“Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology”

Talk delivered by Most Rev. Salvatore Cordileone to Saint Mary’s College

John F. Henning Institute Episcopal Lecture Series

April 14, 2010

Introduction

Thank you for the invitation to speak to you today on the topic of Pope Benedict

XVI’s latest Encyclical. I am indeed honored by this invitation, especially given the long

and close historical relationship between Saint Mary’s College and the Diocese. The

Diocese of Oakland is endowed with a strong presence of institutions of higher education,

which help to give it its vibrancy. Saint Mary’s and the Christian Brothers play no small

role in this.

I am also aware of the lecture series here established in honor of John F. Henning,

a leading example of the good Saint Mary’s College can do. As an outstanding labor

leader and public servant, as SMC President of the Alumni Association and as a member

of the Board of Trustees, it was the integrity of Catholic Social Teaching that guided him

through it all. He is a personal illustration of the basic point I will seek to make in this

talk.

It is indeed an honor, and also an ambitious challenge, for me to speak to a group

of Catholic scholars. I certainly share with you a great love and admiration for the

intellectual life; I come to you, though, not as a fellow intellectual, but as a pastor. While

making my own efforts to research, ponder and synthesize, my reflections will

necessarily be mediated through the lens of the Church’s pastoral concern for her people.

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 2 And this is as it should be, for all of the Church’s many wonderful and varied endeavors

find their ultimate value in the measure of how effective they are in serving the Church’s

pastoral mission of fostering the faithful’s growth in holiness.

General Principles of Catholic Social Teaching

It was on June 29, 2009, that Pope Benedict XVI issued the Encyclical letter,

Caritas in Veritate. In the tradition of the Encyclicals of modern Catholic Social

Teaching going back to Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum of 1891, Benedict surveyed the

existing social conditions and determined what aspect of the Church’s tradition of social

doctrine should be emphasized at this time to assist us in living a life which best

comports with our transcendent dignity and supernatural destiny. Although such social

conditions change from one age to another, this will always remain the duty of the

Church’s chief shepherd and teaching authority.

It is certainly what Pope Leo XIII did in beginning the school of modern Catholic

Social Teaching by issuing that first social Encyclical. Just what were, then, the

circumstances at the time Pope Leo was writing this letter? Remember, at that moment

of history the industrial revolution was in full swing; the plight of workers had become

critical – the demand of their labor had become urgent, but protections were not yet in

place to safeguard their rights. Remember also that at this time the political philosophies

of Marxism and socialism were very much on the rise, as a response to this situation by

promising a society of justice and equality. The problem with these philosophies, though,

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 3 is that they base everything on the material: their concept of the human person is devoid

of any sense of the spiritual or transcendent; instead, social justice is brought about by

conflict, the warfare of the classes which results in revolution leading to a classless

society.

The 20th century, which we have just left, tragically witnessed the horrendous

consequences of these systems. With extraordinary foresight, Pope Leo XIII gave a

Christian response to these circumstances of his time. Yes, his Encyclical’s central

theme was the just ordering of society, but according to criteria that correspond fully to

the nature of the human person: he therefore listed the errors that gave rise to social ills,

excluded socialism as a remedy and expounded with precision and in contemporary terms

“‘the Catholic doctrine on work, the right to property, the principle of collaboration

instead of class struggle as the fundamental means for social change, the rights of the

weak, the dignity of the poor and the obligations of the rich, the perfecting of justice

through charity, [and] the right to form professional associations [labor unions]’”

(“Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,” n. 89). The burning issue of the

day was the labor issue, and the Encyclical Rerum Novarum dealt with the issue “using a

methodology that would become ‘a lasting paradigm’ for successive developments in the

Church’s social doctrine” (ibid., n. 90; emphasis original).

In the nearly 120 years since that landmark Encyclical, Catholic social teaching

has developed a number of general principles and underlying values which apply as well

to all of the other issues of social justice which have emerged over this time. The starting

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 4

point, though, with any aspect of social teaching, or of public or personal morality, for

that matter, is at the beginning: God’s creation of the human being.

The foundational passage in Sacred Scripture is Genesis 1:26, which tells us that

God created the man and woman “in His image and likeness.” God, moreover, created

them in order to share in His nature, and so the vocation of every human person is that of

divine beatitude. Indeed, as the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World

of the Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, reminds us, the human person is “the

only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake,” and human persons can fully

discover their true self only in giving of themselves (n. 24, par. 2).

