| Editor : Abbé Georges de Nantes | N° 83 – August 2009 |
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FROM PAUL VI TO BENEDICT XVI:
CARITAS IN VERITATE,
POPULORUM PROGRESSIO II
The « encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate of the supreme pontiff Benedict XVI to the bishops, priests and deacons, men and women religious, the lay faithful, and all people of good will, on integral human development, in charity and truth » of 29 June 2009, constantly refers to the encyclical Populorum progressio of his predecessor, Paul VI. It is quoted 56 times (out of 159 endnotes). This makes our work easier because the Abbé de Nantes made an in-depth commentary on that encyclical when it was published (Letter to My Friends n° 245, April 1967)… The other references essentially refer to John Paul II, who celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the same encyclical Populorum Progressio with his encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis in 1987. Benedict XVI, for his part, had planned to publish this third encyclical of his pontificate in 2007 for the fortieth anniversary of Populorum Progressio.
« At a distance of over forty years from the Encyclical’s publication, I intend to pay tribute and to honour the memory of the great Pope Paul VI, revisiting his teachings on integral human development and taking my place within the path that they marked out, so as to apply them to the present moment. This continual application to contemporary circumstances began with the Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, with which the Servant of God Pope John Paul II chose to mark the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Populorum Progressio. Until that time, only Rerum Novarum had been commemorated in this way. Now that a further twenty years have passed, I express my conviction that Populorum Progressio deserves to be considered “the Rerum Novarum of the present age”, shedding light upon humanity’s journey towards unity. » (n° 11)
This is why the first chapter of the encyclical Caritas in veritate is entitled “The message of Populorum Progressio”. The other chapters, however, depend on it closely: “Human Development in our Time” (chap. 2), “Fraternity, Economic Development and Civil Society” (chap. 3), “The Development of People, Rights and Duties, the Environment” (chap. 4), “The Cooperation of the Human Family” (chap. 5), “The Development of Peoples and Technology” (chap. 6). We will substitute our own titles for these and thereby express the truth in all charity.
THE FIRST FALSEHOOD.
The Holy Father affirms that his orientation comes « from the correct viewpoint », i.e., from the « “Tradition of the Apostolic faith”, a patrimony both ancient and new, outside of which Populorum Progressio would be a document without roots – and issues concerning development would be reduced to merely sociological data. » (no 11)
Benedict XVI thus claims to be following in the steps of Paul VI, to be exercising a worldwide magistracy, to be laying down infallibly the new rights and duties of persons and states, to be determining the ideal of and the programme for a universal social reform that must apply Paul VI’s teaching to the present moment, « for the integral development of the whole man and of all men ».
To prove that his predecessor’s teaching was in conformity with the “Tradition of the Apostolic faith”, Benedict XVI recalls that « in its opening paragraphs, the publication of Populorum Progressio clearly indicates its close connection with the Council. Twenty years later, in Sollicitdo Rei Socialis, John Paul II, in his turn, emphasised the earlier Encyclical’s fruitful relationship with the Council, and especially with the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes. I too wish to recall here the importance of the Second Vatican Council for Paul VI’s Encyclical and for the whole of the subsequent social Magisterium of the Popes. » (n° 11)
It is quite true that from Paul VI to Benedict XVI the constant reference « of the supreme pontiffs », mainly that of John Paul II has been « the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes ». Yet Benedict XVI adds that « the link between Populorum Progressio and the Second Vatican Council does not mean that Paul VI’s social Magisterium marked a break with that of previous Popes, because the Council constitutes a deeper exploration of this Magisterium within the continuity of the Church’s life » (no 12). We do not hesitate to say in all charity (Caritas) that this affirmation is contrary to the truth (Veritas) for the reasons that the Abbé de Nantes expounded in the past in his commentary on Populorum Progressio:
« This encyclical, like Giovanni Battista Montini’s other great politico-religious acts, is clothed in the outward appearance of a Roman Apostolic Magisterial Act, but the appearance is misleading. The author himself indicates that this encyclical is not a question of “a treatise nor of a lesson, but of a letter inspiring Christian love and impelling towards action”... It is just as well that this indication was made; otherwise, if this were a question of the teaching dispensed by the Ordinary Magisterium of the Apostolic See in accordance with the Revelation of Jesus Christ in matters of dogma and morals and for the instruction of the faithful of the Universal Church, then we should have to choose between the Church of Paul VI and the Church of all time. As it is, our rights and duties have not changed, and we continue to heed the teaching of St. Pius X who, in his condemnation of the Sillon on 25 August 1910 formally reprobated as errors the very things that Paul VI is now proposing as today’s truth. Even though this encyclical is not Magisterial teaching, the conflict is nevertheless grave.
« An examination of the 69 quotations in this encyclical, which is dedicated to the Progress of peoples, will soon remove any hesitation as to its Catholic worth. It ignores, with good reason, the Authorities of Tradition; it rests essentially on the theories of living authors from the French schools of theology and sociology, which had been struck by Pius XII. That is some indication of the break and the consecration of rebellion. For us it is a provocation. There are 15 references to Holy Scripture, one to the Fathers of the Church but none to the great scholastics and moralists and none to any other Council but Vatican II nor to any but modern Popes. There is one reference to Pascal, 9 to Popes Leo XIII, Pius XI and Pius XII. St. Pius X is excluded, as always by the present Pontiff, from the list of social Popes. On the other hand there are 35 ample quotations from John XXIII, Paul VI and Vatican II; there are 8 quotations from contemporary leaders of doctrinal and social modernism. Altogether, 43 of the 69 quotations date from after 1958 and form the authoritative basis for this updated Christianity. »
If we study the content of these quotations « we find that the break is even more striking. Holy Scripture is quoted 15 times but in that very free and easy manner to which Paul VI has accustomed us. Very often their value is no more than ornamental, sometimes misinterpreted. They are torn from their context without explanation and even flagrantly transposed from the spiritual to the carnal and from the mystical to the political domain! »
Today, Benedict XVI assumes the same liberty. Such is the case for the references to Jn 8:32, to 1 Co 13:6. From the first lines of Caritas in Veritate deception and falsehoods set the tone!
The Abbé de Nantes remarks that in the encyclical Populorum progressio, even the teachings of St. Ambrose, Leo XIII and Pius XII are torn from their proper domain where they were authoritative and made to serve as apparent sources for entirely new affirmations. « The references to modern authors, on the other hand, are all fully justified. They testify to a veritable new tradition, which comes from those schools of theology and sociology held in suspicion prior to 1962, and which passes via John XXIII and Vatican II in order to take shape as orthodoxy in the Letters and Speeches of Paul VI. » (Letter to My Friends n° 245)
Benedict XVI quotes Populorum progressio without indicating « the references to modern authors ». That allows him to write, as John Paul II did that « it is not a case of two typologies of social doctrine, one pre-conciliar and one post-conciliar, differing from one another: on the contrary, there is a “single teaching, consistent and at the same time ever new” ».
In fact, the analysis of the socio-economic situation in Paul VI’s encyclical « comes from the Dominican Lebret, founder of “Economy and Humanism” at l’Arbresle, whose most illustrious product was another Dominican Fr. Desroches, who apostatised in 1950, out of fidelity to his militant Marxism. The theology of work, boldly called “the creator of the supernatural World” (Populorum progressio no 28)! is the brainchild of Fr. Chenu, the “Prophet” of crypto-communist French progressivism, who in turn taught Fr. Congar, Liégé and the other Dominicans from Saulchoir. The idea of Mankind’s harmonious development in history is taken from Domenach; the idea of the peoples’ liberation movement being identified with fulfillment of the Gospel is from Mounier. The idea that all men of good will be finally united is from Mandouze and others. All three of these ideas are from progressivists. The threat of ruin of bourgeois society as a judgement from God is the idea of Fr. Montuclard, who apostatised in 1953, but who earlier had advocated (already) the whole system of the Church’s evangelical and socialist renovation in his book “The Church’s Youth.” And like Paul VI [and Benedict XVI!], they all appeal to St. Paul.
