Panel Discusses "Caritats in Veritate"
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Published on Thursday, 05 November 2009 23:30
The recent papal encyclical Caritas in Veritate has drawn much comment but several of the panelists at a discussion Wednesday night indicated that in one sense, it comes down to people responding as individuals with acts of charity.
The discussion, sponsored by the Ave Maria University economics department, brought together panelists with experience in philanthropy, law, economics, business and academia. "It was great to have people from very varied backgrounds and life experiences discuss a large set of major issues for our time," said Economics Department Chair Dr. Gabriel Martinez (right). The audience was diverse as well, comprising students, town residents and visitors from Naples and other parts of Florida.
Ave Maria University board chairman Michael Timmis, who manages a charitable foundation and has spent time as a volunteer in Uganda, said that charity can be made concrete in specific acts by individuals, working together, "with guts and heart." He urged the young people in the audience to give of themselves in the work of development.
The importance of individual action was also stressed by AMU economics professor Joseph Burke. "We are wrong," he said, "if we think that, in the process of development, states are the main actors, leaving individuals, corporations and other associations as only passive participants." Dr. Burke encouraged the audience to take specific steps towards personal acts of charity that would help the poor and encourage economic development.
Dr. Bira Rezende, an associate Professor of Business and Politics at AMU and director of the school's Institute of Business, agreed, suggesting that the Pope’s encyclical is less about social or economic matters and more about integral human development, carried out by individuals.
Patrick Quirk, associate dean of academic affairs at the Ave Maria School of Law, said Pope Benedict's comments went well beyond the standard comments on the causes and implications of the financial crisis. The pope, he said, was like a dairy farmer, is trying to put some cream in the skim milk of the current culture.
In the view of Dr. Blanford Parker, a literature professor at AMU, the Holy Father believes that charity ought to govern and justify the relation of what he called "macro-institutions" -- social and political ones -- in the same way and to the same degree that it governs private ones. "Without truth and love for what is true, there is no social conscience, and social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power," he said. Dr. Parker could not appear in person due to illness and his remarks were read by Dr. Martinez.
"The panel was a reminder of the timeliness of the Pope’s wisdom and of the importance of reading his writing within the tradition of Catholic social teaching," Dr. Martinez said.
"When the Encyclical was issued this last June, it caused much comment, and even sometimes criticism, from Catholics and non-Catholics alike. There were immediate attempts to paint the Pope into ideological corners, to color the encyclical according to the reader’s own political background. But the document is a serious one, and deserves careful attention and slow reflection."
