Pope: evangelize society for a globalization for the common good
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - In the face of current imbalances and inequalities that fuel injustice in the distribution of resources and opportunities, especially against the poorest, while we are witnessing the revival of speculation in the financial field, but also in the price of food, water and energy, we need a new evangelization of society that will help "restore integral reason and revive thought and ethics". This was the central theme of Benedict XVI’s address today to participants at the international conference organized by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, on the 50th anniversary of the encyclical Mater et magistra of John XXIII, on the theme "Justice and Globalization : from Mater et Magistra to Caritas in veritate ".
"For Blessed John XXIII - the Pope observed - the Social Doctrine of the Church sees truth as the driving force behind Love, the objective of justice (cf. No. 209), a vision of the Social Doctrine, which I took up in my Encyclical "Caritas in veritate, a testimony to the continuity that holds together the entire corpus of the social encyclicals. The truth, love, justice, indicated by Mater et magistra, along with the principal of the universal destination of goods, as fundamental criteria for overcoming social and cultural imbalances, remain the pillars for interpreting and resolving the imbalances caused by today's globalisation. In the face of such imbalances there is a need to re-establish a 'whole reason' able to give rise to a rebirth of thought and ethics. It is necessary to develop 'humanistic cultural syntheses' open to transcendence through a 'new evangelisation'- rooted in the New Law of the Gospel, the law of the Spirit - which the blessed John Paul II repeatedly urged. "
"Only in personal communion with the New Adam, Jesus Christ, is human reason healed and strengthened, and is it possible to gain access to a more appropriate vision of development, economics and politics according to their anthropological dimension and the new historical conditions. And only thanks to a reason that has been restored in its speculative and practical capacity can we have at our disposal the basic requirements to overcome global imbalances, in the light of the common good. "
"The social question today is undoubtedly a matter of worldwide social justice." "It is also a question of the fair distribution of resources and intangible assets, the globalization of substantive, social and participatory democracy. Therefore, in a context where we are experiencing the gradual unification of humanity, it is essential that the new evangelization of society highlight the implications of a justice implemented at a universal level. Alongside reference to the foundations of this justice, it must be also be stressed that it impossible to attain if it is reliant on mere social consensus, without recognizing that in order for it to be lasting it must be rooted in universal human good. Regarding its implementation, social justice should be implemented in civil society, in the market economy (cf. Caritas in Veritate No. 35), but also by an honest and transparent political authority, even at an international level (cf. ibid., 67).
"The indications of Pope John XXIII regarding the need for a legitimate pluralism among Catholics in the realization of the Social Doctrine are still valid today. He wrote, in fact, that in this context '[...]This teaching rests on one basic principle: individual human beings are the foundation, the cause and the end of every social institution. That is necessarily so, for men are by nature social beings. This fact must be recognized, as also the fact that they are raised in the plan of Providence to an order of reality which is above nature "(No. 219).
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