(Vatican Radio) The Preacher of the Pontifical Household, Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap., on Friday preached his fourth Lenten Sermon of 2016 in the presence of Pope Francis and his associates.
The full text of the sermon is below
Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, ofmcap.
Fifth Lenten Sermon 2016
THE PATH TO UNITY AMONG CHRISTIANS
Reflections on Unitatis redintegratio
1. The ecumenical path after Vatican II
Modern hermeneutics has familiarized us with Hans-Georg Gadamer’s principle of the “history of effects” (Wirkungsgeschichte). According to this method, to understand a text we need to take into account the effects it produced in history, placing oneself within that history and dialoguing with it.[1] This principle is highly useful when applied to the interpretation of Scripture. It tells us that we cannot fully understand the Old Testament except in the light of its fulfillment in the New, and we cannot fully understand the New Testament except by the fruit that it has produced in the life of the Church. Historical-philological study of “sources,” the influences a text has undergone, is therefore not enough by itself. We also need to take into account the influences the text itself has exercised. It is a principle that Jesus had much earlier formulated, saying that every tree will be known by its fruit (see Lk 6:44).
With the appropriate adjustments, this principle—as we saw in preceding meditations—can also be applied to the texts of Vatican II. Today I would like to show how it can be applied in particular to the Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis redintegratio, which is the topic of this meditation. Fifty years of journeying and progress in ecumenism can demonstrate the vitality in this text. After recalling the profound reasons that led Christians to seek unity among themselves again, and after taking note of the spread of a new attitude among Christians of different churches, the Council Fathers express the purpose of the document this way:
The Sacred Council gladly notes all this. It has already declared its teaching on the Church, and now, moved by a desire for the restoration of unity among all the followers of Christ, it wishes to set before all Catholics the ways and means by which they too can respond to this grace and to this divine call.[2]
The fulfillment or fruits of this document have been of two kinds. On the doctrinal and institutional level, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity has been established. In addition bilateral dialogues with almost all the Christian confessions have been initiated with the goal of promoting a better reciprocal understanding in comparing our positions and overcoming prejudices.
Alongside this official and doctrinal ecumenism, an ecumenism of personal encounters and reconciliation of hearts has arisen since the very beginning. In this regard some famous meetings stand out that have marked the ecumenical journey during these fifty years: the meeting of Paul VI with the Patriarch Athenagoras, the innumerable meetings of John Paul II and of Benedict XVI with various leaders of Christian churches, the meeting of Pope Francis with the Patriarch Bartholomew in 2014, and finally, a few weeks ago, the meeting in Cuba with Kirill, the Patriarch of Moscow, that opened up a new horizon for the ecumenism.
This spiritual ecumenism also includes many initiatives in which believers from different churches meet to pray and proclaim the gospel together—without any intention of proselytizing and with people remaining completely faithful to their churches. I have been blessed to participate in many of these meetings. One of them has remained particularly vivid in my mind because it was like a visual prophecy of what the ecumenical movement should be leading us to.
In 2009 there was a large demonstration of faith in Stockholm called the “Jesus Manifestation.” On the last day, believers from various churches, each coming from a different street, processed toward the center of the city. Our small group of Catholics led by their local bishop also processed down a street praying. Once at the center, the separate procession lines broke up and merged into one crowd that proclaimed the Lordship of Christ—a crowd of 18,000 young people and of astonished bystanders. What was intended to be a demonstration “for” Jesus became a powerful demonstration “of” Jesus. His presence was almost palpable in a country that is not accustomed to that kind of religious demonstration.
These developments from the document on ecumenism are also a fruit of the Holy Spirit and a sign of the new Pentecost that was prayed for. How did the Risen One convince the apostles to be open to Gentiles and to welcome them into the Christian community? He led Peter to the home of the centurion Cornelius and made him witness the coming of the Spirit on those in attendance with the same manifestations that the apostles had experienced at Pentecost: they spoke in tongues and glorified God with loud voices. Peter could only draw the conclusion, “If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us, . . . who was I that I could withstand God?” (Act 11:17).
The risen Lord is still doing the same thing today. He sends his Spirit and his charisms, often with the identical external manifestations, on believers of quite different churches, including those whose beliefs we had thought were the furthest from ours. How can we not see in that a sign that he is urging us to welcome and acknowledge them as brothers and sisters even if we are still on the journey to more complete unity on the visible level? In any case this is what converted me to a love for Christian unity, although I had been accustomed by my studies in the period before the Council to regard the Orthodox and Protestants only as “adversaries” to refute with our theological arguments.