This being created in the image of God gives the human person an inherent

dignity. Indeed, the phrase “the dignity of the human person” and other similar

expressions pervade the documents on Catholic social teaching. Because of the origin

and destiny of human beings – which is already written in the human heart and is made

evident in Scripture – Catholic thought sees the human person as primarily a spiritual

being, that is, one who is much more than merely the sum total of bodily functions and

psychological and emotional needs, but rather one who is oriented toward a transcendent

end, which is nothing less than God Himself. This means, then, that all human life is

sacred and worthy of respect, in every stage and in every condition, and this is why the

Church does not shy away from her duty to defend and speak out on behalf of human life

and dignity wherever they may be in a position of vulnerability.

The first foundational value of Catholic social teaching, then, is the inherent

dignity of the human person, along with its corollary principles of the spiritual,

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 5

transcendent nature of the human person and the sanctity of human life. This

dignity also means that every human person is endowed with certain rights and

obligations which must be played out in society. If people “can fully discover their true

self only in giving of themselves,” it means that God has created us to live in society.

The human person, as well as being primarily a spiritual being, is also a social being.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines society as “a group of persons bound

together organically by a principle of unity that goes beyond each one of them”; it is “an

assembly that is at once visible and spiritual, [and] endures through time: it gathers up the

past and prepares for the future” (n. 1880). The Catechism goes so far as to declare

society to be “essential to the fulfillment of the human vocation,” (n. 1886; emphasis

added), and, citing Pope John Paul II’s Encyclical Centessimus Annus, affirms that to

“attain this aim, respect must be accorded to the just hierarchy of values, which

‘subordinates physical and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones’ [CA 36].”

The human person, then, needs to live and participate in society, it is a requirement of

human nature; it is through economic, political and cultural exchange with others, and in

mutual service and fraternal dialogue that people develop their potential and respond to

their vocation (cf. GS 25, par. 1).

This second foundational value, the social nature of the human person, leads us to

a number of principles equally pivotal for our consideration. First of all, a logical

consequence of this understanding of the human person is that the good of each

individual is necessarily related to the common good, which in turn can be defined only

in reference to the human person. That is to say, the human person – as Gaudium et Spes

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 6

instructs us – “is and ought to be the beginning, the subject and the end of all social

institutions” (n. 25, par. 1).

Gaudium et Spes gives us the lapidary definition of the common good as “the sum

total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach

their fulfillment more fully and more easily” (n. 26, par. 1). There must be, then, a

balance and interplay between the individual good and the common good, since the two

are interrelated. This brings us to one of the most constant and characteristic directives of

the Church’s social doctrine, beginning with that first great Encyclical, Rerum Novarum:

the principle of subsidiarity. This can be defined as the principle according to which

“all societies of a superior order must adopt attitudes of help (‘subsiduum’) – therefore of

support, promotion, development – with respect to lower-order societies” (“Compendium

of Catholic Social Teaching,” n. 186). “In this way, intermediate social entities can

properly perform the functions that fall to them without being required to hand them over

unjustly to other social entities of a higher level, by which they would end up being

absorbed and substituted, in the end seeing themselves denied their dignity and essential

place [in society]” (ibid.). This means, then, that the state (nation), a “social entity of a

higher level,” must offer the assistance which “lesser social entities,” such as (especially)

the family, need in order to fulfill the functions proper to them, while at the same time the

state must not do anything to restrict those lesser social entities from doing so.

The principle of subsidiarity, then, “protects people from abuses by higher level

social authority and calls on these same authorities to help individuals and intermediate

groups to fulfill their duties.... Experience shows that the denial of subsidiarity, or its

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 7 limitation in the name of an alleged democratization or equality of all members of society

[the state arrogating to itself the prerogatives properly belonging to individuals, families

and other smaller communities], limits and sometimes even destroys the spirit of freedom

and initiative” (“Compendium of Catholic Social Teaching,” n. 187). On the other hand,

sometimes “circumstances may make it advisable that the state step in to supply certain

functions,” for example, “to stimulate the economy because it is impossible for civil

society to support initiatives on its own,” or when social imbalance or injustice is so

serious that “only the intervention of the public authority can create conditions of greater

equality, justice and peace”; however, because this would be an extraordinary measure, it

should continue only as long as absolutely necessary, and the primacy of the human

dignity of each individual must always prevail (ibid, n. 188).

