Pope advises Davos: Development needs a moral compass

Jan 17th, 2024

Cardinal Turkson reads Pope's message

Source: AICA


In a message to the World Economic Forum in Davos 2024, Pope Francis urged businesses and world leaders to ensure that economic development benefits everyone and remains linked to solidarity.

The leaders of global business and politics are meeting this week in Davos, Switzerland, with the theme: 'Rebuilding trust.' To remind them of their duty to all humanity, Pope Francis sent a message to the World Economic Forum 2024, which was read on Tuesday by Cardinal Peter Turkson.

In his message, the pontiff stated that the greatest challenge facing humanity is to guarantee peaceful coexistence and comprehensive development for all.

"It is my hope," he said, "that the participants in this year's Forum are aware of the moral responsibility that each of us has in the fight against poverty, the achievement of comprehensive development for all our brothers and sisters, and the search for peaceful coexistence between peoples."

Pope Francis noted that the Davos Forum is taking place this year in "a very worrying climate of international instability," adding, it offers world leaders the opportunity to explore innovative ways to build a better world, and the He urged finding ways to foster "social cohesion, fraternity and reconciliation" among all people.

At the same time he lamented the protracted wars and conflicts tearing apart parts of the world, many of which are causing death and destruction among civilians.

"The peace that the people of our world long for cannot be other than the fruit of justice," he stated. "Accordingly, it demands more than simply putting aside the instruments of war; It requires addressing the injustices that are the root causes of the conflict."

Addressing the causes of the conflict, the Pope pointed to the prevalence of hunger and the exploitation of natural resources, even as some parts of the world waste food and a select few get rich from extractive industries.

It also condemned the "widespread exploitation of men, women and children forced to work for low wages and deprived of real prospects for personal development and professional growth."

"How is it possible," he asked, "that in today's world people continue to starve, be exploited, condemned to illiteracy, lack basic medical care, and be homeless?"

Globalization has a deeply moral dimension, Pope Francis said, adding that development requires a moral compass to guide discussions that shape the future of the international community.

He invited companies and states to work together to promote "forward-thinking and ethically sound models of globalization."

Development, the Pope said: "must involve subordinating the pursuit of power and individual benefit, whether political or economic, to the common good of our human family, giving priority to the poor, the needy and those in the most vulnerable situations." .

Finally, the pontiff called on business and political leaders to prioritize the equitable distribution of progress, so that economically disadvantaged people can reap the benefits of global growth.

"True development must be global, shared by all nations and in all parts of the world, or it will regress even in areas marked until now by constant progress."

Source

Webinar urges common efforts to care for biodiversity

Webinar on Biodiversity organized by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development

 
VATICAN

Cardinal Peter Turkson stresses the importance of ecological conversion and a common commitment to care for our common home at a webinar on biodiversity inspired by Pope Francis' Encyclical, "Laudato sí."

In partnership with the Vatican Covid-19 Commission Ecology Taskforce, the Dicastery for Integral Human Development on Tuesday hosted a webinar on Biodiversity, inspired by Pope Francis’ Encyclical Laudato si’.

The online event, titled “The Road to COP15,” aims to share wisdom, understanding, experiences and mutual insights drawn from various disciplines of knowledge including the indigenous and scientific traditions, the Holy Scriptures, and the Social Doctrine of the Church on biodiversity. These, together, will advocate and inspire biodiversity protection and restoration at the upcoming fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) and COP26 meetings.

The webinar will also invite the ecclesial community to generate dialogue on biodiversity in order to find new paths for the human family to heal and restore relations with creation, especially as in the wake of the ongoing Covid-19 health emergency.

Speakers at the event included Cardinal Peter Turkson, the Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; and Dr. Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN Messenger of Peace.

All of creation is interconnected

In his intervention, Cardinal Turkson highlighted two main points: the current context of the multifaceted crisis and the safeguard of biodiversity. He explained who these two are connected, on the basis of a 2020 report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services that showed that the same human actions which drive biodiversity loss have also resulted in an increase in pandemics.

In the current situation of the Covid-19 pandemic - which has affected world economies, increased the already existing gap between the rich and the poor, and has further made evident the poor access to healthcare suffered by some populations in society - “one pandemic has revealed other social pandemics,” said the Cardinal, re-echoing Pope Francis’ words.