2. One year from the fifth centenary of the Protestant Reformation (1517)
During Lent last year, I tried to show the results of the ecumenical dialogue with the Orthodox East on the theological level. I collected those meditations in a short book called “Two Lungs, One Breath,” and the title itself indicates what we are striving for and in large part has already come to pass.[3] At this time I would like to turn our attention to the relationship with the other great partner in the ecumenical dialogue, the Protestant world, not to enter into historical and doctrinal questions but to show how everything is impelling us to move forward in the effort to restore the unity of Western Christianity.
One circumstance makes this effort particularly relevant. The Christian world is preparing to celebrate the fifth centenary of the Reformation in 2017. It is vital for the whole future of the Church for us not to miss this opportunity by remaining prisoners of the past or limiting ourselves, in more irenic tones, to determine the rights and wrongs of both parties. It is the moment, I believe, to make a qualitative leap forward, like a ship arriving at the lock of a river or a canal that allows for forward navigation at a higher level.
The situation has changed profoundly in these last five hundred years, but as always it is hard to take due notice of it. The issues that provoked the separation between the Church of Rome and the Reformation in the sixteenth century primarily included indulgences and the way in which justification takes place for the unrighteous. But, can we say that these are the problems today by which the faith of people stands or falls? In a conference held at the Center for Unity in Rome, Cardinal Walter Kasper correctly observed that while the number one existential problem for Luther was how to overcome a sense of guilt and find a gracious God, today the problem is instead the contrary: how to restore to people today the true meaning of sin since they have entirely forgotten it.
I believe that all the centuries-old discussion between Catholics and Protestants about faith and works has ended up making us lose the main point of the Pauline message. What the apostle wanted to affirm above all in Romans 3 is not that we are justified by faith but that we are justified by faith in Christ: it is not so much that we are justified by grace as it is that we are justified by the grace of Christ. Christ is at the heart of the message even more so than grace and faith.
After having presented humanity in its universal state of sin and damnation in the two preceding chapters of Romans, the apostle has the unmitigated courage to proclaim that this situation has now radically changed “through the redemption which is in Christ,” “by one’s man’s obedience” (Rom 3:24, 5:19).
The assertion that this salvation is received by faith and not by works is present in the text and was the most urgent thing to bring to light in Luther’s time, when it was obvious, at least in Europe, that the issue at hand was faith in Christ and the grace of Christ. But this truth holds second place, not first place. We made the mistake of reducing to a theological problem internal to Christianity what was for the apostle instead an affirmation of far-reaching and cosmic significance. We are being called today to rediscover and proclaim together the very heart of the Pauline message.
In the description of medieval battles, there is always a point at which, after the archers, the cavalry, and all the rest of the army had been overcome, the fight was focused on the king. That was the point at which the final outcome of the battle was determined. For us as well the battle is around the king . . . the person of Jesus Christ is what is at stake. From the point of view of evangelization, we need to return to the time of the apostles. There is analogy between our time and theirs: they were facing a pre-Christian world, and now in the West we are facing a largely post-Christian world.
When the apostle Paul wants to summarize the Christian message in one statement he does not say, “We proclaim this or that doctrine to you.” Instead he says, “We preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1:23), and “We preach . . . Jesus Christ as Lord” (2 Cor 4:5). This is now the true “articulus stantis et cadentis Ecclesiae,” the article by which the Church stands or falls.
This does not mean ignoring all that the Protestant Reformation has produced that is innovative and valid—whether in the area of theology or of spirituality—especially with its reaffirmation of the primacy of the word of God. It means rather allowing the whole Church to benefit from its positive achievements once they are freed of certain excesses and hardening of positions that were due to the overheated climate of that time, and to political interference and subsequent polemics.
One significant step in this direction has been the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification signed on October 31, 1999, between the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation.[4] In its conclusion it says,
The understanding of the doctrine of justification set forth in this Declaration shows that a consensus in basic truths of the doctrine of justification exists between Lutherans and Catholics. In light of this consensus the remaining differences of language, theological elaboration, and emphasis in the understanding of justification described in paras. 18 to 39 are acceptable. Therefore the Lutheran and the Catholic explications of justification are in their difference open to one another and do not destroy the consensus regarding the basic truths.[5]
I was present when this agreement was proclaimed in St. Peter’s Basilica during Solemn Vespers presided over by John Paul II and the archbishop of Uppsala, Bertil Werkström. One observation the pope made during his homily struck me. If I remember correctly, he expressed this thought: the time has come to stop making the doctrine of justification by faith a topic of fighting and dispute among theologians and seek instead to help all baptized people have a personal and liberating experience of this truth. From that day on, every time I have had the opportunity in my preaching, I have not stopped trying to help brothers and sisters have this experience.
