Caritas “actions” speak, educate and evangelise, pope says
Today’s individualism requires a certain openness and capacity to listen to those in need. “A work of charity speaks of God, it announces a hope and induces us to ask questions.” The Church does not want to replace or soothe people’s civic conscience. It “accompanies them with a spirit of sincere collaboration, and with due concern for autonomy and subsidiarity.”
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – The actions that Caritas perform to help those in need are tools that enable them to speak, educate and evangelise. “A work of charity speaks of God, it announces a hope and induces us to ask questions,” especially when, “The individualism of our day, the alleged sufficiency of technology, the relativism that affects everyone, call us to rouse people and communities to higher forms of listening, to the ability to open eyes and hearts to needs and resources, towards forms of community discernment on how to be and to live in a world in the midst of profound change.”
This is what the various branches of Caritas, the Church’s charity organisations, do, Pope Benedict XVI said as he greeted their representatives in the Vatican Basilica to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the organisation’s foundation.
“Caritas,” the pope said, “has an important role to play in educating communities, families and civil society, where the Church is called to shed her light. This involves taking responsibility for educating people to the good life of the Gospel, and that life is good only if it includes the witness of charity.”
Actions, signs of charity, fulfil Caritas’ educational role. “You speak, evangelise and educate through actual works, in fact. A work of charity speaks of God, it announces a hope and induces us to ask questions.”
“I hope you can nurture, to the best of your abilities, the quality of the works you have created. Give them, so to speak, a voice, taking especially care of the inner voice that moves them and the quality of the witness that come from them.”
Such works “are born of the faith. They are works of the Church, expressions of her concern for those who suffer most. They are educational acts because they help the poor to grow in dignity, Christian communities to follow Christ and civil society to shoulder its obligations. Let us recall the teaching of Vatican Council II: 'demands of justice [must] be satisfied lest the giving of what is due in justice be represented as the offering of a charitable gift'. The Church's humble and concrete service does not seek to substitute, even less to assuage, collective and civic conscience, but accompanies them with a spirit of sincere collaboration, and with due concern for autonomy and subsidiarity.”
In fact, and without forgetting its “educational function”, it becomes a matter of using “the inventiveness of charity,” as Blessed John Paul II put it. There is a need for “listening, observation and discernment in the service of your mission, in the charity work performed in your communities and lands. It is a style that makes pastoral action possible and allows for a deep and fruitful dialogue in the various areas of Church life, with associations and movements, as well as the multifaceted world of organised voluntary work.”
“Care for local action can help understand the evolution of the lives of local people, their problems and concerns, but also their opportunities and prospects. Charity requires an open mind, a broad gaze, intuition and prediction, i.e. a “heart which sees” (cf Enc. Deus caritas est, 25). Responding to need means not only giving bread to the hungry, but also asking ourselves about the reasons for their hunger, using the gaze of Jesus Who could see the profound truth of the people around Him. In this perspective, our modern times are calling you to ask yourselves about the way you work for charity.
This is what the various branches of Caritas, the Church’s charity organisations, do, Pope Benedict XVI said as he greeted their representatives in the Vatican Basilica to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the organisation’s foundation.
“Caritas,” the pope said, “has an important role to play in educating communities, families and civil society, where the Church is called to shed her light. This involves taking responsibility for educating people to the good life of the Gospel, and that life is good only if it includes the witness of charity.”
Actions, signs of charity, fulfil Caritas’ educational role. “You speak, evangelise and educate through actual works, in fact. A work of charity speaks of God, it announces a hope and induces us to ask questions.”
“I hope you can nurture, to the best of your abilities, the quality of the works you have created. Give them, so to speak, a voice, taking especially care of the inner voice that moves them and the quality of the witness that come from them.”
Such works “are born of the faith. They are works of the Church, expressions of her concern for those who suffer most. They are educational acts because they help the poor to grow in dignity, Christian communities to follow Christ and civil society to shoulder its obligations. Let us recall the teaching of Vatican Council II: 'demands of justice [must] be satisfied lest the giving of what is due in justice be represented as the offering of a charitable gift'. The Church's humble and concrete service does not seek to substitute, even less to assuage, collective and civic conscience, but accompanies them with a spirit of sincere collaboration, and with due concern for autonomy and subsidiarity.”
In fact, and without forgetting its “educational function”, it becomes a matter of using “the inventiveness of charity,” as Blessed John Paul II put it. There is a need for “listening, observation and discernment in the service of your mission, in the charity work performed in your communities and lands. It is a style that makes pastoral action possible and allows for a deep and fruitful dialogue in the various areas of Church life, with associations and movements, as well as the multifaceted world of organised voluntary work.”
“Care for local action can help understand the evolution of the lives of local people, their problems and concerns, but also their opportunities and prospects. Charity requires an open mind, a broad gaze, intuition and prediction, i.e. a “heart which sees” (cf Enc. Deus caritas est, 25). Responding to need means not only giving bread to the hungry, but also asking ourselves about the reasons for their hunger, using the gaze of Jesus Who could see the profound truth of the people around Him. In this perspective, our modern times are calling you to ask yourselves about the way you work for charity.
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