Given that Covid-19 has been designated as a zoonotic disease (transmitted between animals and people), he continued, “the current pandemic alerts us to the fact that when nature is sick, humanity itself is very sick.” This, he notes, has been highlighted in Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in veritate, which notes that the way humanity treats the environment influences also the way that it treats itself. Cardinal Turkson stressed that all the elements of creation are interconnected, and that the disregard and abuse of one invariably affects other components of society. The ecological crisis, therefore, is linked with an anthropological crisis - with human conduct and behavior.
Joint responsibility to protect biodiversity

Drawing inspiration from the Scriptures, Cardinal Turkson notes that in the book of Genesis, “biodiversity took its form right from the beginning of creation,” as God created the plants and animals as well as humans.

Moreover, in the social teaching of the Church, “biodiversity is the ongoing work of God’s creation, a sacred gift from God, and each creature has an intrinsic value and worth on that account, and a purpose known to God.” In this sense, every creature reveals God to us and is a manifestation of God’s own glory as expressed in Psalms 19 and 104.

Cardinal Turkson went on to lament the deconstruction of God’s creation and the continuous cry of both creation and the poor highlighted in Laudato si and manifested in the disappearance of plant and animal species, lost forever because of our abusive treatment of nature. “The cost of the damage caused by the human exploitation of nature is much greater than the economic benefits that are obtained.”

“For ethical, moral and theological reasons,” the Cardinal said, “it is incumbent upon us to safeguard biodiversity on earth.” He noted that a global framework in this regard has been provided by the International Convention of Biological Diversity, which recognizes the need for a multi-sectoral and transversal approach to ensure the conservation and sustainability of biodiversity. COP15 also has a vision of a world living in harmony with nature, where, by 2050, biodiversity is conserved and wisely used to sustain a healthy planet and deliver benefits essential for all.

For this, four goals can serve as points of focus: first, an increase in protected areas so that biodiversity can be ensured in its interconnectivity and integrity in order to reduce the number of threatened species; secondly, valuing nature’s contribution to people, to maintain and enhance it through sustainable use for the benefit of all; thirdly, sharing fairly and equitably the benefits from genetic resources; and finally, checking the means of implementation of these goals and the targets relating to them.

“To keep and to till”

“The Church always raises her prophetic voice to provide a spiritual basis for reflection on the protection of the poor, which includes the earth’s diversity and its ecosystems,” Cardinal Turkson said. He recalled, too, Pope Francis’ incessant calls for increased care for the earth, including his calls for universal fraternity, which further emphasize our interconnectedness.

Cardinal Turkson further highlighted that humans have the responsibility to take care of nature. He explained that this comes from the book of Genesis, when at creation God charged Adam to till and keep the garden: “to 'till' was to make the earth productive, while to 'keep' was to ensure that the earth maintains its productive qualities and traits to support life all the time.” This imperative of care also extends to the teaching about resting on the Sabbath, which is, for human beings, also to preserve creation, he said. “Sabbath has a sense of liberation and respite, rest to any system that is oppressed and lives in bondage.”

He also highlighted that the word used in the book of Genesis to describe keeping the garden is the same word used to describe the relationship between Cain and Abel. From this, “our relationship toward creation is similar and comparable to our relationship as human beings, one towards the other. It is the relationship of fraternity and brotherhood.” We are therefore invited to treat everything “with affection, concern, responsibility and care.” At the same time, “we are collectively called to undergo ecological conversion,” stressed the Cardinal. He called for a change of mentality - “moving from a desire to control and dominate, to a desire to safeguard and to protect.”

Indigenous people, custodians of biodiversity

Indigenous people, according to the Cardinal, are “custodians of biodiversity,” and are essential to the protection of biodiversity. They have also been recognized by Pope Francis as “the great teachers of conservation of our biodiverse system.”

He added that they need to be respected and protected so that we can learn from them through paying attention to them. Cardinal Turkson also debunked claims that the relationship between indigenous people and nature is idolatrous. Rather, he explained, “it is an accumulation of time-tested wisdom that ensures the living together of human beings and the systems in creation.”

Concrete steps

Proposing steps to save biodiversity, Cardinal Turkson proposed planting trees and partnering with organizations that care for nature. He also urged the prioritization of restoring degraded ecosystems, support for regenerative agriculture, and participation in initiatives even at the local level in parishes.