« The dream solution of a new profane pluralist Humanism is Maritain’s taken from Sangnier and Lamennais before him.
« Populorum progressio obligingly quotes Maritain’s speech to Unesco, (15 May 1966) which caught my attention at the time on account of its truly heretical, false mysticism. Fr. de Lubac also gets a quotation, no doubt by virtue of being leader of the theological school of Fourvière, which had been dispersed by Piux XII, and as Teilhard de Chardin’s advocate. De Lubac, together with Danielou, Riquet and other Jesuits, is the great promoter of the reconciliation of religions in biblical fraternity. There is a quotation from Mgr Larrain, who, as a disciple of the above-named and a theorist of the social revolution in Latin America will thereby be able to assure his confreres of a glorious revenge on an Episcopate, which has always held him in suspicion. It will also be a great comfort to Mgr Helder Camara, Archbishop of Recife, the Brazilian economy’s gadfly.
« In 1960 Fr. Fessard, who had been their travelling companion on Témoignage Chretien, put his finger on the fundamental Marxist error of all these “sages” whose thoughts are now at the origin of this encyclical. In his decisive book “De l’actualite historique” (Vol. 2 Desclée), Fr. Fessard explained why the most logical of them, including their dupes the worker priests, apostatised: they preferred the real appearance of the communist solution to the apparent reality of the still Christian progressivism. In spite of the conspiracy of silence with regard to Fr. Fessard, his book stands and it refutes in advance this Encyclical’s entire prophetism as though it were an evangelism precariously built on a Marxist view of the Class struggle. It is not the world that has changed since 1960, nor is it the Church; it is quite simply the opinions and personal options of the reigning Pope that have made the difference. » (Letter to My Friends n° 245)
With such references, how can Benedict XVI write that this « social doctrine is built on the foundation handed on by the Apostles to the Fathers of the Church, and then received and further explored by the great Christian doctors. »? With one reference to St. Augustine, only one (note no 88), one to St. Thomas, only one (note no 130), and one to Heraclitus of Ephesus (535-475 b.c.!). The rest, all the rest, besides the 56 explicit references to Populorum Progressio, refer again to other documents of Paul VI, of John XXIII, to Gaudium et Spes, and above all to John Paul II, whom he quotes 61 times. This is not to mention references to Benedict XVI himself… But it is also to forget St. Pius X, of course… and to substitute « the message of populorum progressio » for that of Our Lady of Fatima by appealing not only to Catholics, but to all men to build a new Peace, not by prayer and penance, but by « development ».
I. A FALSE CHARITY
« Charity in truth (Caritas in veritate), to which Jesus Christ bore witness by His earthly life and especially by His death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity. Love “caritas” is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. »
Formulated in this way, « the charity » in question is the common lot of society: « All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically. » Jesus Christ is, therefore, not the exclusive source. Nevertheless, « the search for love and truth is purified and liberated by Jesus Christ from the impoverishment that our humanity brings to it, and He reveals to us in all its fullness the initiative of love and the plan for true life that God has prepared for us. » (no 1)
What is this « plan »? In order to know it « the Church, experienced in human affairs,... must examine the signs of the times and interpret them in the light of the Gospel. Sharing the noblest aspirations of men and suffering when she sees them not satisfied, she wishes to help them attain their full flowering and that is why she offers men what she possesses as her characteristic attribute: a global vision of man and of the human race. » (PP no 13, quoted by Benedict XVI, CV no 18)
In his astonishment the Abbé de Nantes observed, « Never before has the Church expressed such a claim. From a moderate and legitimate “clericalism”, she taught the dogmas of life eternal, and in temporal affairs she taught the laws of her divine morality. But she never claimed to foretell the course of human history or to guarantee an earthly fulfilment for men here and now. But now she thinks of competing with Communism’s most excessive claims concerning the future of the world and the historical struggle to reach a “classless society”. » (Letter n° 245)
Benedict XVI pursues the same objective as Paul VI: « the building of a society according to freedom and justice, in the ideal and historical perspective of a civilisation animated by love. Paul VI clearly understood that the social question had become worldwide and he grasped the interconnection between the impetus towards the unification of humanity and the Christian ideal of a single family of peoples in solidarity and fraternity. » (CV no 13)
This is what St. Pius X called a « blasphemous comparison ». It is what the Abbé de Nantes called « the infernal message » that Paul VI did not cease declaring and repeating following his speech to the UN in 1965: « Peace is possible because men are good; that peace can be attained by the joint efforts of all men, under the direction of the Judaeo-Masonic organisations. In your message the Cult of Man replaces that of God. » (Liber accusationis in Paulum sextum, 1973, p. 66)
THE CRIES OF THE POOR.
The Abbé de Nantes detected « a Marxist-Leninist analysis of the world social situation » in Populorum Progressio. It can be found again in Caritas in Veritate. Benedict XVI once again quotes what our Father called the « visible thread » of this analysis grid:
« The peoples in hunger are making a dramatic appeal to the peoples blessed with abundance. » (CV n° 17) The Abbé de Nantes showed how Paul VI’s encyclical became « a sermon on charity, which takes on the aspect of an ultimatum.
« There is nothing evangelical about this Encyclical. Jesus could exclaim “Woe, you rich!” because He had first exalted the poverty of the humble and not their revolt. He did not say, “Away with you wretches! Woe to you who are secure!” but, “Blessed are the poor.” To both rich and poor the Lord of Peace shows Heaven as the only object of their hopes and fears. In keeping with the Spirit of Her Founder, and contrary to that of the heresiarchs, the Church has always been very careful not to associate “the judgement of God and the wrath of the poor, with consequences no one can foretell” (PP no 49) as this Encyclical does. Whilst reminding the rich of their duty, the Church never thereby intended to incite the poor to revolt. She was always very careful not to match Her teaching on charity with a clear threat of imminent chastisement as we read here to our horror: “Thus at least the wealthy will know that the poor stand outside their doors waiting to receive some left-overs from their banquets.” (PP no 83) This blackmail is repeated ten times! (PP n° 11, 44, 49, 53, 55, 57, 73, 76, 80, 83.) This “money or your life” threat reminds us of the other sinister warning, “Your case or the coffin,” and, in the same way, it heralds torrents of blood. »
This is in fact what happened again last year in the hunger riots that shook about forty countries on several continents.
« It will be said that Paul VI does not actually exalt the revolt of the poor, nor does he condone their violence; it will even be said that he strongly advises against terrorism. That is true; he contents himself with pointing out to the rich the exasperation of the poor and their probable insurrection in the near future, but in announcing it, he helps it on! »
Subsequent events have proved it. Forty years later, terrorism is here! So true is it that « not to reprove the revolt of the poor along with the selfishness of the rich is neither evangelical nor human. »
On an apparently more ironical tone, Benedict XVI formulates the same blackmail: « Moreover, the elimination of world hunger has also, in the global era, become a requirement for safeguarding the peace and stability of the planet. » (no 27) It is the same language as that which Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the imf, used when he gave an account of the repercussions of abandoning the promises of aid that the rich countries had made during the Rome conference of June 2008.
But, the Abbé de Nantes subtly pointed out: « The tone of this threat is not very skilful. We too have “pity on this crowd”, but we know how scarce is the virtue of the rich and how little the materialist West cares. Hence we fear that in a moment of humour or lassitude or from a reaction of fear or disgust they might suspend their aid to an excessively exigent the Third World. This Encyclical could well precipitate such a defence reaction: what’s the good of feeding the starving millions, they may say, if one day they are bound to slaughter us all? “Development is the new name for peace.” Nothing could be less certain than that! By swelling this threatening voice hovering over the white race, with a general uprising of the coloured peoples, Paul VI is running the risk of drying up an altruistic effort which is already losing courage in many places. “What’s the good, they say, of feeding and industrialising these peoples if they are already seeking arms to fight against us and if they are already feverish with thoughts of revolution?”... I fear that only the poor peoples themselves will fall victim to that kind of threatening sermon in the end! » (Letter to My Friends n° 245)
II. OUR SAD PRESENT-DAY
« Paul VI had an articulated vision of development, Benedict XVI writes. He understood the term to indicate the goal of rescuing peoples, first and foremost, from hunger, deprivation, endemic diseases and illiteracy. From the economic point of view, this meant their active participation, on equal terms, in the international economic process; from the social point of view, it meant their evolution into educated societies marked by solidarity; from the political point of view, it meant the consolidation of democratic regimes capable of ensuring freedom and peace. »
This is the whole programme of the Sillon that Pius X described as a « chimera bringing Socialism in its train ».