To sum up these foundational values, then: the beginning point is God’s creation

of the human being in His image and likeness. This endows the human person with an

inherent and inviolable dignity and a transcendent, spiritual nature which, as a

consequence, calls for respecting the sanctity of all human life, especially the most

vulnerable. God also created the human person as a social being; while the ultimate

vocation of every human being is that of divine beatitude, it is within the relationships of

human society that people respond to this vocation. This necessitates a balance between

the good of the individual and of smaller communities on the one hand, and the common

good on the other, a balance which must be worked out according to the principle of

subsidiarity, where higher level societies assist individuals and intermediate level

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 8 societies in exercising their rights and fulfilling their duties while not absorbing such

prerogatives which, in justice, belong to them.

The general principles of Catholic social teaching will obviously take on all kinds

of specific application to a whole myriad of issues, including everything from culture of

life issues to economic justice. The labor issue was the hot topic at the time of Pope Leo

XIII; we have a number of others in our own time as well. Issues of economic justice

certainly are to be included among these. No matter what the issue, though, when a

society veers off into the direction of injustice, it is inevitably because of a mistaken

notion of the human person. All of the foundational values which I have just presented

reflect a characteristically Christian understanding of the human person; or, as Pope John

Paul II would call it, the personalistic view. That is, the human person is to be valued as

a good in and of itself simply because of human dignity, and not treated as a means to an

end. Unfortunately, though, more and more we see a completely contrary view of the

human person prevailing in society today: the utilitarian view. That is, the human person

is not an intrinsic good, but rather has value only insofar as the person can be useful in

some way. This would view persons as no more than units of consumption and

production, which can be dispensed of when they no longer consume or, especially,

produce; the person is used as a means to some ulterior (and, necessarily, less valuable)

end.

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 9 Caritas in Veritate and Human Ecology

It will not be surprising that all of these values and principles which I have just

articulated are woven all throughout Pope Benedict XVI’s recent Encyclical on the

economy, Charity in Truth. But before referencing any particular one, it is necessary to

bear in mind the very premise of the Encyclical, already clear at the outset from its title.

Charity must be connected with truth, and that truth has to do with the correct

understanding of the human person. That truth, moreover, exists in the objective reality

of nature, it is not left up to each individual to decide for himself or herself, as if, “I have

my truth, and you have your truth.” Reason helps us to discern and recognize the truth,

which then must be received by an act of the will. Truth is to be received, it is a gift.

Charity rooted in objective truth is, as he calls it, a “grace”: “Charity is love received and

given. It is ‘grace’” (n. 5).

Therefore, as he says, “Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality” (n.

3). It is, ultimately, dehumanizing: the powerful give not because the need of the giver to

give exceeds the need of the receiver to receive, but instead for some ulterior end,

whether it be simply to assuage a troubled conscience or, worst of all, to keep the weak

dependent on the powerful who can thereby rest secure in their position of power. This,

then, defeats authentic development, which can only come about when such initiatives

respect the truth about the human person. As he says: “The risk for our time is that the de

facto interdependence of people and nations is not matched by ethical interaction of

consciences and minds that would give rise to truly human development. Only in charity,

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 10 illumined by the light of reason and faith, is it possible to pursue development goals that

possess a more humane and humanizing value” (n. 9; emphasis original).

Ultimately, Truth and Love are a person: Jesus Christ, by whom and for whom

everything was created. The two, then, cannot be separated, but rather form a dynamic

unity. This means that our integral development as human persons, individually and as a

community, decisively becomes real as we lovingly seek the Truth and allow it to form us

and to shape and motivate our action in the world in accord with the demands of Love.

This principle is the foundation upon which Pope Benedict stands in addressing the world

as it faces the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression and the continuing

difficulties of development in third world countries that go with it. In the midst of this

crisis, Pope Benedict brings us back to basics, reminding us that integral human develop

requires the difficult task of subordinating the material and technical to the spiritual and

moral, and not allowing financial mechanisms free reign outside the civic and political

aspects of society.

The title of my talk, “Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology,”

reflects the reality that we must order our society according to this hierarchy of values –

that is, order our society correctly – if we are to attain authentic development and

enduring justice. It is the basis of the principle according to which everything is inter-

related, something we can readily understand at the level of the physical environment.