Justification by faith in Christ needs to be preached by the whole Church and with greater vigor than ever. No longer in opposition to “good works”—an issue that has been dealt with and resolved—but in opposition, rather, to the claim by the secularized world that it can save itself through science and technology or through spiritual techniques people invented. I am convinced that if Luther and Calvin and the other reformers were alive today, this would be the way they would preach the justification freely given through faith! One book that caused a stir says,
Modern societies are built upon science. They owe to it their wealth, their power, and the certitude that tomorrow far greater wealth and power still will be ours if we so wish. . . . [Nevertheless,] armed with all the powers, enjoying all the riches they owe to science, our societies are still trying to live by and to teach systems of values already blasted at the root by science itself.[6]
The “systems of values already blasted at the root” are of course religious systems. Jean-Paul Sartre, coming from a philosophical point of view, reached the same conclusion. He has one of his characters say, “It was . . . I who accused myself today, I alone who can absolve myself; I, man. If God exists, man is nothing.”[7] It is to this kind of challenge that Christians today should respond with the doctrine that “A man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Gal 2:16).
3. Beyond the formulas
I am convinced that the role played by formulas slows down and weighs on the ecumenical dialogue with the Protestant churches. Let me explain. Doctrinal and dogmatic formulations—which in the beginning were the fruit of vital processes and reflected the path undertaken and the truth that had painfully been reached—tend to become rigid with the passing of time and become “watchwords,” labels that indicate affiliation. Faith no longer terminates in the real thing, but in its formulation, just the opposite of what according to St. Thomas Aquinas the right path should be.[8]
The phenomenon of formalism already began in antiquity once the creative phase of the great dogmas ended.[9] Only recently, for example, has it been understood that the divisions at the heart of the Christian East between Chalcedonian Churches and the so-called Monophysite or Nestorian Churches were based on formulas and on the different meanings given to the words ousia and hypostasis that do not affect the substance of the doctrine. Once this was understood, it has been possible to restore communion with and among various Eastern churches.
This obstacle is particularly apparent in relation to the churches of the Reformation. Faith vs. works and Scripture vs. tradition were understandable oppositions, and in part justified at first, but they become misleading if they get repeated and maintained as though nothing had changed in 500 years.
Let us take, for instance, the opposition between faith and works. It makes sense if by “good works” one primarily means (as it unfortunately did in Luther’s time) indulgences, pilgrimages, fasts, votive candles, and so on. The contrast becomes misleading, however, if by “good works” we mean works of charity and mercy. Jesus warned us in the gospel that without them we could not enter the kingdom of heaven and he would be forced to say to us, “Depart from me” (Matt 7:23). One is not justified by good works, but one is not saved without good works. All Catholics and Protestants believe that, and that is what the Council of Trent had said.
The same has to be said about opposing Scripture and tradition. It surfaces as soon as the issue of revelation comes up, as if the Protestants had only Scripture while the Catholics had Scripture and tradition. In reality there is no church without its own tradition. What explains the existence of so many different denominations in Protestantism if not their diverse ways of interpreting Scripture? And what is Christian tradition, in its actual content, if not precisely Scripture as read in the Church and by the Church?
Not even the Lutheran formula “Simul iustus et peccator,” “at the same time righteous and sinner,” is a real hurdle to communion. The definition of the Church as “the chaste harlot” (casta meretrix) and as “holy and always in need of being purified” (see Lumen gentium, 8) has been part of the Catholic tradition since the time of the Fathers.[10] Should not what is said about the Church, the body of Christ as a whole, also apply in some way to each of its members? The way in which this coexistence of holiness and sin in redeemed human beings is understood can be open to various and complementary explanations. In the Appendix to the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification there is an explanation of the formula “simul iustus et peccator” which does not diverge from Catholic doctrine. It says that justification brings about a genuine renewal in the life of a baptized person—even if that righteousness never becomes an acquired possession on which a human being could base his or her relationship with God and is always dependent on the action of the Holy Spirit.
In 1974 there was news that astonished and amused the whole world. A Japanese soldier, who was sent to an island in the Philippines during the last World War to infiltrate the enemy and gather information, had lived for thirty years hiding here and there in the jungle, eating roots, fruit, and occasional prey. He was convinced that the war was still going on and he was still on his mission. When they found him, it was hard to convince him that the war was over and that he could go home. I believe something similar has happened among Christians. There are Christians on both sides who need to be convinced that the war is over. The religious wars between Catholics and Protestants are over, and we have much better things to do than fight with one another! The world has forgotten, or have never known, its Savior, the one who is the light of the world, the way, the truth, and the life, so how can we waste time arguing among ourselves?