Here is the proof that the holy Pope was right:
« After so many years, as we observe with concern the developments and perspectives of the succession of crises that afflict the world today, we ask to what extent Paul VI’s expectations have been fulfilled by the model of development adopted in recent decades. » (n° 21)
This failure does not open Benedict XVI’s eyes to Paul VI’s error, which the Abbé de Nantes denounced in its time. We can do no better than to quote this brilliant page from which truth in all charity shines. It can be applied – alas! – line by line, to the encyclical Caritas in Veritate:
« The economic analysis in this encyclical which comes through Fr. Lebret is in fact a tributary of Hegel’s dialectic of Master and Slave, of Marx’s class war theory, transformed by Lenin into the racialist antagonisms of the colonialist struggle. Paul VI sees the world in an absolute state of conflict between opposing interests and categories of people. That is dialectical materialism. He doubtless dissuades the oppressed peoples against engaging in violent, revolutionary ways – apart from exceptions – (PP n° 31) yet he nevertheless advocates “bold transformations, innovations that go deep”, “urgent, necessary, indispensable reforms” (n° 32, 81) in order to break this cursed subjection of the Third World to the peoples of the West. They have already won political independence, which is made to sound even more important than bread here. Since the Encyclical Pacem in Terris, the Church makes bold to flatter herself on having encouraged and aided them. They now aspire to well-being, economic autonomy and cultural advancement. All that must be given them “before it is too late” (no 53), otherwise they will snatch it from their oppressors. That is Marxism... or demagogy.
« There is no doubt that the capitalist West has gravely sinned! “It must certainly be recognised that colonising powers have often furthered their own interests, power or glory”. (n° 7) They have left too much “bitterness” over from their rule (n° 52) and “much rancour in the wake of genuine injustice.” (n° 63) The brutality of a “certain type of capitalism” has provoked “excessive suffering, injustices and fratricidal conflicts, whose effects still persist.” (n° 26) The hardhearted law of free exchange has crushed the underdeveloped peoples (n° 58): price fluctuations, the collapse in world prices for agricultural products and raw materials has driven them to bankruptcy. (n° 57) The list of “misdeeds of a certain type of colonialism” (n° 7) is long. It is true that the individualist, materialist law of the jungle has prevailed in the West ever since the anarchic, anti-Christian Revolution of 1789 broke those strong political and religious authorities, who were capable of strangling it. At this point many such disorders could be recalled leading to a study of moral laws which need to be re-established and protective political, social systems which need restoring or founding.
« But the abuses of “a certain type of colonialism” and of “a certain type of capitalism” could be used as an argument to condemn the entire present order. Never for a moment does the Pope point out that colonial administrations brought some notable attenuation to this violence, this “complete dominance” (n° 52) and to this “international imperialism of money” (n° 26).
« Nor is there any mention of how the ambition “to exercise power” and the thirst for an equal “enjoyment of possessions” (n° 9) have deprived the native peoples of every protective institution after our expulsion. The decolonisation, praised by the Pope, has considerably aggravated the very evils he denounces! He may recognise certain material benefits to have flowed from colonisation, but he refuses to recognise its essential utility: the provision of social protection against the powers of capitalism and armed protection against world subversion. The Pope will never concede any value in what contradicts his fundamental thesis of individuals’ and peoples’ democratic freedom.
« The missions here appear as ill-adapted as colonialism to act as civilising institutions for the solution of present-day world difficulties. The encyclical greets the efforts of the missionaries, but only in passing, as “pioneers in material progress as well as in cultural advancement.” Paul VI reproaches the missionaries with having “infiltrated the Gospel message with many ways of thinking and acting which were characteristic of their home country.” (n° 12) A pity. And if they “have often protected the natives against the greed of foreigners”, nevertheless “such local and individual undertakings are no longer enough.” That is the coup de grace for the social work of the missions. For Paul VI, as for all socialists of any obedience, colonialism and the missions are evidence of a radically inadequate system and are themselves sullied by capitalism, racism and nationalism, hence outmoded. The Pope sets the old order aside with a wave of the hand in order to make a clean sweep in view of “the concerted action demanded by the present situation of the world” (n° 13). He has his programme. In the meanwhile the Third World is abandoned ever more daily to ruthless capitalism, to regression, to democratic anarchy and finally to the calamity of another kind of missionary colonialism; devouring and degrading world Communism.
« For the West is not solely nor even principally responsible for world poverty! The only cause to which this encyclical attributes the underdevelopment of peoples is the abuse of capitalism. Robbed and exploited by us, therefore? The native peoples were rather helped and aided. Their poverty comes from calamities beyond our control and which our colonials have suffered alongside them, and even more than they. There is the aridity of the soil, the severity of the climate, the insalubrity of the air. Then there is the formidable backwardness of primitive or degenerated peoples which can be measured in thousands of years. Why pass over the vices of the native peoples, which are worse than those of the colonisers? There is laziness, polygamy, cannibalism and the hundred faces of barbarism to contend with!
« It would have been important to stress the disastrous influence of false religions, of backward laws and customs, of tribal wars, slavery and the slave trade. Why pass over in silence extreme difficulties of nature and the ills of native savagery? Is it in order the better to make demands against the white race? It is amazing and painful that the Pope of Rome should so completely ignore the definitive beneficence of Imperial and Catholic Rome – a beneficence that is far older than mercantile capitalism and will outlive it. It is amazing that the Pope should ignore the benefits brought to the barbarian world by our soldiers, colonials and missionaries, who worked in happy association. They brought the Order of Law and the Truth of Faith. Compared with these two great principles of civilisation, the injustices and misdeeds of a certain type of colonialism are negligible.
« For that reason the colonial and missionary ideal should have prevailed in any pontifical teaching on the development of peoples just as the monarchical and corporative ideal should prevail in any social teaching. But it does not. Paul VI has chosen to accuse capitalism in order to impose on the world the more grandiose plan of a new international organisation, which will be neither traditional nor hierarchical, neither Western nor Catholic, but democratic and socialist... Solve et coagula. (cf. CCR n° 72, The Pope at U.N.O.) »
Benedict XVI persists and signs, while thinking that he is innovating: « Charity and truth confront us with an altogether new and creative challenge, one that is certainly vast and complex. It is about broadening the scope of reason and making it capable of knowing and directing these powerful new forces, animating them within the perspective of that “civilisation of love” whose seed God has planted in every people, in every culture. » (n° 33)
III. AN IMMENSE REGRESSION
In Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate as in Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio, « there is no question of conversion, of renunciation or of spiritual combat, but instead it is all a question of “personal and community growth”, first in “having”, then in “being”. There is no more sacrifice and no more Cross, instead “a harmonious enrichment of nature by personal and responsible effort.” The “contradictions” of St. Paul’s divided man are about to disappear in the new man, according to Paul VI. Firstly, he acquires what is necessary for life through work, but by avoiding that avarice and cupidity whereby man is enclosed in a “stifling materialism” or “form of moral under-development.”
« Then he will progress in “the scale of values” through acquiring wealth, science and culture to the sense of human dignity, the spirit of poverty, co-operation for the common good and the will for peace. In short “by embracing the higher values of love and friendship, of prayer and contemplation.” The crowning luxury for this harmonious enrichment of the person will be “to acknowledge the supreme values, and God, their source and finality”, or what amounts to the same thing “to accept the faith and enter into Christ’s charity.” Man is enriched and perfected in all material and spiritual wealth, and at last, made happy, he surpasses himself “by his insertion in Christ, by acceding to a new flowering, a transcendental humanism, which will give him a greater fullness; such is the supreme finality of personal development.”