Concluding, the Cardinal stressed that the protection of biodiversity directly affects each one of us, touching the social, cultural and economic dimensions of our lives. We are therefore called to “embrace an integral ecological perspective and approach, and apply holistic thinking to reorient economies, education and cultural practices and policies, so that we honor the dignity of the human person and the integrity of creation.”

Dr. Jane Goodall’s speech

After the intervention of Cardinal Turkson, Dr. Jane Goodall spoke, sharing her wealth of experience of studying chimpanzees in Africa and working to preserve their habitat.

She expressed regret that in spite of the developed intellect of humans, we are destroying our only home. She noted that our disrespect for the natural world and our contribution to the destruction of the habitat of animals have put us in increased contact with normally-isolated animals, increasing the chance of pathogens spreading from animals to humans, and creating a zoonotic pandemic such as the current one. This same disrespect for the world has also led to climate change, which is one of the major factors affecting biodiversity, she noted.

Proposing concrete action, Dr. Goodall emphasized the need to act within this “window of opportunity.” She highlighted the urgency of reducing the “unsustainable lifestyle of hundreds of thousands of us on this planet who have way more than we need,” especially as regards food, where tons are wasted when there are people who go to bed hungry.

Dr. Goodall also stressed the importance of eliminating poverty. One way of achieving this, she explained, is teaching people to find ways of living without destroying the environment. She recalls that this became apparent to her when she flew over a forest that used to house chimpanzees that had been greatly reduced and surrounded by human presence and farmlands. In this regard, she, through the work of her foundation, encourages community-based conservation to restore fertility to over-used land without agricultural chemicals and pesticides and water management. She also suggests scholarships to keep girls in school; and micro-financing so that villagers, particularly women, can take loans to start businesses that are environmentally friendly. In addition, local people can also be given tools with which they can monitor the health of their own village forest reserves.

This will help people to understand that we protect the environment, not just for the wildlife, but for their own future, because the environment provides us with clean water; and we depend on healthy ecosystems for everything, Dr. Goodall explained.

Biodiversity, fragile tapestry of life

“I like to see an ecosystem as a tapestry of life composed of this diversity of animal and plant species, all interrelated, each little species having a role to play," Goodall said.

In this light, if one of the species becomes extinct, it tears a hole in that tapestry, and as more and more holes are torn, in the end we will be left with a tapestry so torn that the ecosystem will collapse, she warned.

In this regard, Dr. Goodall hails the efforts of organizations, and scientists working to protect and conserve the “tapestry.” She also salutes the many young people who are rising up to tackle the ecological problems they have inherited from those before them.

Source

Vatican calls Greta Thunberg ‘great witness’ of Church’s environmental teaching

Elise Harris

Dec 12, 2019

SENIOR CORRESPONDENT



Swedish teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg holds up a sign as Pope Francis greets her at the end of his weekly general audience, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 17, 2019. (Credit: Vatican Media via AP.)


ROME - On Thursday top Vatican officials hailed Swedish teen Greta Thunberg, recently named TIME Magazine’s “Person of the Year” for her environmental advocacy, as a “great witness” of Church teaching on care for creation and the human person.

Speaking to reporters at the Dec. 12 publication of Pope Francis’s message for the 2020 World Day of Peace, celebrated on Jan. 1 each year, Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the Vatican office for Integral Human Development, called Thunberg “a great witness to what the Church teaches on the care of the environment and the care of the person.”

“What is her objective? Skipping school for a future, a future that can’t be guaranteed because there is no care for the environment,” he said, adding that in many cases, there is a complete lack of coherence between the international policies on the environment and what children are told.

Asked whether she was a model of the “ecological conversion” Francis calls for in the message, Turkson said that “model” was not the right word, but insisted that her activism brings attention to the Church’s insistence that “attention to the poor and society also coincide with care for the environment, the common home.”

RELATED: Pope says that peace comes in a shade of green, or not at all

“It’s a coherence with the Church’s teaching,” he said, adding that care of the environment is also a matter of faith.

Slimmed-down Vatican team plants a flag for faith at Davos

Claire Giangravè

Jan 26, 2019

FAITH AND CULTURE CORRESPONDENT





Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Vatican Dicastery for Integral Human Development, leads the Vatican's first panel at the World Economic Forum in 2019. (Credit: Courtesy of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development.)


ROME - While the Vatican’s focus currently is on sunny Panama for World Youth Day, where Pope Francis is once again presiding over the “Catholic Woodstock,” a small papal delegation instead spent the last few days at the World Economic Forum in freezing Davos to spread the Gospel to the world’s elite.