4. Unity in charity
This practical reason is not enough, however, to bring about unity among Christians. It is not enough to find ourselves united in terms of evangelization and charitable activity. This is a path the ecumenical movement tried at the beginning, but it was soon shown to be insufficient. If the unity of the disciples should be a reflection of the unity between the Father and the Son, it should be above all a unity of love, because that is the unity that reigns in the Trinity. The three divine persons are united in their very being, not because they jointly operate whatever they do “ad extra”. Scripture exhorts us to “speak the truth in love [veritatem facientes in caritate]” (see Eph 4:15), and St. Augustine affirms that “one does not enter into truth except through love” [non intratur in veritatem nisi per caritatem].[11]
The extraordinary thing about this path to unity based on love is that it is already wide open before us. We cannot “cut corners” on doctrine because there are real differences there that need to be resolved patiently in appropriate settings. We can, however, forge ahead in charity and already be fully united right now. The true and sure sign of the coming of the Holy Spirit is not, St. Augustine writes, speaking in tongues but the love of unity: “You can be sure you have the Holy Spirit when you agree to cling to unity with genuine charity.”[12]
Let us recall St. Paul’s hymn to charity. Every phrase acquires a new and relevant meaning if it is applied to love among the members of the various Christian churches, to our ecumenical relationships:
Love is patient and kind;
Love is not jealous. . . .
Love does not insist on its own way [or only on the interests of its own church].
It is not irritable or resentful [rather, it remembers the wrong done to others].
It does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right [it does not rejoice in other Churches’ difficulties but rejoices in their spiritual success].
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (see 1 Cor 13:4-7)
It has been said, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”[13] Among Christians as well, loving one another means looking together in the same direction, in the direction of Christ. “He is our peace” (Eph 2:14). If we will turn to Christ and go forward together toward him, we Christians will draw closer to each other until we become what he prayed for: to be “one with him and with the Father” (see Jn 17:9). This can come about the same way that the spokes of a wheel fit together. The spokes begin at distant points of the circumference, but little by little as they get nearer the center, they get closer to each other until they form a single point. It happens something like what happened that day in Stockholm.
We are getting ready to celebrate Easter. On the cross Jesus “has broken down the dividing wall of hostility… for through him we both have access in One Spirit to the Father” (Eph 2:14, 18). Let us not fail to do so for the joy of the Heart of Jesus and for the good of the world.
Holy Father, Venerable Fathers, brothers and sisters, I wish you a good Holy Week and Happy Easter!
[1] See Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Continuum International, 2006).
[2] Unitatis redintegratio, n. 1. All papal quotes are from the Vatican website.
[3] Raniero Cantalamessa, Due polmoni, un unico respiro: Oriente e Occidente di fronte ai grandi misteri della fede [Two Lungs, One Breath: East and West Before the Great Mysteries of Faith] (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2015).
[4] Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. This document can be found online on the Vatican website through its title.
[5] Ibid., n. 40.
[6] Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology, trans. Austryn Wainhouse (New York: Knopf, 1971), pp. 170-171.
[7] See Jean-Paul Sartre, The Devil and the Good Lord, X, 4, trans. Kitty Black in “The Devil and the Good Lord” and Two Other Plays (New York: Random House, 1960), p. 141.
[8] See Thomas Aquinas, Summa teologica, II-IIae, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2: “The faith of the believer does not terminate in a proposition but in a thing.”
[9] See G. L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2008), especially Chapter 13, “The Triumph of Formalism,” pp. 265-281.
[10] See Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Casta meretrix,” in Explorations in Theology, Vol II: Spouse of the Word, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), pp. 193-288.
[11] Augustine, The Answer to Faustus a Manichean, 32, 18, trans. Edmund Hill, Part 1, vol. 20, The Works of Saint Augustine, ed. John E. Rotelle (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2007), p. 420.
[12] See Augustine, “Sermon 269,” 4, in Sermons (230-272B) on Liturgical Seasons, trans. Edmund Hill, The Works of Saint Augustine, Part 3, vol. 7, ed. John E. Rotelle (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1994), p. 283.
[13] Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars [Terre des hommes], trans. Lewis Galantière (1939; New York: Harcourt, 1967), p. 215.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Saturday officially launches his own account on the Instagram photo-sharing social network site, under the name “Franciscus.” Founded in 2010, Instagram has around 400 million users worldwide and shares photos and videos with a community of followers. The opening of the Pope’s Instagram account will increase his strong presence on social media platforms. He already has a Twitter account with the hashtag @ Pontifex that has over 26 million followers who are constantly increasing in number.
Speaking in an interview with Vatican Radio, the Prefect of the Secretariat for Communications, Monsignor Dario Vigano said the decision to open an Instagram account arises from the Pope’s conviction that images can reveal many things. Monsignor Vigano explained that the aim is to tell the story of this Pontificate through images allowing people who want to follow or know more about the Pope to see and share his gestures of tenderness and mercy. He said the images that will be posted on Instagram will emphasize the qualities of closeness and inclusion that Pope Francis lives out in his daily life.