Air and water do not know political boundaries. A polluted river in one country will be

polluted in its neighboring country; bad air quality in one city will affect the communities

surrounding it, especially when they are downwind from their big neighbor. Growing up

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 11 in the city nestled between Los Angeles and Mexico, these are realities I have

experienced first hand.

These are also realities about which we are all committed to improving. The

Church is certainly no exception, but the Christian perspective does so in a way that

places the primacy on the spiritual: cognizant of the truth that our natural and physical

environment is God’s creation and expression of His love for us, and His gift to us as our

home in which we seek our salvation, the Church exhorts us to be good and respectful

stewards of our environment. Indeed, the Church proposes that there is a covenant

between us and our physical world. In most eloquent terms, Benedict sets out the

profound responsibilities of our environmental stewardship:

Human beings legitimately exercise a responsible stewardship

over nature, in order to protect it, to enjoy its fruits and to cultivate

it in new ways, with the assistance of advanced technologies, so

that it can worthily accommodate and feed the world’s population.

On this earth there is room for everyone: here the entire human

family must find the resources to live with dignity, through the

help of nature itself – God's gift to his children – and through hard

work and creativity. At the same time we must recognize our grave

duty to hand the earth on to future generations in such a condition

that they too can worthily inhabit it and continue to cultivate it.

This means being committed to making joint decisions ‘after

pondering responsibly the road to be taken, decisions aimed at

strengthening that covenant between human beings and the

environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 12

whom we come and towards whom we are journeying’ [n. 50;

emphasis original].

We all understand the urgent need to care for the natural environment, and the

complexities that this involves because of everything in the environment being

interconnected. This, though, is a basic operating principle of all of creation, and so

applies in all the other areas of life as well. We certainly understand its application to the

economy, and if there ever could have been any doubt, the current global economic crisis

has done away with that. It applies at the level of physical health, in which the various

systems of the body are interconnected. It also applies, therefore, on the spiritual and

moral levels. Moreover, all of these different levels are, among themselves,

interconnected, with each one affecting all the others.

This is why the Church calls our attention to the relationship between the moral

order and the physical order. Just as we must be concerned for the ecology of our

physical environment, so must we also be concerned with human ecology – our own

proper moral order. In Caritas in Veritate, Benedict picks up this theme which Pope

John Paul II had addressed in Centesimus Annus, where he says:

Although people are rightly worried – though much less than they

should be – about preserving the natural habitats of the various

animal species threatened with extinction, because they realize that

each of these species makes its particular contribution to the

balance of nature in general, too little effort is made to safeguard

the moral conditions for an authentic ‘human ecology’. Not only

has God given the earth to man, who must use it with respect for

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 13

the original good purpose for which it was given to him, but man

too is God's gift to man. He must therefore respect the natural and

moral structure with which he has been endowed [CA, n. 38;

emphasis original].

Pope Benedict echoes this view and emphasizes the intimate and unbreakable

relationship between the proper moral outlook of society and its ability to respect nature.

He writes:

In order to protect nature, it is not enough to intervene with

economic incentives or deterrents; not even an apposite education

is sufficient. These are important steps, but the decisive issue is the

overall moral tenor of society. If there is a lack of respect for the

right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation

and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to

research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of

human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology.

It is contradictory to insist that future generations respect the

natural environment when our educational systems and laws do not

help them to respect themselves. The book of nature is one and

indivisible: it takes in not only the environment but also life,

sexuality, marriage, the family, social relations: in a word, integral

human development. Our duties towards the environment are

linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in

himself and in relation to others. It would be wrong to uphold one

set of duties while trampling on the other. Herein lies a grave

contradiction in our mentality and practice today: one which

demeans the person, disrupts the environment and damages society

[n. 51; emphasis original].

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 14

Let’s go back to the beginning. The creation account in Genesis says: “God

created man in His image; in the divine image He created him; male and female He

created them” (Gen 1:27). “Man” here is obviously meant in its inclusive sense,

humanity as a corporate whole. Humanity can only exist as male and female. Hence, it

is the masculinity and femininity of the human race that reflects the image of God, a

Trinity of Persons. Pope Benedict picks up on this point in his Encyclical when he says,

“The Trinity is absolute unity insofar as the three divine Persons are pure relationality.

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. 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” (n. 54).