“Unlike other years, we didn’t go to Davos with a message from the Holy Father,” said Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, in a phone interview with Crux Jan. 25.

“We just went to participate in some discussions on refugees, the globalization of religion and the role of religion for reconciliation in society,” he said.

The cardinal explained that the small Vatican delegation “didn’t go with any power or force” to the Jan. 22-25 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where market movers and political elite meet every year to discuss global challenges and innovations.

But, he added, the Vatican continued to bring forward the message sent by Francis to participants at the meeting last year, where he encouraged them not to forget about the needs and concerns of the poor and to put the dignity of the human person at the center of global affairs.

The world “cannot remain silent in the face of the suffering of millions of people whose dignity is wounded, nor can we continue to move forward as if the spread of poverty and injustice has no cause,” said the pope’s message, which Turkson read during the opening session of the 2018 meeting.

It wasn’t just the Vatican’s presence that was reduced at the Swiss resort this year, with other notable figures choosing for various reasons not to attend, including British Prime Minister Theresa May, French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. President Donald Trump, all facing considerable political turmoil in their own countries.

Will Free Markets Make a Comeback?

World Economic Forum

Published on Jan 26, 2018



Is the liberalization of trade and investment an unstoppable force or something more cyclical and prone to reverses? Learn about how the world will do business in 2018.

· Katherine Garrett-Cox, Chief Executive Officer, Gulf International Bank (UK), United Kingdom; Young Global Leader

· John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom

· Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, Cardinal; Prefect, Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Vatican City State

Moderated by · Oliver Cann, Head of Media Content, World Economic Forum

http://www.weforum.org/

Can The Pope's Vatican Redesign Our Economy? An Interview With Cardinal Turkson

Dec 24, 2017 @ 12:49 PM 1,872


Can The Pope's Vatican Redesign Our Economy? An Interview With Cardinal Turkson

Brendan Doherty ,
Contributor I write about impact investing and the humans who power it. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.




Brian Leahy Photography



Danny DeVito and Cardinal Peter Turkson welcome the Vatican's next generation of social entrepreneurs.

Pope Francis has an ambitious goal: to redesign our global economy to serve even our most vulnerable. His vision of a new 'social economy' is one that discards and hides no one. Can he do it?

This month I flew to the Vatican to find out.

I sat with Cardinal Peter Turkson, whom His Holiness tapped to lead their efforts to build the next generation of social entrepreneurs. Cardinal Turkson is the Pope's top advisor on integral human development and is helping shape the newly launched Laudato Si' Challenge - an initiative to seed fund and accelerate entrepreneurs building companies that change the world.

There's one company using agricultural waste to generate reliable energy in Uganda, and another turning water filtration into a life-saving, income-generating livelihood across the developing world.

This interview is my first in a new series called 'Icons of Impact,' where I'll explore the human stories of today's impact icons. The people driving capital and culture to reshape our world.

Below is my interview with Cardinal Turkson, lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Brendan Doherty: Where are you headed to tomorrow?


Cardinal Peter Turkson: Seattle.

Doherty: Oh, you're headed back to where we came from ...

Turkson: I'm going to look for your famous coffee.

[laughing]

The crisis, its origin and solution: differences of opinion in the Vatican

11/ 4/2011


Justice and Peace ten days ago published a document requesting a world political authority and the taxation of financial transactions. Now in “L'Osservatore Romano”, the president of the IOR offers a different recipe

Against G20

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City


Ten days ago, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, led by Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson and bishop Mario Toso, published a document dedicated to the economic-financial crisis and its possible solutions. The document listed among the causes of the crisis, the economic system “pushed towards an inflationary spiral” , the “excessive liquidity and the speculative bubble that later became a serious crisis of insolvency and trust that propagated itself and was protracted over the years”. For the Vatican dicastery, “The speculative bubble regarding real estate and the recent financial crisis have the same origin in the excessive amassing of money and financial instruments on a global scale”.

The document affirmed that to come out of the crisis, a world political authority is necessary, which would guarantee market transparency. It even suggested three concrete proposals which, for that matter, are not even new: taxing financial transactions, because those who operate in the financial markets should contribute to pay the costs of the crisis; recapitalizing the banks; and distinguishing between ordinary credit activities and those of Investment Banking.