The opening of the Pope’s Instagram account follows last month’s meeting between Pope Francis and the Instagram Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Systrom. In a post after the audience, Systrom said they discussed “the power of images to unite people across different cultures and languages.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Cardinal Peter Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, on Thursday addressed the participants of a conference on human ecology in Washington, D.C., in a lecture entitled ” Is business to care for our common home? “.
The conference was hosted by Catholic University of America’s School of Business and Economics and the Napa Institute.
Cardinal Turkson’s lecture, “Is business to care for our common home?”, focused on promoting the role and responsibility business leaders have to safeguard our common home. It explored the social teaching of the Church as it guides leaders to work for the betterment of the world.
Here is a synthesis of the five main paragraphs of his lecture:
A. Introducing Laudato Si’: In Pope Francis’s recent encyclical, the Holy Father urges all people to recognize their responsibility to improve the world and to acknowledge the damage that has been done to the natural environment and the life that it supports.
B. Humanity’s Vocation to Care for our Common Home: In Laudato Si, Pope Francis notes that everything is interconnected; the way we interact with the natural world relates to how we interact with fellow human beings. Technology and commerce must be oriented toward the present and future common good; we must hear the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.
C. To Learn from Three Popes: In the past 125 years, Pope Leo XIII, St. John Paul II and Pope Francis have responded to “progress” in the world with encyclicals that exhort all people to affirm an idea central to human ecology: the universal destination of goods, that the fruits of earth belong to all people. Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum (responding to the industrial revolution), Saint John Paul II in Centesimus Annus (addressing the fall of the Berlin Wall), and Pope Francis in Laudato Si (dealing with the social and ecological crises of our time) in turn called for economic relationships based on justice and charity, recognized the dangers of collectivism and individualism, and emphasized the toll human activity has had on the environment.
D. Laudato Si and the Role of Business: Pope Francis recognizes business as a “noble profession” when it orients its activities toward the common good. Profit has a legitimate place in business, but it cannot be the primary role; an enterprise must provide decent, fulfilling work and seek to promote sustainability, bearing out the costs of using up natural resources. The governance of corporations must take a long view on business success and aim to balance financial rewards with a contribution to society.
In conclusion , is business to care for our common home? Yes! But not according to “business as usual”; instead we must find a new and different way of approaching the relationship between people and the environment and of ordering the global economy.
The full text of Cardinal Turkson’s lecture is below:
Catholic University of America’s
School of Business and Economics
The Napa Institute
Conference on Human Ecology
“Is business to care for our common home?”
Washington, D.C., 17 March 2016
You have kindly invited me to answer the following question: “Is business to care for our common home?” My answer is an unqualified “yes”, and indeed an urgent “yes”! To explore this issue, let me (A.) introduce Laudato si’, (B.) ask about humanity’s vocation to care for our common home, (C.) honour the three Popes from whom we are especially learning, and most importantly (D.) allow Laudato si’ and traditional Catholic Social Teaching to shed important light on each other and so on our vocation as human beings and as business leaders. (E.) I will conclude responding to the question, “Is business to care for our common home?”
A. Introducing Laudato si’
Let us begin with Pope Francis himself presenting the Encyclical in the briefest form – this takes less than 90 seconds – the Pope speaks in Spanish and the sub-titles are in English:[1]
Here are some key take-aways from the video and Laudato si’ itself: [these could helpfully be revised to harmonize better with the specific context, the CUA Conference; in the appendix, below, you find the actual script of the Youtube]
Our nature is created by God and surrounded by the gifts of creation. Our failures are that we over-consume and that we do not share the gifts of creation. We have tilled too much and kept too little – with dire consequences for the poor and the planet. And so it is urgent that we change our sense of progress, our management of the economy, and our style of life.
Now more than ever, the world needs leadership in all its fields of endeavour, and the various fields need to work together in pursuit of the common good of humanity. Everyone must play a role, and Pope Francis speaks to everyone. He exhorts those in high station in politics, business and science, and he encourages those who live and work in very humble circumstances—all must commit to meeting the needs of all who live on this planet and of the planet itself. We are all in this together, each of us responsible for the other.
Following the Pope’s example, I implore you to approach others whom you consider utterly different and therefore distant from yourselves. They are, nevertheless, your brothers and sisters. And they live in the same, one-and-only common home with you.