There is much talk in the Church these days, especially here in the Diocese of

Oakland with our rich ethnic diversity, of unity in diversity. I also know that inclusive

excellence is one of the priorities of St. Mary’s College. We have the source of all of this

in the Trinity: a differentiation of Persons in perfect unity, an inclusion which is not

simply excellent but, indeed, perfect. Moreover, God has established a human institution

by which He could model for us His inner life of unity and inclusion. That institution is

marriage, in which a husband and wife fully and unreservedly give themselves to each

other. Benedict puts it this way at number 54 of Caritas in Veritate: “Just as the

sacramental love of spouses unites them spiritually in ‘one flesh’ (Gen 2:24; Mt 19:5;

Eph 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.”

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 15 “Sacramental love of spouses”: remember, a sacrament uses a physical reality to connect

us with spiritual, transcendent truth. In marriage, a man and woman are physically joined

in a one-flesh union, while each retains their own identity. The mystical meaning of

marriage underlying its physical reality connects us with, and helps us understand, the

mystery of the Trinity. This is why marriage is the iconic human relationship for unity in

diversity: the man and woman are and remain diverse but united by their mutual

complementarity. Thus, marriage becomes the paradigm also of inclusive excellence.

Accordingly, the first structure of human ecology is the family founded on

marriage. It is in the environment created by the spouses’ mutual gift of self that

“children can be born and develop their potentialities, become aware of their dignity and

prepare to face their unique and individual destiny” (CA 39). The family founded on

marriage, then, is the first vital cell of society.

In light of all this, while to the ill-informed it would seem a complete non-

sequitur, to the well-formed Catholic it comes as no surprise that, early on in this

Encyclical addressing the current global economic crisis, Pope Benedict references Pope

Paul VI’s Encyclical Humanae Vitae on the transmission of human life and responsible

parenthood, and Pope John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae on the sanctity of human life, as

foundational to the entire discussion. We see people not as an asset or a liability

depending on their condition, but as a gift, a resource, indeed the greatest resource

regardless of their condition, an intrinsic good.

Sex and marriage are, indeed, foundational to everything, because people come

about through the sexual union of man and woman. The Pope cites Evangelium Vitae at

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 16 this point when he says, “The Church forcefully maintains this link between life ethics

and social ethics, fully aware that ‘a society lacks solid foundations when, on the one

hand, it asserts values such as the dignity of the person, justice and peace, but then, on the

other hand, radically acts to the contrary by allowing or tolerating a variety of ways in

which human life is devalued and violated, especially where it is weak or marginalized’”

(n. 15).

The Pope even uses the phrase “openness to life,” so pivotal in Humanae Vitae’s

discussion of the responsible transmission of human life in marriage, in reference to

authentic economic and social development. He says, “Morally responsible openness to

life represents a rich social and economic resource. Populous nations have been able to

emerge from poverty thanks not least to the size of their population and the talents of

their people. On the other hand, formerly prosperous nations are presently passing

through a phase of uncertainty and in some cases decline, precisely because of their

falling birth rates; this has become a crucial problem for highly affluent societies” (n. 44;

emphasis original). He concludes: “In view of this, States are called to enact policies

promoting the centrality and the integrity of the family founded on marriage between a

man and a woman, the primary vital cell of society, and to assume responsibility for its

economic and fiscal needs, while respecting its essentially relational character” (n. 44;

emphasis original).

Think about it: if the family is the primary cell of society, and if that cell is

infected, then all of society will be infected. And we can go further: marriage is the

primary cell of the family. If, therefore, the marriage is infected, namely, disordered by

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 17 notions contrary to the truth of the human person and the purposes of marriage as

established by the Creator in the order of nature, then so will the family and,

consequently, all of society. As the first vital cell of society, the family founded on

marriage is the basis of social justice and education.

Caritas in Veritate and Catholic Higher Education

The principle of the family as the primary subsidiary society is a defining factor in

the Catholic understanding of education, which considers husbands and wives, in virtue

of their sharing in the creative wisdom of the Father through procreation, to be, by right

and duty, the first educators of their children. The Catholic community has always been

intensely aware of the critical fact of human ecology, and so has always seen the

Church’s and the school’s role as assisting parents, not replacing them. A sign of this

awareness and concern are the Church’s teaching orders, which live the charism of their

founders to assist parents in the education of their children. The loving and intimate

relationship between the teaching orders and parents is itself also a vital element of

human ecology. It is a living example of the primacy of the family and marriage in

human ecology and of the way in which education takes its purpose, direction and

authenticity from and in relation to marriage and the family. I would, then, like to take

this opportunity to acknowledge the role and work of the Brothers of the Christian

