Cardinal Turkson: the impact
of “Caritas in veritate” after ten years
 |
| Cardinal Peter Turkson, Prefect for the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development |
Ahead of a seminar on Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical
“Caritas in veritate”, Cardinal Peter Turkson looks at the impact of the
document in the areas of ecology and integral human development.
By Vatican News
Ten years ago, Pope Benedict XVI published his third and
final encyclical, Caritas
in veritate, on “integral human development in charity and truth”.
To mark the occasion, the Dicastery for Promoting Integral
Human Development has organized a seminar on the “theory and
praxis of development”, which is taking place on Tuesday in the Vatican.
Ahead of the seminar, the Prefect for the Dicastery,
Cardinal Peter Turkson, offered his reflections on the impact of Caritas
in veritate, especially in the fields of “ecology” and “integral human
development”.
Here is the full text of Cardinal Turkson’s presentation:
The Presentation of the Impact of Caritas in
veritate!
Presently and in the light of the two urgent challenges
facing the human family and its home, the earth, namely, the ecological
challenge of global warming and climate change and the socio-economic challenge
of gaping inequalities in an economic and development systems that extol
maximization of profit over the wellbeing of the person, one may describe two
principal areas in which the Encyclical Letter, Caritas in veritate,
has made a big impact. These are the areas of “ecology” and “integral human
development.”
Firstly, Caritas in veritate and the
evolution of the Concept of Integral Ecology:
Introduced first, as “natural ecology”, into the Church’s
social teaching by St. Pope Paul VI (Populorum
progressio), the concept of ecology was further applied to human life, as
human ecology, and to the world of labour, as social ecology, in the
magisterial teaching of St. Pope John Paul II. Pope Benedict XVI further
deepened and broadened the application of the concept to the social life of the
human family and to peace; wherefore one identifies now “an integral ecology”
in the social teaching of the Church, as consisting of natural ecology, human
ecology, social ecology and an ecology of peace. Pope Benedict XVI dedicated an
entire chapter (4) to the issue of the environment and human existence: “The
Development of Peoples, Rights and Duties, The Environment,” because “the way
humanity treats the environment influences the way it treats itself, and vice
versa.”[1]
There is, therefore, an inseparable relationship between
human life and the natural environment which supports it as “that covenant
between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love
of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying”.[2] This bond between man and his world
paved the way for the very famous teaching of Pope Benedict XVI that the Book
of Nature is one and indivisible, and that it includes not only the
environment, but also individuals, family and social ethics. As he goes on to
teach, “our duties towards the environment flow from our duties towards the
person.[3] Thus, the “decisive issue” in the
relationship between man and his world: between natural and human ecology, “is
the moral tenor of society”.[4] Wherefore the redemption of man
implies the redemption of creation which groans (Rom 8:22-24).
It is this final expansion of the concept of “ecology” by
Pope Benedict XVI in Caritas in veritate which prepares for
references to an “integral ecology” and the inter-connectedness and the
inter-relatedness of everything in the writings of Pope Francis.
Secondly, Caritas in veritate and the sense of Integral
Human Development:
The recognition that the development of the human person
needs to be truly human, complete and whole was first made by St. Pope John
XXIII (Mater
et Magistra). With that recognition, he introduced into the Church’s
social teaching the new concept of “integral human development” which did
inspire the Fathers of Vatican Council II to speak about the “whole
(integral) development” of the person and his “integral vocation”, to which
culture must be subordinated (Gaudium
et spes). After Vatican Council II and in the light of decolonization
and the emergence of new national states in the developing world, St. Pope Paul
VI defined the “integral human development” of people as not consisting
merely in material and economic growth. For Paul VI, “integral human
development” refers to the solidary development of people, which is rooted in
transcendental humanism, because it places at its centre the true meaning of
human life and cultivates the social meaning of brotherhood between people.
Thus overcoming mistrust and fear between people and nurturing the value of
solidarity, integral human development engenders peace and becomes the “new
name of peace.”
Thus between the Pope who opened Vatican Council II and the
Pope who concluded it a new idea about the development of persons is born,
which will be developed in the subsequent pontificates of St. Pope John Paul II
and Pope Benedict XVI to become the name of a Dicastery of the Roman Curia
under Pope Francis, thus re-affirming human development as a central concern
and mission of the Church (Sollicitudo
rei socialis, 1).
Identifying “integral human development” with the
realization of the dignity of people, St. Pope John Paul II taught that such
development must be inclusive: “it should be obvious that development either
becomes shared in common by every part of the world or it undergoes a process
of regression even in zones marked by constant progress. This tells us a great
deal about the nature of authentic development: either all the nations of the
world participate, or it will not be true development.” (SRS, 17)
Forty years after Pope Paul VI’s Populorum
progressio and against the background of declarations against
poverty and hunger, exploitation, issues of environment, globalization and
planetary inter-dependence, new means of communication, increasing inability of
politics and national governments to deal with global powers, the
financial crisis etc., Pope Benedict XVI revisited the subject of “human
development” in Populorum progressio and its rooting in a
transcendental humanism and the brotherhood of the human family. For Pope
Benedict “development” is always “human development”; therefore, “social
issues” are essentially “anthropological issues” (CIV, 75). They concern “the
truth about the human person.” Such truth about the human person is related to
the truth of Christ, God’s love for man, which is the “principal driving force
behind authentic human development,” and which opens the lives of people to
gift and makes it possible for them to hope for a “development of the whole man
and of all men.” In this sense Pope Benedict XVI calls human development, a
“vocation”: a drive within a person to act for the common good and not only for
personal interest. It is a drive for solidarity, as an expression of the nature
of man as a “relational being,” rooted in the very life of God and lived out in
fraternity. Otherwise, “development” does not achieve its aim. In this sense,
globalization should not be experienced as mere closeness and neighbourliness,
fashioned by the elimination of distances of separation through modern means of
communication. Globalization should make our inter-connectedness fraternal,
making no room for exclusion and leaving no one on the periphery.
So globalization is not merely a social and an economic
phenomenon, to serve the market and economy; it is a call for a new way of
thinking about the human person as called to live a life of love and solidarity
in service to others for their wellbeing, which is their development!
Herein lies a fundamental Christian directive and guiding
principle for all development initiatives and activities which seek to be truly
human and integral!
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