Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Posted on 01/13/2011 6:28:01 PM PST by markomalley
When he travels to the United States next month, Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson is aware that he may have to make some adjustments in the way he talks about the Church’s social teaching.
As president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the Ghanaian cardinal, 62, is charged with making the Church’s social teaching more widely known and practiced around the world.
He will be in Washington to deliver the plenary address of the 2011 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, Feb. 13-16. The gathering, on the theme of “Protecting Human Life and Dignity: Promoting a Just Economy,” is sponsored by 19 Catholic organizations, including the U.S. Catholic bishops.
In a recent interview with EWTN News, Cardinal Turkson said he has learned from past experience that the Church’s justice and peace terminology often needs clarification for an American Catholic audience. Key terms used by the Vatican — such as “social justice” and “gift” — are not always understood the way the Vatican intends, he said.
"We found out that some of the vocabulary which is just taken for granted and used freely may not always have the same sense or may have had some nuances which sometimes are missed because of the way the terms are used in the American political context,” Cardinal Turkson said in a Jan. 12 interview at the council’s offices in Rome.
Pope Benedict XVI appointed Cardinal Turkson to his post in Oct. 2009, just months after the Pope released his blueprint for the Church’s social teaching, “Caritas in Veritate” (Charity in Truth). The council has since made promotion of the Pope’s vision a top priority.
The encyclical outlines Pope Benedict’s plan for "integral human development" in economics, society and politics through the principles of charity and truth.
Cardinal Turkson said the Vatican is pleased by response to the document. But he said reaction from some sections of the audience in the United States was unexpected.
The council has been surprised to find that common terms were misunderstood or misinterpreted. He emphasized that the misunderstanding was not a general or widespread problem among American Catholics. But, he said, "in certain circles ... there is a difficulty."
For instance, the Pope's teaching on themes of "social justice" have been mistakenly connected to "socialism" and "communism." As a result, he indicated, the Pope is mistakenly seen as promoting socialist or big-government solutions to social problems.
The council has also learned that words like "social" and "solidarity" may have been dismissed by American readers for their perceived connection with communist regimes such as the Soviet Union, he said.
Cardinal Turkson explained that in the Church’s thinking, social justice involves citizens’ obligations and responsibilities to ensure fairness and opportunity in their communities and societies.
While this may include the adoption of specific government policies and programs, the emphasis in Catholic social teaching is on the obligations that flow from citizens' relationships in societies.
"Respecting, understanding and fulfilling those demands constitute our justice," he said. "It would be useful if we just observed our sense of justice as our ability to fulfill the demands of the relationships in which we stand."
This is in contrast to socialism, he explained, which is an ideology in which private property and private interests are totally placed in the service of government policies.
What the Pope proposes in “Caritas in Veritate,” said Cardinal Turkson, is "achieving the common good without sacrificing personal, private interests, aspirations and desires."
Cardinal Turkson said the Council was also surprised that the Pope’s concept of the “gift,” was perceived in some circles as encouraging government welfare handouts.
In "Caritas in Veritate," Pope Benedict described the concept of “gift” as a way to understand God’s love for men and women in his gift of life and his gift of Jesus.
"Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity," the Pope wrote. "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: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion."
Gift, Cardinal Turkson explained, is "a very basic, deep theological expression of God's relation or the motivation for whatever God does in the world, and it's not quite the same as a handout."
"If we ever need to talk about this in a society where the sense of gift is that of a handout ... it doesn't quite express the sense of gift in this regard," he added.
While it is too late to add any explanations to the encyclical, the Council might tailor its language differently in future documents.
"We just realized that probably in the future, when ... this dicastery takes up the task of diffusing, presenting and talking about this it might be necessary to provide a footnote in which some of these expressions can be given an awareness of the different senses of expressions in different cultures and settings,” he said. We thought something like that would be useful and helpful to the readers."
Cardinal Turkson urged American Catholics and government and economic leaders to give a conscientious reading of "Caritas in Veritate."
The encyclical, he said, invites us "to go back or to remind about the centrality of the human person, his well being, his common good within everything that we do.”
Another important message, Cardinal Turkson said, is that “we must not sacrifice the good of the human person for anything that we aspire after or want to do with technology, business, economics or whatever."
The key to an authentically human vision of development is to consider the full ethical character of the individual in all decisions, he said.
"In details," he concluded, "it may be for food security and shelter for all persons, but at the end of the day we are looking at whether things that we are doing in the world as government, as a Church and all of that help advance the good of the individual person."
“right about then is when I started surfing the net and realized I was not alone!”
Ain’t it great to know?
Before Limbaugh and the Internet, it was pretty easy to start feeling like the last survivor at Fort Nowhere.
Perhaps the problem with the definition of “justice” is that so had to go the secular courts to obtain justice from the Catholic Church.
” But, he said, “in certain circles ... there is a difficulty.”