I repeat: we are all brothers and sisters, poor and rich, well-fed and hungry, in one common home. The Holy Father does not discriminate. He gives appropriate praise to the champions of technology and commerce when their leadership achieves great good for the world. At the same time, he has also vigorously proclaimed the necessity for leadership and participation by those on the periphery, not only in the centres of power. Here is what he said at a World Meeting of Popular Movements in Bolivia last July:
You, the lowly, the exploited, the poor and underprivileged, can do, and are doing, a lot. I would even say that the future of humanity is in great measure in your own hands, through your ability to organize and carry out creative alternatives, through your daily efforts to ensure the three “T’s” of trabajo, techo y tierra—that is, of work, housing, land and food—and through your proactive participation in the great processes of change on the national, regional and global levels.[2]
When he speaks to the business community, Pope Francis encourages a broad sense of vocation, which gives rise to a deepened exercise of responsibility. In his words to the World Economic Forum: “Business is – in fact – a vocation, and a noble vocation, provided that those engaged in it see themselves challenged by a greater meaning in life.”[3]
These are scarcely the words of someone who misunderstands or disparages business, as some would have you believe.
At the same time, he asks the world’s economic leaders to recognize that “the successes which have been achieved, even if they have reduced poverty for a great number of people, often have led to a widespread social exclusion. Indeed, the majority of the men and women of our time still continue to experience daily insecurity, often with dramatic consequences.”[4]
Now, Pope Francis has given the world his wonderful encyclical Laudato si’, on Care for our Common Home. It adds another warning to his earlier statements. Not only is there poverty and social exclusion in the midst of plenty; economic activity is also degrading the natural environment, even to the point of threatening future human life.
B. Humanity’s Vocation to Care for our Common Home
The encyclical Laudato si’, released in June 2015, teaches that the way we interact with the natural world is deeply related to how we interact with our fellow human beings. In fact, there is no valid way to separate these two aspects. Therefore all decisions about the natural environment are ethical decisions—and this implicates business too. This is inescapable, and it has important implications.
It means that technology and commerce must be held to transcendental standards of the meaning of life and of the moral outlook. They must be defined by solidarity—both with all people alive today and with those not yet born—and be oriented toward the common good. It is not enough to be a business innovator and a producer of surpluses—these are worthwhile only if they serve integrated, ecological citizenship. And in this era of grave environmental crisis—actually of linked crises in nature and society—Pope Francis asks us to hear, and respond to, the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. Not only are we grievously damaging our common home, but—in doing so—we are wounding the poor and excluded of the world.
The path of the encyclical is detailed and rich. Here are some of its key messages:
All human beings are affected, and everything in nature too, by climate change, misuse of natural resources, waste and pollution.
Everything is interconnected; we cannot understand the social or natural world or any parts of them in isolation.
Everyone must act responsibly to save our world—from individuals recycling, to enterprises reducing their ecological footprints, to world leaders setting and enforcing ambitious carbon reduction targets.
We must be truthful, not hide or distort facts in order to gain selfish advantage.
We must engage in dialogue; genuine, trusting and trustworthy engagement of all parties is required to succeed where all is at risk.
Beyond the industrial age’s shortsighted confidence in technology and commerce,[5] we must transcend ourselves in prayer, simplicity and solidarity.
C. To learn from three Popes
It makes me very happy to be marking the 125th anniversary of Rerum Novarum (15 May 1891) which launched the formal magisterium of Catholic social encyclicals. Pope Leo XIII responded to the res novae or “new things” of his time, which were the major social and economic upheavals wrought by the industrial revolution. In this great encyclical, Pope Leo applied timeless moral principles to the particular circumstances of the time. He vigorously condemned socialism, but he also condemned the unjust practices in capitalism—the “greed of unchecked competition” that allowed a “small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the labouring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.” He called for economic relationships based on justice and charity, recognizing the centrality of a living wage and calling for the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively. This aspect of human ecology remains of central importance today—not just in some of the world’s poorest countries where workers face conditions every bit as harsh and degrading as in Pope Leo’s time, but also in countries like the United States too.
Fast-forward a hundred years, to the great encyclical of Saint John Paul II—Centesimus Annus. Just as with Rerum Novarum, Centesimus Annus provided a moral response to the “new things” of its time—in this case, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism. Saint Pope John II was, of course, happy to see that degrading and inhuman system confined to the trashcan of history. But he was not triumphalist either. With great foresight, he recognized the dangers of capitalism, especially when not “circumscribed within a strong juridical framework”, when it sees profit as the exclusive goal of business, when it falls under the sway of an ideology of the market, or when it elevates the cult of consumerism. I should note that some have claimed that Centesimus Annus changed the tenor of Catholic social teaching, and even abrogated prior teaching on the market economy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Saint John Paul II follows directly in the footsteps of his predecessors. And like his predecessors, he recognized the twin dangers of both collectivism and individualism.