“L'Osservatore Romano”, published this afternoon but with tomorrow's date, bears an article by Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, president of the IOR, with the heading “In front of the prospects of deflation. A new model of leadership”, that sounds like a correction of course and at any rate is a different viewpoint on the crisis.

Gotti, who in the article never once cites the document from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, affirms that “the errors of interpretation and the underestimating of the current economic crisis have been grave and continue”. And he reaffirms how much he himself has often affirmed even from the columns of the Vatican's daily, and that is, that the “true origins” of the crisis are “the decline in the birth rate, and the consequences that have led to the increase in taxes on the GDP to absorb the population's costs of aging”, themes unaddressed by the text from Cardinal Turkson's dicastery.

For Gotti Tedeschi, “the effects of decisions made to compensate these phenomena have been underestimated, above all with the delocalization of production and with the debt consumption”. He continues: “then, not enough consideration was given to the urgency of intervening and the criteria to be followed to deflate the debt produced. Thus, no one foresaw the collapse in trust that led to the redimensioning of the stock markets' prices and the debt crisis”.

For the president of the IOR, “at this point, there aren't many solutions left”, and to reduce the total debt “of the public, the banks, companies, the families – and bring it back to levels preceding the crisis, that is, to about 40 percent less, it is imaginable, but not advisable, to cancel a part of it with a type of preventive agreement on the basis of which creditors would be paid at 60 percent”.

“It is imaginable”, Gotti adds, “though it's a hypothesis with no future, to invent some new bill to compensate for the debt with a growth in the value of movable or immovable goods. It is worth considering – but we hope this is only an attempt – a tax on family wealth, sacrificing however a necessary resource for development and at the same producing time an injustice”.

The president of the IOR considers protective measures inappropriate, as “they would produce disadvantages for consumers and would reduce consumptions which are already in decline”, nor does he agree with devaluing the single currency, because “it would lead to an increase in the price of imported goods”. “Someone, to deflate the debt”, reads the article in L'Osservatore, “must also consider inflation. But inflation does not take place if there's zero economic growth, if salaries are frozen, if the shadow of unemployment looms and if even the prices of raw materials are in decline”. A passage that leads one to believe Gotti does not share the analysis of the document of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, retaining instead that today the problem is not inflation – as the Vatican dicastery suggested – but deflation.

“There is no inflation”, writes the president of the IOR, “in part because cash is not circulating, but above all because the liquidity created by the central banks has substituted that produced by the banking systems to sustain due growth. The main problem today is not inflation but deflation. The markets are favoring liquidity. This is because in a deflationary system, the value of money grows, while during inflation it decreases”.

To make the economy progress without increasing the public debt, the author of the article affirms that it is necessary “to correlate interest rates to the GDP”. “In countries with a public debt above 100 percent of the GDP, it is evident that, to obtain a 1 percent growth without causing the debt to rise, interest rates cannot exceed 1 percent, thus penalizing savings».

“The solution”, Gotti concludes, “is in the hands of the governments and the central banks, who must carry out a coordinated strategic action of reindustrialization, the reinforcement of credit institutions, and support for employment. This will take time, a time of austerity in which to reconstitute the fundamentals of economic growth. But above all, governments must inspire trust in the citizens and the markets through a mode of governing that is suited to the times, that, besides guaranteeing technical competence, would also be a model of leadership. That is, an instrument to reach to objective of the common good”.

No reference to the hypothesis of a world political authority, nor even a hint at the possibility of taxing financial transactions. In the end, another point of view about the crisis, printed in the Pope's newspaper, hardly ten days after the presentation of a document on the crisis generated by a dicastery of the Holy See.


Source

Vatican note on economy the first ripple of a southern wave

Oct. 25, 2011
By John L Allen Jr

A woman carries bananas to market in Nyei, South Sudan, in this 2009 file photo. (CNS photo/Paul Jeffrey)

Commentary

Whenever the Vatican appears to lurch in a given direction, there's a tendency in Catholic circles to become obsessed with how much ecclesiastical authority the gesture or text in question carries. For the most part, it's a legitimate question; when Benedict XVI uses kneelers during Communion, for instance, people have good reasons for wondering if it's a harbinger of a policy move or simply a matter of personal taste.

Sometimes, however, fussing about the authority behind something misses the bigger picture. Reaction to Monday's note from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, titled "Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Political Authority," offers a classic case in point. (Read the document.)