« Further on in the encyclical, the Pope again determines the material, social and cultural stages in this programme for human development. In it, the political element of democratic emancipation is heavily stressed. Social progress must result from increased wealth. Economic and technical development has “no other raison d’être than the service of man. Such programmes should reduce inequalities, fight discriminations, free man from various types of servitude and enable him to be the instrument of his own material betterment, of his moral progress and of his spiritual growth.” For “man is only truly man in as far as, master of his own acts and judge of their worth, he is author of his own advancement in keeping with the nature which was given to him by his Creator and whose possibilities and exigencies he himself freely assumes”. Such indeed is the “cult of man” proclaimed by Paul VI at the Council! Everything must concur in man’s well-being, his full independence and finally his spiritual flowering.
« Literacy, the relaxing of stifling social frameworks, population control, the doctrinal pluralism of professional associations and the promotion of all-important culture for the “success of development”, the conservation of spiritual values and at the same time an increase in material prosperity. Such is “the complete humanism that has to be aimed at.” Here again, religion appears as the apex of man’s self-deification. The obscurity of the terms used in the following extract defeats any attempt at commentary:
« “A humanism closed in on itself, and not open to the values of the spirit and to God who is their source, could achieve apparent success. True, man can organise the world apart from God, but without God man can organise it in the end only to man’s detriment. An isolated humanism is an inhuman humanism. (sic! a quotation from de Lubac). Thus (!), there is no true humanism but that which is open to the Absolute and is conscious of a vocation which gives human life its true meaning. Far from being the ultimate measure of all things, man can only realise himself by reaching beyond himself. As Pascal has said so well: Man infinitely surpasses himself.”
« Such, then, is this famous “global vision of man”, which is said to be ours even though it has nothing specifically Christian about it and which Paul VI now reveals as today’s definitive solution for all the conflicts and failures of human life: get rich, free yourselves, forearm yourselves against an increasing birth rate, cultivate the sciences, the arts and wisdom, and finally be open to spiritual values and to God, so as to surpass yourselves. Such is your “vocation” as men, and such is your right, in whose service, society, the Church and God must bend! » (Letter to My Friends n° 245, quoted in CCR 81, December 1976, p. 3)
IV. A BOUNDLESS PHILANTHROPY
Benedict XVI exactly follows the same blueprint. What is one to say of Caritas in Veritate? One might think that the Pope has the intention to do us the charity of telling us the truth. And, indeed, he does: « to express [original sin] in faith terms » to explain the presumption of « modern man wrongly convinced that he is the sole author of himself, his life and society » (CV n° 34). This, however, does not prevent him from basing social progress on his natural generosity:
« Charity in truth (Caritas in Veritate) places man before the astonishing experience of gift. Gratuitousness is present in our lives in many different forms, which often go unrecognised because of a purely consumerist and utilitarian view of life. The human being is made for gift, which expresses and makes present his transcendent dimension. »
This is the ultimate advance of the “social doctrine of the Church” which since Jacques Maritain has been based on the “transcendence of the human person”. There is a reference to St. Augustine in support of this. If it were quoted correctly, however, it would rather be the foundation for our social doctrine or “communitarian ecology”. The Pope specifies in note (n° 88) that St. Augustine « indicates the existence within the human soul of an “internal sense”. This sense consists in an act that is fulfilled outside the normal functions of reason, an act that is not the result of reflection, but is almost instinctive, through which reason, realising its transient and fallible nature, admits the existence of something eternal, higher than itself, something absolutely true and certain. The name that Saint Augustine gives to this interior truth is at times the name of God, more often that of Christ. »
Poor St. Augustine! He is only quoted once in the encyclical with the aim of portraying him as the promoter of social modernism and immanentism, and to make revealed truth forgotten: the Covenant of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, pure Existence revealed to Moses in the Burning Bush, “I am”, who engenders and loves, the living, acting God, in action in His choices, desires, and wrath throughout the course of the orthodromy of Sacred History during which a « people » was formed. Forgotten is the God of the Catholic Faith, our very good and cherished heavenly Father, who is in a constant struggle against every theoretical or practical system, every organisation or power that denies His existence, that is opposed to His truth, His rights, and that fights His Kingdom on earth.
Benedict XVI ignores this struggle:
« Because it is a gift received by everyone, charity in truth is a force that builds community, it brings all people together without imposing barriers or limits. » Thus, « economic, social and political development, if it is to be authentically human, needs to make room for the principle of gratuitousness as an expression of fraternity. » (n° 34)
From the time of Leo XIII, with the exception of the teaching of St. Pius X, his immediate successor, what is called the “social doctrine of the Church” amounts to the will not to offend the powerful of this world while at the same time preaching to them, with the aim of putting an end to the inhuman egoism of the rich. It is moralising liberalism! But business remains business:
« In a climate of mutual trust, the market is the economic institution that permits encounter between persons, inasmuch as they are economic subjects who make use of contracts to regulate their relations as they exchange goods and services of equivalent value between them, in order to satisfy their needs and desires. » (n° 35)
Thus, Benedict XVI remains a prisoner of liberal capitalism and the “market economy” where everything is treated as merchandise, where everything can be bought and sold. Even when it is disguised as capitalo-socialism, this system is asocial, stateless, and impious. If up until now it has been able to surmount the crises that it periodically generates, it nevertheless remains an imprudent system that is, therefore, heading for ruin. All the more is this so as it is an impiety and originates in the revolution, which is « Satanic in its essence ». We can only hope for one thing: that it collapse – and that ecological equilibrium be reborn!
THE FAMILY.
« The Church, in her concern for man’s authentic development, urges him to have full respect for human values in the exercise of his sexuality. » (no 44) Unfortunately, in this paragraph the Pope will not deal with the primordial, founding fact of the family, but only with morality and birth control from the viewpoint of the person and the state.
“Communitarian ecology”, on the other hand, which will be recognised in the future as the Church’s true social doctrine, is a speculative science and a practical art of the ideal conditions and of the possible realisations of family prosperity, for the purpose of a happy life involving fraternal human communities. It rests on the virtue of prudence rather than on « the principle of gratuitousness and the logic of gift as an expression of fraternity » (no 36).
The family is the prime actor of the economy, with its own stable biological, material and moral interests, its complete round of activities, its labours directed to its own consumption, its savings for its long-term projects. These are common to the two spouses, to begin with, their desire for fecundity and balanced, constant and assured prosperity in order to feed and educate the children to come.
Before speaking about the « human family » (nos 7, 33, 53 - 67), the family simply as such is truly the basis of every more complex system. Without the family, no “enterprise” could last. The first essential requirement that flows from this point of departure is the need to defend and restore unceasingly what remains of family liberty, with the authority and responsibility that it gives to the head of the family.
First article: revocation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which only recognises the individual. It is a mountain that must be displaced, thrown into the sea! It will not suffice to enact a decree to restore what our democratic institutions have destroyed and replaced with “single-parent families”, whose children no longer know what a “family” is! The civil law will have to aid in this rectification by the gradual restoration of the indissoluble monogamous marriage, of the paternal and parental authority in the legitimate family community, and of the absolute banning of abortion.
The Church alone can undertake this necessary and urgent rectification of morals – which remains the deepest wish of our « family of peoples » dear to Benedict XVI (nos 13, 42 and passim) – even corrupted by democratic propaganda and institutions. For its part, the State will have to fall in with this social restoration by relinquishing its usurped role, its hydra’s clutch, by restoring to families their freedom of choice concerning the education of their children, health, insurance, savings, successions, etc. None of these are a matter for the “rights of man”, but they come within the province of the real rights of the head of the family. The disengagement of the State and the enhanced responsibility of family authority are the goal, the responsibility of a family for making its decisions with natural prudence, a “state of grace”, a source of wisdom and energy for seeking and safeguarding its own “human capital”, which is composed of virtues even more than of material goods and advantages.