I can see how “certain circles”, say, sexual abuse victims whose assailants were so protected so long by the hierarchy might have “a difficulty” understanding the “vocabulary”.
You know, that chorus is getting as boring as “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
Why don’t you do some reading, and then develop an obsession about public school teachers or protestant ministers who molest?
“we must not sacrifice the good of the human person for anything that we aspire after or want to do with technology, business, economics or whatever."I know he is on the right track. It is absolutely possible, even advantageous, to be a good Christian and as well as a good capitalist.
For some US audiences, He will need to learn to speak in monosyllables and grunts, as said US audiences are incapable of understanding anything more than that.
Emphasis on honest.
I wish I could say the same for the leftist attacks on the Church.
I cannot.
God grants us freewill to make choices and to accept God’s love or reject it.
The Catholic Church also allows us to make choices based on freewill.
The Church tries to lead us toward our salvation with God.
Jesus told us to LOVE GOD and to Love our Neighbor as our self.
May Catholics follow the path of Jesus Christ and show the rest of the world how to LOVE GOD and our neighbors.
May GOD bless us with HIS LOVE.
We call it peace and justice. It’s charity, but more than that it is seeking to end abortion, support the indigent, and find ways to help those who need help.
With all due respect, the Vatican had to put the damper on Jesuits who were using “social justice” in South America and Central America to espouse a form of socialism and communism. While that was a while ago, some remember when that happened and find the use of the term suspicious.
As illustrated with the recent donnybrook surrounding the events in Tucson, I don’t expect the Vatican to overhaul its writings to help those who have distorted the truth, but perhaps educating those who had difficulty with the concept is in order.
The Church isn’t perfect, but I give it credit for the wisdom to correct its errors and continue on.
“Edmund Fitzgerald”, however boring it might be, was Gordon Lightfoot’s honest attempt to correctly memorialize a piece of history. Emphasis on honest. I wish I could say the same for the leftist attacks on the Church. I cannot.”
Well struck.
I believe it was Leo XIII that clearly stated the Church’s opposition to socialism.
And prayers... many prayers.
Expand on your point, relative to this post.
Please.
Just what is the Vatican bank in the first place, and why has it been so prone to scandal over the years? Surge Desk takes a look:
Founding and charge
Founded in 1942 by Pope Pius XII to manage the Vatican's coffers, the IOR operates outside the central administrative structure of the Catholic Church. That's no small charge, since the coffers were expanded greatly with the 1929 signing of the Lateran Treaty, when the pope conceded Italian sovereignty over the former papal states in exchange for 1.75 billion lire in cash and government bonds.
The institute operates much like any other bank, accepting savings and checking accounts (though only for a small group, mostly clergymen) and making investments.
Fascist funding source?
But just as Pope Pius has been accused of helping Hitler and the Nazis, the IOR is alleged to have funded various right-wing movements across the globe. In 1999, a lawsuit was filed in a U.S. District Court alleging that the institute colluded with the collaborationist Croatian government to steal assets from Hitler's victims. (The case was dismissed because of the Holy See's diplomatic immunity.)
In 1968, the Vatican hired Michele Sindona as a financial adviser, despite a history of laundering money for the Gambino crime family.
Banco Ambrosiano
But all of these pale in comparison to the role the IOR played in the 1982 Banco Ambrosiano scandal — the $3.5 billion collapse in 1982 of Italy's largest bank, which was accused of laundering money for the Sicilian mafia. (Unfortunately for cinephiles and historians alike, this scandal in particular was fictionalized to a ponderous extent in the notoriously ill-received “The Godfather Part III.”) Here's a much more vivid account, from an excerpt from a contemporaneous Time magazine report, which recalls a real-life murder scene befitting a Dan Brown novel:
Many Catholics in the US think ‘social justice’ has socialist undertones because that’s how the Catholic promoting ‘social justice’ in the US have interpreted, and practice it. The Catholic Campaign for Human Development is a perfect example!
“Central to the Church’s social teaching since Leo XIII has been the principle of subsidarity and the essential role of the family. Socialism is opposed to both. Nor does it believe in the person. Rather, all of us are part of the collective, and our individual character matters not.”
If I may comment: “ ... all of us are part of the collective, and our individual character matters not ..” - this is a gross understatement indeed!
They care not about your individual well-being, individual health, individual economic state, individual soul or your individual eternal reward/punishment. You are the property of the state, and therefore, the state’s interest is to care for you if, and only if your are productive. All ‘care’ is physical, since Religion is the “Opiate Of The People”! You are a slave of the State IAW Satan’s plan for humanity, with the design objective to make you his slave for all eternity, pure and simple!
“...as he will have to re-educate almost every single diocesan chancery in the United States for the correct understanding of these terms. I wish him success. “
I also pray for his success. A major overhaul of catechesis is needed in this area and people need to understand the authentic Teaching of the Church!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.