And prefiguring Laudato si’, St John Paul establishes “the moral conditions for an authentic human ecology”.[6] He denounces our failures to find our “true place” in this world and the hubris of declaring “independence from reality” and behaving “with absolute dominion”. So, “instead of carrying out his role as a co-operator with God in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature”.[7]
Laudato si’ follows in this great tradition. As Pope Francis himself has said, it is not a “green encyclical”, it is a “social encyclical”. Just like Rerum Novarum and Centesimus Annus before it, it addresses the “new things” of our current time—the combined social and ecological crises. It is responding to the fact that the scale and impact of human activity on the natural world have almost reached breaking point, trespassing some crucial planetary boundaries that safeguard life on earth.
So there is a direct progression among these three encyclicals. At their heart, they all affirm one of the timeless principles of Catholic social teaching—the universal destination of goods. Essential to human ecology, this is the idea that the fruits of the earth belong to all people, and that the right to private property is conditional on this need being met. This was formalised, of course, by Thomas Aquinas but it has an ancient pedigree—it goes all the way back to the beginnings of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Rerum Novarum states this principle as follows: “Whoever has received from the divine bounty a large share of temporal blessings, whether they be external and material, or gifts of the mind, has received them for the purpose of using them for the perfecting of his own nature, and, at the same time, that he may employ them, as the steward of God’s providence, for the benefit of others.”[8] Saint John Paul II forcefully reaffirmed this teaching, stating that “God gave the earth to the whole human race for the sustenance of all its members, without excluding or favouring anyone”.[9] In Laborem Exercens § 14, he stressed that the best way to apply the universal destination of goods in the context of the modern economy was to make sure that people received just remuneration for their work. He followed this up in Centesimus Annus by arguing that ownership of the means of production is only just and legitimate if it serves useful work—not speculation or despoliation.
Now Laudato si’ strongly re-affirms the universal destination of goods. “The Christian tradition has never recognized the right to private property as absolute or inviolable, and has stressed the social purpose of all forms of private property.”[10] And last July in Bolivia, Pope Francis sent this powerful message: “Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labour is not mere philanthropy. It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the responsibility is even greater: it is a commandment. It is about giving to the poor and to peoples what is theirs by right. The universal destination of goods is not a figure of speech found in the Church’s social teaching. It is a reality prior to private property. Property, especially when it affects natural resources, must always serve the needs of peoples.”[11] And in the brief videoclip we just saw, the Holy Father reiterated, “Believers and unbelievers agree that the earth is our common heritage, the fruits of which should benefit everyone.”
Going even deeper, the very expression “our common home” is a culturally and spiritually enriched way of expressing the universal destination of all God’s gifts, including both the human ones and natural resources. Laudato si’ says that the natural environment is a “collective good, the patrimony of all humanity and the responsibility of everyone.” So it is a grave injustice when the world’s wealthiest people pollute the earth in a way that hurts the poor today and the poor tomorrow. For example, the bottom three billion people in the world today account for a mere 6 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that are destroying our planet. This is why Pope Francis speaks of an “ecological debt” between rich and poor countries. And as business people, I’m sure you would agree that debts should be paid!
D. Laudato si’ and the role of business
Let me now turn to the Holy Father’s challenges to business.
As I mentioned at the beginning, the Holy Father is not anti-business. Quite the opposite—he sees it as a “noble profession”. But to live up to this vocational calling, it must orient its activities toward the common good. For sure, profit has its legitimate role to play in any business activity. But it cannot be the only role, or even the primary role. Rather, businesses must always strive to meet genuine human needs, rather than feed a culture of consumerism—“a whirlwind of needless buying and selling” due to “the slavery of consumerism” (videoclip).
And it should always put jobs before short-term profits. This is a key concern for Pope Francis, so much so that there is an entire section of the encyclical called “The need to protect employment” (§124-29). One of the ways business can best help care for our common home is by providing decent work.
This is because work is a noble and necessary vocation: “Work is a necessity, part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth, human development and personal fulfilment” (§128). Work is how human dignity unfolds while earning one’s daily bread, feeding one’s family, and accessing the basic material conditions needed for flourishing every day. Further, it should be the setting for rich personal growth, where many aspects of life enter into play: creativity, planning for the future, developing our talents, living out our values, relating to others, giving glory to God. It is essential therefore “to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone,”[12] no matter the limited interests of business. (§127) It is wrong when some businesses simply replace workers with machines on the basis of efficiency and utility, viewing human beings as interchangeable with machines as mere factors of production. Clearly, the obsession is to gain maximum profit, but at the cost of less and less decent work. Do individuals thrive from being unemployed or precariously hired? Of course not. Does society benefit from unemployment? Of course not. In fact, far too many people everywhere cannot find worthwhile and fulfilling work. We should not be surprised when unscrupulous people with demented fantasies recruit such idle individuals into criminality and violence.