Property contributes to founding the natural freedom of families and constitutes one of the bases of order, vitality and stability for any society. It is not an absolute right; it is limited by mutual agreements, establishing the balance of social relations within “enterprises”.
ENTERPRISE.
Benedict XVI recognises it: « Today’s international economic scene, marked by grave deviations and failures, requires a profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise. » (n° 40) Suddenly, the reference to Populorum Progressio gave me a start: « Paul VI invited people to give serious attention to the damage that can be caused to one’s home country by the transfer abroad of capital purely for personal advantage [reference to PP n° 24]. » When soon after the Council, Paul VI decided to organise an enormous flight of capital in order to avoid paying taxation on the profits of portfolios held or managed by the Vatican, undoubtedly it was not « purely for personal advantage »? Nevertheless, this transaction carried out under the nose of the Italian State resulted in a grave economic crisis for the country with very harsh repercussions on the poor in the year 1970.
Is it to excuse his « venerable predecessor » that Benedict XVI adds: « There is no reason to deny that a certain amount of capital can do good, if invested abroad rather than at home »? Not at all! In his eyes, the damage that was caused to Italy is of no consequence, given that « humanity itself is becoming increasingly interconnected [...]. The truth of globalisation as a process and its fundamental ethical criterion are given by the unity of the human family and its development towards what is good. Hence a sustained commitment is needed so as to promote a person-based and community-oriented cultural process of world-wide integration that is open to transcendence. »
Like Giovanni Battista Montini, his “venerable predecessor”, Joseph Ratzinger speaks to men, his brethren, as an “expert in humanity” and a prophet of the “designs of God”. He intends to lead them infallibly, with an infallibility that is quite personal, towards a society without distinction of class, nation, race, and religion. He intends to lead them by the combined ways of totalitarian socialism and human brotherhood restored by means of « an ethics which is people-centred [...] to ensure that the whole economy – the whole of finance – is ethical, not merely by virtue of an external label [sic!], but by its respect for requirements intrinsic to its very nature. » (n° 45).
Truth is stranger than fiction…
« The processes of globalisation, suitably understood and directed, open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale; if badly directed, however, they can lead to an increase in poverty and inequality, and could even trigger a global crisis. It is necessary to correct the malfunctions, some of them serious, that cause new divisions between peoples and within peoples, and also to ensure that the redistribution of wealth does not come about through the redistribution or increase of poverty: a real danger if the present situation were to be badly managed... » (n° 42)
These lines discourage commentary. They convey a Christian Democrat’s irremediable unrealism that « brings Socialism in its train, its eyes fixed on a chimera. » (St. Pius X, Letter on the Sillon, 25 August 1910, n° 38).
Likewise, when Benedict XVI concedes that « both wisdom and prudence suggest not being too precipitous in declaring the demise of the State [sic!] », he unwittingly lets his “theo-democratic” ambition show through, an ambition inherited from Pius XI, which would allow him or his successor to reign over the world. « Who can fail to see, Paul VI exclaimed, the need and importance of thus gradually coming to the establishment of a world authority capable of taking effective action on the juridical and political planes? » (PP n° 78).
The Abbé de Nantes was not mistaken:
« Such then is the full programme, no longer decked out in the garb of fraternity, respect and love, but revealed in its stark reality: a despotism without hope. The reconciliation of individual happiness with this totalitarian Socialism is merely a rhetorical exercise. This is Jean-Jacques Rousseau leading up to Robespierre. And if all these efforts come to fruition, not in chaos, but in the World Organisation of the Pope’s dreams, then Paul VI will have built Antichrist’s throne with his own hands. » (Letter to My Friends n° 245)
The truth of the matter is that with the abolition of corporations, for the first time in the history of Christianity, the problem of economic order and social justice was posed in antithetic terms, without finding a solution in the economic community itself and without a natural tendency to harmony. What was lacking was the intervention of the moderating authority of the King whom the Revolution has overthrown.
The advent of liberal capitalism, which fears neither God, man, nor king, emancipated the economic life from the natural rules of ecological prudence and harmony. Profit, private interests and malignant coalitions can dominate an institution and make it the instrument of their injustice.
Only one pontifical document denounces the true cause of the “social question” and proposes a solution in clear terms for the Church to implement:
« All that is needed is to take up again, with the help of the true workers for a social restoration, the organisms which the Revolution shattered, and to adapt them, in the same Christian spirit that inspired them, to the new environment arising from the material development of today’s society. Indeed, the true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries, nor innovators: they are traditionalists. » (St. Pius X, Letter on the Sillon, n° 44).
The solution to the social problem thus begins with the restoration of the basic economic community, the enterprise, and the rehabilitation of its responsible head. The authority to be a true manager, enterprising, honest and human must be restored to the entrepreneur, thus freed from the tutelage of the banks, bureaucracy, and trade unions that, presently, suffocate him.
The entrepreneur is a head of a family who launches a business project in order to feed his family. He does so with all the required prudence, since he knows that the prosperity of other families will depend on him. He does so before thinking about the « human family » at the planetary level!
This does not mean to say that his horizon cannot reach further. In the same way as several families end up associating themselves through mutual agreements in order to create an enterprise, enterprises can establish strategic alliances in order to protect their industry, to improve the quality of their products, to find new markets (without for all that becoming prey to financiers), and to provide professional training. They can also associate to offer mutual financial aid and share legal and computing services, etc. These associations should have a clearly defined legal structure that determine the rights and duties of each member and that establishes an arbitrating authority to preserve good terms in all circumstances, in all difficulties that may arise…
When such an association has proved the influence it exerts and its effectiveness, it may receive from « political authority » to which Benedict XVI agrees to grant a place (n° 41), the status of a public organism, which would give its decisions a legal and not only contractual value.
This is what corporations were in the past.
Such organisations of free initiative, of great creativity, of practically unlimited expansion, tended of their own accord to maintain a spirit of fraternal community and service that are a factor of civilisation and of human equilibrium.
The corporations that we want to restore will be the antidote to the organisations that capitalism produces, which have not only lost all prudence but even resort to violent injustice when a profession, a class, an oligarchy seizes hold of the institution to bend it to its own exclusive and brutal advantage.
ENVIRONMENT.
After having dealt with the family and enterprise, the Pope ends his fourth chapter on the theme of the “natural environment”, a subject that he holds dear:
« Nature expresses a design of love and truth. It is prior to us, and it has been given to us by God as the setting for our life. Nature speaks to us of the Creator (cf. Rm 1:20) and his love for humanity. It is destined to be “recapitulated” in Christ at the end of time (cf. Ep 1:9-10; Col 1:19-20). »
The devil take poetry and mysticism:
« Questions linked to the care and preservation of the environment today need to give due consideration to the energy problem. »
In the nineteenth century, it was the use of coal; today it is the use of petroleum, even if coal still poses “problems” in China.
« The fact that some States hoard non-renewable energy resources represents », States such as the United States, without mentioning any names, but also other« power groups and companies, represents a grave obstacle to development in poor countries ».
For example, certain States « lack the economic means either to gain access to existing sources of non-renewable energy or to finance research into new alternatives ». We have in mind the countries of Africa and the Middle-East that certain members of the « international community » plunder, that is to say, the group of democratic peoples that are called to live under the protection of the UN and the cultural supervision of Unesco, in view of world peace.
« The stockpiling of natural resources, which in many cases are found in the poor countries themselves, gives rise to exploitation and frequent conflicts between and within nations. These conflicts are often fought on the soil of those same countries, with a heavy toll of death, destruction and further decay. The international community has an urgent duty to find institutional means of regulating the exploitation of non-renewable resources, involving poor countries in the process, in order to plan together for the future. »
« On this front too, there is a pressing moral need for renewed solidarity, especially in relationships between developing countries and those that are highly industrialised. » (n° 49)
If we apply St. Pius X’s principle that is expounded above, it will be necessary to recreate a framework of relationships that will not be a sheer return to the colonisation of the past that Freemasonic powers, moreover, perverted too often. It will thus be necessary to imagine protective inequality relationships, the aim of which will be to impose order and to increase the family prosperity of these presently poverty-stricken countries. Depending on the local circumstances, historical relationships, present geopolitical realities and economic needs, agreements will allow France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Portugal to put their power to the service of local ecological reality.
