the other what is ‘his/her’, what is
due to him/her by reason of being or acting. I
cannot ‘give’ what is mine to the other, without
first giving him what pertains to him in justice
“(CV 6)
• Love as noted is the answer to the world’s
problem, as truth in the present world is
relativize.

CHAPTER ONE: THE MESSAGE OF POPULORUM
PROGRESSIO
• pope Benedict XVI focused on the work of
Pope Paul VI Populorum progressio.
• Pope Paul VI had noted that “the cause of
underdevelopment are not primarily of the
material order” but “the lack of brotherhood
among individuals and peoples”.

CHAPTER TWO: HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN OUR
TIME
• The pope in addressing the question of human development
noted four critical areas:
• Hunger: the pope noted that this phenomenon exits
primarily because of lack of social resources.
• The pope suggested ways of overcoming such.
• Respect for life: demographic control, the promotion of
contraceptives, the imposition of abortion, the practice of
sterilization (often linked to dubious and deceitful health
policies).
• laws permitting euthanasia

• Religious freedom: the pope warms about religious
fundamentalism and noting that “violence puts the brakes on
authentic development” which applies especially to terrorism
that is sorely motivated by fundamentalism.
• Disciplinary collaboration: for a true development to take
place, there is need for exchange of knowledge. The pope
noted that when different disciplinary such as faith,
metaphysics, and science because the pope had noted that
underdevelopment is not just lack of technical expertise, but a
serious lack of “wisdom and reflection, a lack of thinking
capable of formulating a guiding synthesis, for which a clear
vision of all economic social, cultural and spiritual aspects
required” (31-33)

CHAPTER THREE: FRATERNITY, ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT AND CIVIL SOCIETY
• The pope emphasis the need to have a “civilized economy”
which means that the economy needs to based on solidarity
which shows how both the market and politics need
individuals who are open to reciprocal gift;
• The pope appreciated the new forms of business but warms
that “one of the greatest risks for business is that they are
almost exclusively answerable to their investors, thereby
limiting their social values” (40).

CHAPTER FIVE: THE DEVELOPMENT OF PEOPLE
RIGHTS AND DUTIES. THE ENVIRONMENT
• The pope at the introduction focuses on the growing
population;
• The pope further restated in this chapter that “sexuality
cannot be reduced merely to pleasure or entertainment”
• The pope in addressing the issues that concerns the
economy that “the economy needs ethics in order to
function correctly” and further added that not any ethics just
any ethics but the ethics which is people-centered

• The pope addressing the issue of development pointed “the
fact that some states, power groups and companies hoard
non-renewable energy resources represents a grave obstacle
to development in poor countries. … technologically advance
societies can and must lower their domestic energy
consumption”.
• encouraged on research into alternative forms of energy.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE COOPERATION OF THE HUMAN
FAMILY
• The pope noted that human race is a single family as pope
Francis had later called the earth our common home;
• The pope further observed that the religious groups can
contribute to the development if “God has a place in the
public realm”.;
• The pope uses article 55 to point out the problem of
religious culture that divide people from each other;

• The role of subsidiarity in the pope’s message is that
subsidiarity is “particularly well-suited to managing
globalization and directing it towards authentic human
development”.
• The pope in the making the principle more practical urged
then, that the powerful countries (G8) “to allocate larger
portions of their gross domestic product to development aid”

• The pope further pointed out new form of poverty. The pope
noted that “one of the deepest forms of poverty a person can
experienced is isolation” (53). This includes isolation from not
being love and from rejecting God’s love;
• The pope also addressed the problem of migrants saying that:
an migrant “is a human person who, as such, possesses
fundamental, inalienable rights that must be respected by
everyone and in every circumstance”;
• The pope’s finial message in this chapter strongly felt need for
a reform of the United Nations and of economic institutions
and international finance

CHAPTER SIX: THE DEVELOPMENT OF PEOPLES AND
TECHNOLOGY
• Most people believe that with technology that nearly
everything is possible even brining someone back to life
which has failed over the past years;
• The pope pointed out that “reason without faith is doomed
to flounder in an illusion of its own omnipotence”;
• This illusion as noted can be seen in the various research of
embryos and cloning which “is being promoted in today’s
highly disillusioned culture which believes it has mastered
every mystery”.

• the pope in article 76-77 warms that the many
“social and psychological alienation and the
many neuroses that afflict affluent societies are
attributable in part to spiritual factors” and
further noted that “the supremacy of technology
tends to prevent people from recognizing
anything that cannot be explained in terms of
matter alone”

RELEVANCE OF LOVE IN TRUTH
1. It calls for the civilization of the economy. (CV 38). The
economic initiatives which is without rejecting profits, aim at
a higher goal than the mere logic of the exchange of
equivalents, of profits as an end in itself.
2. It calls for the full development of the human person which
is founded or established on the principles of common
good.
3. The relation between a person must trump the relation
between the goods exchanged. In the world of capitalism,
there should exit a form of solidarity and mutual trust with
each other.

4. The encyclical calls on the employers to respect the right of
the workers. This is because of the exploitations of workers
for economic gains.
5. “In many cases, poverty results from a violation of the
dignity of human work, either because work opportunities
are limited …, or because a low value is put on work and
the rights that flow from it, especially the right to a just
wage and to the personal security of the worker and his or
her family” (63). The issues of poverty in a capitalist system
is because workers are not treated with much dignity.

6. Prudence should be applied in the use or the exploitation of
non-renewable resources because of the environmental harm
and future generation not meeting any natural resources. It is a
caution on consumerism. This is an aspect of environmental
conservation as the pope noted that research needs to be
conducted on the use of alternative resource as compared to
the non-renewable products.
7. The pope warms about the use of technology as a means to
answering all earthly questions and mysteries and further
emphasis on the illusion caused by the use of technology.
8. The relation between a person must trump the relation between
the goods exchanged. In the world of capitalism, there should
exit a form of solidarity and mutual trust with each other.

• The root cause of poverty. “In many cases, poverty results
from a violation of the dignity of human work, either because
work opportunities are limited …, or because a low value is
put on work and the rights that flow from it, especially the
right to a just wage and to the personal security of the
worker and his or her family” (63). The issues of poverty in a
capitalist system is because workers are not treated with
much dignity.

• German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated: ‘‘Pope Benedict
has encouraged the state leaders to create rules so that this
sort of worldwide economic crisis isn’t repeated’’, and
echoing the German social market economy, inspired to a
great extent by Catholic social teaching. The message of CV
is of great relevance to world leaders.
• It warms that religious fanaticism is hindrance to
development.

Social teachings of the church pre

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