Another role of business, according to Laudato si’, is sustainability. Quoting Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis teaches that “only when ‘the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations’, can those actions be considered ethical.” Let us be honest: if we use this criterion, how many businesses are truly ethical today?
This is why proper practices of stewardship geared toward sustainability of the natural environment and of human systems is essential. The problem, Pope Francis says clearly, is that the logic of competition promotes short-termism, which leads to financial failure and devastation of the environment. “We need to reject a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals” (§190). The logic of profit tends to work against sustainability. Instead, as the Holy Father said in the videoclip, “The relationship between poverty and the fragility of the planet requires another way of managing the economy and measuring progress, conceiving a new way of living.”
But the message toward business is fundamentally hopeful and positive. Pope Francis calls upon business to lead by harnessing its creativity to solve pressing human needs. “More diversified and innovative forms of production which impact less on the environment can prove very profitable” (§191). Business is called upon to invest in sustainable development solutions. And I would add that it would help greatly by rejecting those who bury their head in the sand when it comes or climate change and environmental degradation. Because “there are too many special interests, and economic interests easily end up trumping the common good and manipulating information so that their own plans will not be affected.”
One word of caution here: Technologies need to be assessed for their contribution to the common good. The Encyclical gratefully acknowledges the tremendous contribution of technologies to the improvement of living conditions. Yet it also issues a warning about the misuse of technology, especially when it gives “those with the knowledge, and especially the economic resources to use them, an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world” (§104). Moreover, markets alone “cannot guarantee integral human development and social inclusion” (§109).
Justice must also dictate how the burden of environmental rehabilitation is distributed. Peoples and nations that have contributed most to greenhouse gas emissions and have benefitted most from the industrial period, should now take the lead and contribute more to the solution than those whose standard of living is just beginning to rise. Businesses must be honest about so-called externalities or spillover effects, since finally nothing falls outside of the accounts of our one shared common household; they must not pass environmental costs to others while keeping inflated profits for themselves.
Before I conclude, let me add an observation on governance. A Harvard business professor—I apologize for mentioning a rival school!—suggested it to me. The directors of a corporation need to think of the long term good of the corporation. Their responsibility differs from that of management. Corporate directors may need to restrain short-term thinking by managers and the greed of some shareholders for short-term profit-taking.
Instead, taking the long view, they should aim for an optimal balance among three considerations:
– shorter term financial rewards,
– sustainability of the corporation,
– and contribution to social and environmental well-being.
It is incumbent on corporate directors to see the corporation as a multi-generational entity and therefore to guide managers and shareholders in providing for its long-term health—its sustainability within a healthy natural and social environment.[13] I should also point out that some of these insights were echoed by Pope Benedict XVI in his great encyclical, Caritas in veritate—he argued that businesses needed to be responsible to a wider array of stakeholders than shareholders alone, and to move away from the logic of short-term financial return.
Conclusion: “Is business to care for our common home?”
I have argued that the answer to the title question is a robust YES. But business caring for our common home cannot be business as usual. Some 200 years of business-as-usual according to the technocratic paradigm has brought our common home to the brink of both environmental and social collapse. Going forward, business will need to adopt and implement a new idea of progress and development.
Caring for our common home requires, as Pope Francis says, not just an economic and technological revolution, but also a cultural and spiritual revolution—a profoundly different way of approaching the relationship between people and the environment, a new way of ordering the global economy. And this in turn, places a great responsibility on the shoulders of business leaders as well as popular leaders. But I am confident that you are up to the task! Do not enslave your eternal values to temporal goods; instead, deploy the spiritual principles that you hold dear in your effort to improve the here-and-now.
In this Year of Mercy, let compassion and caring guide your creativity and business prowess to make this a better world. Let us join together to take good care of creation–a gift freely given–cultivating and protecting it for future generations.
Cardinal Peter K.A. Turkson
[1] www.ThePopeVideo.org
[2] Pope Francis, Address to the Second World Meeting of Popular Movements, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, 9 July 2015, § 1.
[3] Pope Francis, Message to World Economic Forum, 17 Jan 2014, quoting Evangelii Gaudium §203
[4] ibid.
[5] “Short-sighted confidence in technology and commerce” is what Pope Francis sums up under “technocracy” in Laudato si’.
[6] Centesimus Annus § 38, quoted in Laudato si’ § 5.
[7] Centesimus Annus § 37 and 38, quoted in Laudato si’ § 115, 117..
[8] Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, § 93.
[9] Laudato si’ § 93 quoting Centesimus Annus §31
[10] Laudato si’ § 93.
[11] Pope Francis, Address to the Second World Meeting of Popular Movements, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, 9.7.2015, § 3.1
[12] Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, §32.
[13] My thanks to Robert G. Eccles, Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School and associate of its Centre for the Environment.
(from Vatican Radio)…