That could be done in very different ways in the various countries, ranging from simple agreements of assistance for development to the creation of protectorates or overseas provinces, and other forms of political, military, or economical assistance.
In this civilising action, it is once again prudence that will dictate to the State a sovereign line of conduct aimed at effectively freeing these countries from the oppression of a neo-colonial politics enslaved to the interests of international capitalism, and to form ever closer links with these countries. This is how France will increase her influence and international power and how she will increase her independence, by means of the beneficial effects of her politics, her administrators, entrepreneurs, and engineers. It will be an effective and indispensable support for the Church’s missionary work.
Let us come back to the encyclical.
V. RELATIONAL THEOLOGY
Under the title “the cooperation of the human family”, chapter five held a surprise for us.
« Pope Paul VI noted that “the world is in trouble because of the lack of thinking” (PP no 80). He was making an observation, but also expressing a wish: a new trajectory of thinking is needed in order to arrive at a better understanding of the implications of our being one family. »
A piece of information is missing: those whom the phrase « our being one family » designates are the children of the Roman Catholic Church.
« interaction among the peoples of the world calls us to embark upon this new trajectory, so that integration can signify solidarity rather than marginalisation. » A reference to John Paul II discourages us from seeking to understand about what or whom he is speaking. But here is the surprise: « Thinking of this kind (?) requires a deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation in terms of values (?) ».
Here is an unexpected, welcome ray of light!
« As a spiritual being, the human creature is defined through interpersonal relations. The more authentically he lives these relations, the more his own personal identity matures. It is not by isolation that man establishes his worth, but by placing himself in relation with others and with God. » (no 53)
The reflexive form « placing himself » is unnecessary, for man is whether he likes it or not, in relation with God, his Creator, and with « other creatures ». This relation is constitutive of his precious « person ». Without God and without the others, he is nothing.
Benedict XVI then proposes « a metaphysical understanding of the relations between persons ». He begins by referring to St. Thomas in order to safeguard the « transcendence of the human person » at the moment that he seeks to integrate him into the community: « the relation between individual and community is a relation between one totality and another. » This is Thomism in the manner of Maritain, according to whom the « human person » is « one totality », sacred and inviolable. It is by virtue of this inalienable principle that the Second Vatican Council proclaimed that « all things on earth should be related to man as their centre and crown » (Gaudium et spes 12, 1).
This is the revolutionary ferment that spread throughout our Western society, demolishing true social order, overthrowing all the natural hierarchies, with the support of the Church and through her fault! For the question is to know about which human person we are speaking. How can we make each of the thousands of millions of human beings the « centre » and the « crown » of « all things »? This is enough to set them one against the others, and it is precisely the spectacle that the planet offers us today. But Benedict XVI, his eyes fixed on the « development of peoples » (Populorum progressio ) does not seem to see.
« The theme of development can be identified with the inclusion-in-relation of all individuals and peoples within the one community of the human family, built in solidarity on the basis of the fundamental values of justice and peace. » (n° 54) Phew!
Let us recall that St. Pius X’s solution is « to restore all things in Christ ». Benedict XVI breaks with this tradition that goes back to St. Paul, and persists in « restoring all things in the human person », but he draws upon his theology of the Holy Trinity:
« This perspective is illuminated in a striking way by the relationship between the Persons of the Trinity within the one divine Substance. The Trinity is absolute unity insofar as the three divine Persons are pure relationality. » (ibid.)
THE TRINITARIAN MODEL.
This surprising formula combines the two distinct views that we have of the divine Being as one. In reality, the unity of the Substance is irreducible to the Trinity of the Persons. Pope Benedict XVI, however, reduces it: « The Trinity is absolute unity. » This “One = Three” made the young Charles de Foucauld lose the faith. I doubt that the reason for this equation that is put forward here would have preserved his conviction: « insofar as the three divine Persons are pure relationality ». As though a word, a neologism, the abstraction « relationality », would suffice to reduce to unity the plurality of the Persons!
The Pope believes that he can provide an explanation:
« The reciprocal transparency among the divine Persons is total and the bond between each of them complete, since they constitute a unique and absolute unity. »
Do you understand? I do not. Let us continue:
« God desires to incorporate us into this reality of communion as well: “that they may be one even as we are one”(Jn 17:22). The Church is a sign and instrument of this unity. »
Here a reference to the first paragraph of Lumen Gentium suddenly enlightens us as to the Pope’s thinking.
He continues, in fact:
« Relationships between human beings throughout history cannot but be enriched by reference to this divine Model. In particular, in the light of the revealed mystery of the Trinity, we understand that true openness does not mean loss of individual identity but profound interpenetration. This also emerges from the common human experiences of love and truth. Just as the sacramental love of spouses unites them spiritually in “one flesh” (Gn 2:24; Mt 19:5; Ep 5:31) and makes out of the two a real and relational unity, so in an analogous way truth unites spirits and causes them to think in unison, attracting them as a unity to itself. » (n° 54)
Already we no longer see very well the supernatural bonds formed from revealed truth and sacramental life, of which the Church is the source and fullness for her own children, whom she engenders for grace, on the one hand, and the natural bonds of secular, profane society, on the other.
The sentence that introduces the following paragraph fully clarifies the Pope’s thinking:
« The Christian revelation of the unity of the human race presupposes a metaphysical interpretation of the humanum in which relationality is an essential element. »
This is a fruitful thought in that it corrects St. Thomas, according to whom relationship is only an “accidental” element of the humanum, i.e., the human person. But it is an unfortunate turn of phrase because it attaches relationship to the order of “essence”. The Abbé de Nantes expresses it better: relationship is a constitutive element of the human person. The difference is… essential! For here are the consequences of Joseph Ratzinger’s theology: « Other cultures and religions teach brotherhood and peace and are therefore of enormous importance to integral human development. » (n° 55)
On the other hand, if relationship of origin, whereby God gives existence to every person, is constitutive of this person, we understand very well that Our Lord could have said in all truth and charity: “Apart from Me you can do nothing”, not making peace above all.
Here we are at the heart of the debate that opposes Georges de Nantes to the Second Vatican Council. The encyclical Caritas in Veritate confirms the theologian of the Catholic-Counter Reformation’s diagnostic concerning the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium:
« The first words of the Constitution form its title. They provoked the error. Literally, it is Christ who is called in the Gospel, the Light of the World (Lk 2.32; Jn 8.12). Jesus also said it of His disciples: You are the light of the world, and the salt of the earth (Mt 5:13-16). But John XXIII applied this title to the Church herself in an unusual way.
« Whereas the Ancients would have understood this term as an attractive perfection, justifying Christ and the Church to win over and incorporate within themselves all men, our Moderns intend to suggest the idea of a service that the Church must render to the world in its secular progress,… like that of a secondary school chaplaincy transformed into the premises of a socialist humanitarian aid society! It is no longer the Light of the Burning Bush that attracts men to the contemplation of the Divine Presence in the desert. It is the light of the street lamp, of the powerful floodlight that men of the Church hold above the building site of the world under construction in order to light up the labour of their brothers, believers or unbelievers. » (Le mystère de l’Église, CRC n° 52, January 1972, p. 4)
ERROR CONCERNING THE “PERSON”.
Amazingly, the Abbé de Nantes is the only person since Jacques Maritain to bother to give the “person” a philosophical definition. Maritain’s concept rests on a distinction between the “individual” and the “person”. As an individual, man belongs to a society – family, professional, national – on which he depends, and to the law, to which he must submit and devote himself. But, as a person, he is “transcendent”, and the community is at his service.