To recap, the note expressed a clear rejection of "neo-liberal" economic policies (in American argot, "neo-conservative") and an equally clear endorsement of a "true world political authority" to regulate a globalized economy, one not dominated by major powers such as the United States. As a preliminary step, the document called for the creation of an institution, or several institutions, that would play the role of a "central world bank." It also offered a plug for the "Tobin Tax" on financial transactions, public recapitalization of banks and greater regulation of "shadow markets."

"The primacy of the spiritual and of ethics needs to be restored, and, with them, the primacy of politics -- which is responsible for the common good -- over the economy and finance," the note reads. "We should not be afraid to try new ideas, even if they might destabilize pre-existing balances of power that prevail over the weakest."

Critics, dismayed by the note's content, rather predictably have challenged its Vatican standing. George Weigel dismissed it as the product of a "rather small office in the Roman Curia" while Bill Donohue said it contains "neologisms" not found in the thought of Pope Benedict XVI. To be fair, there's merit to these points. The note is hardly a dogmatic definition, and on matters outside the Catechism, the Vatican rarely speaks with one voice.

Focusing on how much papal muscle the note can flex, however, risks ignoring what is at least an equally revealing question: Whatever you make of it, does the note seem to reflect important currents in Catholic social and political thought anywhere in the world?

The answer is yes, and it happens to be where two-thirds of the Catholics on the planet today live: the southern hemisphere, also known as the developing world.

It's fitting that the Vatican official responsible for the document is an African, Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, because it articulates key elements of what almost might be called a "southern consensus." One way of sizing up the note's significance, therefore, is as an indication that the demographic transition long under way in Catholicism, with the center of gravity shifting from north to south, is being felt in Rome.

There are almost 750 million Catholics scattered across Africa, Asia and Latin America, and generalizations about such a vast pool of people are always hazardous. Nonetheless, on matters of sexual morality and the "culture wars," Catholics in the south generally strike Europeans and Americans as remarkably conservative -- opposed to gay marriage, anti-abortion, devoted to the traditional family. When the conversation shifts to economic policy and geopolitics, however, Catholic opinion in the developing world often comes off in the West as strikingly progressive.

To be specific, Southern bishops, priests, religious and laity often are:

• Skeptical of free-market capitalism and unregulated globalization;


• Wary about the global influence of the United States;


• Pro-United Nations and pro-global governance;


• In favor of a robust role for the state in the economy.
  

A few examples flesh out that picture.

In a 2002 issue of Theological Studies, the late Dean Brackley and Thomas Schubeck outlined a "Latin consensus" on the economy, expressed not just by avant-garde theologians in Latin America but in official church documents. They described it this way: "The market is a useful, even necessary means for stimulating production and allocating resources. However, in the 'new economy,' overreliance on the market has aggravated social inequality, further concentrated wealth and income, and left millions mired in misery."

Catholic leaders in other parts of the global south hold similar views. For instance, in a 127-page report issued in 2004, the Catholic bishops of Asia declared that "neoliberal economic globalization" destroys Asian families and is the primary cause of poverty on the continent.

In June 2005, a group of Catholic bishops from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, Somalia and Djibouti declared, "We are particularly horrified by the ravages of unbridled capitalism, which has taken away and stifled local ownership of economic initiatives and is leading to a dangerous gap between the rich few and the poor majority."

Now consider the language of the Vatican note, which breathes much the same air: "What has driven the world in such a problematic direction for its economy and also for peace? First and foremost, an economic liberalism that spurns rules and controls ... an economic system of thought that sets down a priori the laws of market functioning and economic development, without measuring them against reality, runs the risk of becoming an instrument subordinated to the interests of the countries that effectively enjoy a position of economic and financial advantage."

One can certainly debate the merits of those perceptions, or the policy moves that might flow from them. Yet to dismiss all this as nothing more than the rogue perceptions of an isolated Vatican department ignores the demographic and cultural realities of the church in the 21st century.

This is not the dying echo of warmed-over European socialism. For better or worse, it's the first ripple of a southern wave.

[John L. Allen Jr. is NCR's senior correspondent.]

Source

Vatican official: Church’s justice teachings need new 'vocabulary' for some US audiences

Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson

By Alan Holdren, Rome Correspondent

Vatican City, Jan 13, 2011 / 05:33 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- When he travels to the United States next month, Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson is aware that he may have to make some adjustments in the way he talks about the Church’s social teaching.