So, is he slave or king? The contradiction is obvious. « It is absurd, the Abbé de Nantes protested. Like a sperm whale, at the surface, under the wave, submerging, then emerging, so is man above everything as an individual, below everything as a person! Will he not be tempted to invoke his dignity as a person in order to shirk his duties, then to remind others of their status as wretched individuals in order to have them honour his rights and serve his whims? No, it is grotesque! » (La personne humaine créée par Dieu dans le monde, CRC n° 176, April 1982, p. 7)
Between slave and king, the Council opts for “king”: « all things on earth should be related to man as their centre and crown. » (Gaudium et spes, 12, 1) And Paul VI gave Maritain an ovation at the Council.
Maritain rightly claimed to be a disciple of St. Thomas. The quotations in note 130 of Caritas in Veritate supply the proof. For St. Thomas, what is a “person”? Naturæ rationalis individua substantia: « an individual substance of rational nature ». If we apply this definition to the dogma of the Holy Trinity, we obtain three Gods, three individual “substances” of divine nature, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
When applied to the mystery of the Incarnation, this definition is not any more suitable because the second Person of the Holy Trinity assumed a single, individual human nature, a « rational nature », but in the undivided unity of His divine Person. Jesus is man, perfectly man, and yet He is not a “human person”.
The Abbé de Nantes is the first theologian to have pointed out this incompatibility of the “substantialist”, Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy. He resolves it in a very simple manner: it suffices to stop imagining God to be in the likeness of the “human person” defined according to Aristotelian philosophy, as « an individual substance of rational nature », filled with self-consciousness, knowledge of all things, infatuated with love of His perfection and preoccupied solely with His own Glory.
Since Revelation teaches us that He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three Persons in the unity of a same substance, « I dare to see Him quite differently in those times before Time: in the purity and simplicity of a single will, wholly generous, turned outwards rather than on Himself. Turned towards a unique love, towards Someone ...»
« God, in the absolute and infinite freedom of will, which the philosophers admit, and in full control of the movements of His Heart, in accordance with His good pleasure, the One God, yahweh-jesuis (I am) desired to be…father! »
Willing it, saying it, He did what He willed, and it was in the beginning, and « before any creature was ever father or mother, God will thus engender from His bosom, from His Heart, the fruit of His love, the object of His desire, a “God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God”, image of His Substance and reflection of His Face, His Only and Beloved Son, the Son of God for ever, from all time, filling all His desire.
« I shall cause surprise in saying, to Their common and indivisible Glory, that this was Their First love, a more than virginal, holy Love, for it is not true that God knows Himself, loves Himself, and rejoices in Himself through the excellence of His own nature before finding Himself again in His Son. It is on the Face and in the Sacred Heart of His Son, begotten of His first Love, that the unbegotten Father tasted the joy of knowing, loving and exulting in the Wisdom, Goodness, Beauty and infinite perfection of His own Nature, given to His beloved Son and imprinted in Him in all its splendour. »
Paternity is the Name, the characteristic, the definition of the first Person of the Holy Trinity. He is the Father.
« And likewise this Son, born of Him, without a look to Himself, obviously! – so unlike us poor sinners and wretched creatures – only had attention, admiration, love and infinite satisfaction, from this first instant of eternity, for this God whom He discovered in His Father, without looking towards anything or any person other than Him. »
Filiation is the Name, the characteristic, the definition of the second Person of the Holy Trinity. He is the Son.
« That is why in the Prologue to his Gospel, St. John solemnly writes, “In principio erat Verbum”, thus crushing the insolence of the philosophers who start by making an idol of their definition of God, forgetting that Yahweh is Father and totally disregarding the Son whom He has given Himself. In the beginning, there is not a God in our likeness, whom we then call Father for one third of Himself, Son for another third, and Holy Spirit for the rest… God, in truth, is the Father. By His divine essence, through His personal will, freedom and good pleasure, He chose to be “Father” in the whole of His being, thus singularising Himself! He chose to be “Father”.
« It is a “mystery”… of Love! For the Son born of such a Father throws Himself into His bosom, into His Heart whence He has received being, to be affirmed in His whole Self, through His enthusiastic, free and loving identification with Their common nature, truly and uniquely Son of such a Father. » (CCR n° 283, February-March 1996, p. 23)
This initial paternity, this unique filiation, will serve as a model for the whole human race. And this new, miraculous Love (Caritas) will be the first principle of all love of neighbour that will pass from one creature to the next like a flame that spreads and multiplies without ever showing the slightest sign of exhaustion. Our whole ambition, our ideal, our desire is to contribute to keep this flame burning.
To do so, it suffices to understand that “human persons” are in the likeness of the Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity. They are not independent or autonomous; on the contrary, they are entirely dependent on their relationship of origin with their Creator and their procreators; this is all the easier for us because the Son of God became the Son of Mary in order to reveal to us this dependence that is constitutive of His Person.
The entire Old Testament prepares us for this great revelation: God is the Father of David, and all the descendents of David will be like sons of God. It is on the basis of this relationship that the Psalmists would announce the Messiah, to whom God said: « You are My Son, today I have begotten You. » (Ps 2:7) The prophet Ezekiel relates the entire history of Israel in terms of a relationship between a father and his adopted daughter (Ez 16).
The destiny of each one of us is « to become children of God » (Jn 1:12).
GOD SERVED FIRST.
How can one overturn the idol, the “human person”, which is posited as an independent, autonomous “substance” opposite God, as a rival to God, and a rival that renders a cult to himself? This can be done by rediscovering in the relationship of origin to I am, who is the creature’s source, the first and last reason of his existence, of his destiny, of his value.
Of his existence. What is existence? It is indefinable. It is a basic fact by virtue of our intrinsic intuition of being about which St. Augustine speaks in book seven of the Confessions, which Benedict XVI quotes (CV n° 34, note 88): I exist, you exist, many of us exist. You are, and I am not you. You are another. Above all: God exists. As He is entirely different from you and me and from the whole universe that surrounds us, we do not have a perceptible intuition of Him. But He made Himself known to Moses in the Burning Bush by saying to him: « I am », èhyèh. I exist. This is really the name that best suits the One God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: “He exists”, Yahweh.
When I say: I am, I who am not God, I must immediately recognise that I exist… very little. First, I have existed only for a short time. Then, I existed before I thought about it – o Descartes! – before being conscious of the fact. In short, what concerns my existence seems to me to be very limited, very fragile, contingent.
On the other hand, when I think about the existence of God, it is like the sky above the clouds: blue, homogenous, perfect, boundless; pure and simple existence. It is self-evident that God exists. What is not self-evident is that I should exist. God had to bring me into existence, as well as all the other beings that I am not. They and I, we are all in contingent relation with Him.
Of his destiny. After having said to Moses: « I am », Yahweh added: « I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. » I am the God who revealed Himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in order to make a Covenant with them. Behold, He is in relation with them, and through them, with each one of us. To be more specific: Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, as say the prayers that we address to God our Father, for, mysteriously, in Abraham’s loins, already Jesus Christ exists.
From his value comes dignity to each person. God is thus the Father of all that exists, but at different levels, according to a particular role to be played in the whole of creation and history, of which Jesus Christ is the “centre” and “crown”. For example: Who is the father of rain? “Who has begotten the drops of dew?” Job asked. The Aztecs in Mexico had a god of rain: Tlaloc. It is like a presentiment of reality, of the essence of the things that the Bible reveals to us: the dew that falls from the sky is the figure of the Messiah who is to come (Ps 110:3). We sing it during Advent:
« Rorate, cæli desuper, et nubes pluant justum. »
« Let justice descend, O heavens, like dew from above, like gentle rain let the skies drop it down. »
Thus, God merits metaphorically to be called the Father of rain… as He is the Father, or because He is the Father of the Messiah who must descend to us from Heaven like the rain, which is beneficent and source of life. Every drop counts for Him!