As president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the Ghanaian cardinal, 62, is charged with making the Church’s social teaching more widely known and practiced around the world.

He will be in Washington to deliver the plenary address of the 2011 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, Feb. 13-16. The gathering, on the theme of “Protecting Human Life and Dignity: Promoting a Just Economy,” is sponsored by 19 Catholic organizations, including the U.S. Catholic bishops.

In a recent interview with CNA, Cardinal Turkson said he has learned from past experience that the Church’s justice and peace terminology often needs clarification for an American Catholic audience. Key terms used by the Vatican — such as “social justice” and “gift” — are not always understood the way the Vatican intends, he said.

"We found out that some of the vocabulary which is just taken for granted and used freely may not always have the same sense or may have had some nuances which sometimes are missed because of the way the terms are used in the American political context,” Cardinal Turkson said in a Jan. 12 interview at the council’s offices in Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI appointed Cardinal Turkson to his post in Oct. 2009, just months after the Pope released his blueprint for the Church’s social teaching, “Caritas in Veritate” (Charity in Truth). The council has since made promotion of the Pope’s vision a top priority.

The encyclical outlines Pope Benedict’s plan for "integral human development" in economics, society and politics through the principles of charity and truth.

Cardinal Turkson said the Vatican is pleased by response to the document. But he said reaction from some sections of the audience in the United States was unexpected.

The council has been surprised to find that common terms were misunderstood or misinterpreted. He emphasized that the misunderstanding was not a general or widespread problem among American Catholics. But, he said, "in certain circles ... there is a difficulty."

For instance, the Pope's teaching on themes of "social justice" have been mistakenly connected to "socialism" and "communism." As a result, he indicated, the Pope is mistakenly seen as promoting socialist or big-government solutions to social problems.

The council has also learned that words like "social" and "solidarity" may have been dismissed by American readers for their perceived connection with communist regimes such as the Soviet Union, he said.

Cardinal Turkson explained that in the Church’s thinking, social justice involves citizens’ obligations and responsibilities to ensure fairness and opportunity in their communities and societies.

While this may include the adoption of specific government policies and programs, the emphasis in Catholic social teaching is on the obligations that flow from citizens' relationships in societies.

"Respecting, understanding and fulfilling those demands constitute our justice," he said. "It would be useful if we just observed our sense of justice as our ability to fulfill the demands of the relationships in which we stand."

This is in contrast to socialism, he explained, which is an ideology in which private property and private interests are totally placed in the service of government policies.

What the Pope proposes in “Caritas in Veritate,” said Cardinal Turkson, is "achieving the common good without sacrificing personal, private interests, aspirations and desires."

Cardinal Turkson said the Council was also surprised that the Pope’s concept of the “gift,” was perceived in some circles as encouraging government welfare handouts.

In "Caritas in Veritate," Pope Benedict described the concept of “gift” as a way to understand God’s love for men and women in his gift of life and his gift of Jesus.

"Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity," the Pope wrote. "That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion."

Gift, Cardinal Turkson explained, is "a very basic, deep theological expression of God's relation or the motivation for whatever God does in the world, and it's not quite the same as a handout."

"If we ever need to talk about this in a society where the sense of gift is that of a handout ... it doesn't quite express the sense of gift in this regard," he added.

While it is too late to add any explanations to the encyclical, the Council might tailor its language differently in future documents.

"We just realized that probably in the future, when ... this dicastery takes up the task of diffusing, presenting and talking about this it might be necessary to provide a footnote in which some of these expressions can be given an awareness of the different senses of expressions in different cultures and settings,” he said. We thought something like that would be useful and helpful to the readers."

Cardinal Turkson urged American Catholics and government and economic leaders to give a conscientious reading of "Caritas in Veritate."

The encyclical, he said, invites us "to go back or to remind about the centrality of the human person, his well being, his common good within everything that we do.”

Another important message, Cardinal Turkson said, is that “we must not sacrifice the good of the human person for anything that we aspire after or want to do with technology, business, economics or whatever."

The key to an authentically human vision of development is to consider the full ethical character of the individual in all decisions, he said.

"In details," he concluded, "it may be for food security and shelter for all persons, but at the end of the day we are looking at whether things that we are doing in the world as government, as a Church and all of that help advance the good of the individual person."
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