« For God, in the world each individual is a value, and that is in function of his nature, but also his situation », the Abbé de Nantes teaches (CRC n° 176, avril 1982, p. 6). He compares the « dignity of the human person » to the economic value of things. From this comparison, he declares that he received « a decisive insight and as though a marvellous and blinding bedazzlement that gave me the revelation of the divine. When I had understood that a drop of water that falls from the sky modifies the value of each of the drops of water that fill the well, or penetrate into the furrows or flood our basements, or reach our first floor! When I understood that every brand new truck coming out of the factory, affects mysteriously but really all the trucks put on the road in the world, by modifying their market value, that’s their misfortune! Another, on the other hand, that is sent for scrap, gives them back a little of their lost value! When I understood that a baby who arrives in a family “changes everything”, and when I remembered that there is more joy in Heaven for a sinner who converts than for a hundred just men who believe that they have no need of redemption, then I understood everything! » (CRC n° 175, March 1982, p. 12)
In fact, it must be understood about every human person, however frail he may appear, that by his unique relationship to God and to humanity that conjointly called him to existence, he is rich with both a historical fate and an immortality that makes his full grandeur in the world and before God.
When the notion of « dignity » is studied throughout time in universal literature, this expression, « dignity of man » is never used in an absolute sense to evoke the quality, the merit, the rights of « Man in himself ». Up until our contemporary age of demagogic inflation of language, this expression was used to evoke the singular dignity of a person in view of some distinction of birth, privilege, responsibility or honour conferring on him a noteworthy place in society, rights and duties greater than common. Persons who were specifically said to be « constituted in dignity » are so due to their relationships to others and to the whole. This is perfectly akin to our theory of the economic “value” of things.
It is not a question of « values » in general, and even less « Western values » or « Christian values », which are clouds with indistinct contours. It is a question of the value of singular, concrete beings. This value depends on their relationships to each of these beings, on the importance that he has for them, on his own situation and service in the world and on his history.
We have wandered considerably from the encyclical, in our “charitable” concern to tell the “truth”, at all costs…
VI. TECHNOCRACY
Under the title “The Development of Peoples and Technology”, Benedict XVI arrives at a final chapter. Remaining true to the solipsism of his personalism, he writes:
« The development of peoples is intimately linked to the development of individuals. The human person by nature is actively involved in his own development. The development in question is not simply the result of natural mechanisms, since as everyone knows, we are all capable of making free and responsible choices. Nor is it merely at the mercy of our caprice, since we all know that we are a gift, not something self-generated. » (n° 68)
This seems to contradict the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, the Pontifical Council for “Justice and Peace”, according to which « man engenders himself; he is the father of his own being; he builds social order » (n° 135, French edition, Cerf, 2006, p. 75) The contradiction is only apparent because the Pope adds: « Our freedom is profoundly shaped by our being, and by its limits. No one shapes his own conscience arbitrarily, but we all build our own “ I ” on the basis of a “self” which is given to us. »
What about other people? What about God? Have they no part in this “building” « of a “self ” which is given to us »?
God is obviously absent from this chapter devoted to “technology”, « a profoundly human reality, linked to the autonomy and freedom of man » (n° 69).
In this junk cupboard everything that has to do with high technology is piled in a slapdash way, from applications of biology to the very sophisticated social communication media: « In technology, seen as the product of his genius, man recognises himself and forges his own humanity. » Benedict XVI writes, while referring to John Paul II’s encyclical Laborem Exercens: « Technology is the objective side of human action whose origin and raison d’être is found in the subjective element: the worker himself. »
One would believe that it is man who is the creator…
« A particularly crucial battleground in today’s cultural struggle between the supremacy of technology and human moral responsibility is the field of bioethics, where the very possibility of integral human development is radically called into question. In this most delicate and critical area, the fundamental question asserts itself forcefully: is man the product of his own labours or does he depend on God? » (n° 74)
It is incredible! The Pope waited until he had finished his work to ask « the fundamental question »…, and he does not give an answer. In any case, all the questions had already been settled without God. To reply to it in one way or the other will not change anything. It is too bad « if closing the door to transcendence brings one up short against a difficulty: how could being emerge from nothing, how could intelligence be born from chance? » (ibid.). It is only a « difficulty », and “technology” is there to solve the difficulties. The Pope attempts to convince « man », every man and all men that the « “rationality” of a self-centred use of technology proves to be irrational because it implies a decisive rejection of meaning and value. » This is convincing, isn’t it?
« Reason and faith » must therefore« come to each other’s assistance. Only together will they save man » (n° 74). From what will they save man? From Hell? No, but from « the powerful new instruments that the “culture of death” has at its disposal » : abortion, euthanasia, behind which « are cultural viewpoints that deny human dignity » (n° 75).
True to his model, Benedict XVI uses his blackmail to the end: « While the poor of the world continue knocking on the doors of the rich, the world of affluence runs the risk of no longer hearing those knocks, on account of a conscience that can no longer distinguish what is human. » Not what is divine, but what is human. In fact, for Joseph Ratzinger, a disciple of John Paul II, the object of revelation is man and not God: « God reveals man to himself; reason and faith work hand in hand to demonstrate to us what is good, provided we want to see it; the natural law, in which creative Reason shines forth, reveals our greatness, but also our wretchedness insofar as we fail to recognise the call to moral truth. » (ibid.)
Thus, we learn in extremis, that « the development of individuals and peoples depends partly on the resolution of problems of a spiritual nature.
« There cannot be holistic development and universal common good unless people’s spiritual and moral welfare is taken into account, considered in their totality as body and soul. » (n° 76).
The encyclical ends with an act of faith in « the “beyond” that technology cannot give », an act of faith that perceives significance « in development » with « new eyes and a new heart, capable of rising above a materialistic vision of human events ».
CONCLUSION
« Without God [which God?] man neither knows which way to go, nor even understands who he is. In the face of the enormous problems surrounding the development of peoples [which has taken the place of concern for the salvation of souls], which almost make us yield to discouragement, we find solace [to sustain us as we advance the « development of peoples »?] in the sayings of our Lord Jesus Christ, who teaches us: “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5) and then encourages us: “I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Mt 28:20) » (n° 78)
Here we once again find what the Abbé de Nantes called « a wrongful re-use of the shreds of Christian morality », which Paul VI practiced in Populorum Progressio and which Benedict XVI imitates in Caritas in Veritate: « They have all the appearance of fluted Greek columns and Roman capitals being used to ornament a Railway station or some palace of modern culture. The ancient marbles have been torn from their rightful sites in order to enhance the new setting, but their very presence testifies to the ugliness of the new. In all truth, it would be better if they were totally absent. If he wishes, the Pope is free to expound, as an economist, his plans for industrial development, or as a philosopher, he is free to define a new humanist, democratic culture. But no! He wishes to bind this theory of “social progress and economic growth” (PP no 34) to that morality and religion for which he alone holds the Infallible Magisterium. According to him, the requirements of this programme flow from natural morality and its sublime aspects are in the order of the Gospel. That is indeed disquieting. Does Giovanni Battista Montini still claim to be speaking as Pope when he adopts an entirely naturalist concept of man and his future, something absolutely and substantially alien to the Catholic Faith and the supernatural life of the Church? » (Letter to My Friend n° 245, p. 14)
What can we say about Benedict XVI’s invocation to the Virgin Mary? She was « proclaimed Mater Ecclesiae by Paul VI and honoured by Christians as Speculum Iustitiae and Regina Pacis – protect us and obtain for us, through Her heavenly intercession, the strength, hope and joy necessary to continue to dedicate ourselves with generosity to the task of bringing about the “development of the whole man and of all men”. » To bring about the « development » and not the salvation of all men!
Paul VI had omitted an invocation to the Virgin Mary in his encyclical Populorum Progressio, which was more in keeping with the Truth, than is the invocation of the « Queen of Peace » as Benedict XVI does by substituting his « Gospel of Globalisation » (front page headline of La Croix of 8 July) for that invocation of this Queen that Jacinta insistently reminded Lucy of before leaving Fatima for the hospital: « Tell the whole world that God grants us His graces by means of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; that it is from Her that we must ask for them. That the Heart of Jesus wishes us to venerate the Immaculate Heart of Mary alongside His own; that we should ask for peace from the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for it is to Her that God has entrusted this. »