Schools in this regard. It is a great privilege of the Diocese of Oakland to have schools

conducted in the charism of St. John Baptist De LaSalle, the principal patron of all

teachers. His spiritual sons today continue their work as the spiritual brothers of their

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 18 students. LaSalle clearly saw the relationship between the family founded on marriage

and the work of his order. In Meditations for the Time of Retreat, LaSalle counseled his

brothers:

You, then, whom God has called to this ministry, work according

to the grace that has been given to you to instruct by teaching and

to exhort by encouraging those who are entrusted to your care,

guiding them with attention and vigilance in order to fulfill toward

them the principal duty of fathers and mothers toward their

children.

This relationship between the family and education is very meaningful for

undergraduate education. College is a time when young people emerge into the world

and start to stand on their own. It is a time of a critical transition into full adulthood.

As persons who receive their essential dignity from God, students, and all persons,

also receive the capacity to transcend and overcome any social order that does not fully

respect human ecology and move toward truth and love. However, students, and all

persons, are conditioned in an important way by the social structures in which they live.

Students in a particular way are conditioned by the education they receive. Education

and all of the elements of society can either help or hinder the student to live in

accordance with truth and love and authentic human ecology (cf. CA, n. 38).

Therefore, it is critically important that education understand and respect human

ecology. In Caritas in Veritate, Benedict lays out some basic concepts, all of which are

consonant with Ex Corde Ecclesiae and Fides et Ratio, which I believe are central to an

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 19 undergraduate education that helps students live in accordance with truth, love and

authentic human ecology. I would like to briefly touch upon a few of the essential

elements of such an education, which I hope will be readily apparent from the points I

have just made.

First and foremost, a college must have a robust marriage culture. There must be

a deep understanding of the significance of the mutual self-giving of spouses and the

complementarity of the sexes. This understanding is essential to the mission of a

Catholic college, as reflected in St. Mary’s College own mission statement where it

pledges: “to affirm and foster the Christian understanding of the human person which

animates the educational mission of the Catholic Church.” There can be no correct

understanding of social justice without first understanding the family founded on

marriage, the first vital cell of society. Further, respect for the family founded on

marriage as the proper place for the procreation and education of children is inextricably

connected to the subordination of the material and technical to the ethical and spiritual.

Inclusive excellence actually proceeds from the family founded on marriage as the

reflection of the relational unity of the Trinity.

Next, a college must acknowledge that truth and love are gifts from God which

can never be separated. Truth and love are not our constructs, not our making (cf. CIV,

n. 52). The notion of gift is the very foundation of Pope Benedict’s reflections in Caritas

in Veritate. This is one of the reasons why both Fides et Ratio and the St. Mary’s

College Mission Statement affirm that wonder is our opening to knowledge. Living

deeply in the understanding that our whole world is the gratuitous utterance of the Word

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 20 of God leads us to have a special regard for the study of philosophy and theology. It also

leads us to a more profound realization of the person of Jesus Christ as our way, our truth

and our life, and of the relationship between the sacramental life of the College and its

academic pursuits.

Finally, an interdisciplinary understanding of the person and society is essential

for human ecology. As the Holy Father says:

Often it is thought that development, or the socio-economic

measures that go with it, merely require that they be implemented

through joint action. This joint action, however, needs to be given

direction, because ‘all social action involves a doctrine’. In view

of the complexity of the issues, it is obvious that the various

disciplines have to work together through an orderly

interdisciplinary exchange. Charity does not exclude knowledge,

but rather requires, promotes, and animates it from within….

Faced with the phenomena that lie before us, charity in truth

requires first of all that we know and understand, acknowledging

and respecting the specific competence of every level of

knowledge. Charity is not an added extra, like an appendix to

work already concluded in each of the various disciplines: it

engages them in dialogue from the very beginning [CIV 30].

This means that the various disciplines have to work together through an orderly

interdisciplinary exchange if we are to achieve human development and respect human

ecology. Moreover, the liberal arts provide the intellectual capability for such

interdisciplinary exchange.

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 21

This is where Catholic higher education is uniquely poised to provide a service

that our country, and western society as a whole, desperately need at this point in history.

People generally cannot make these connections anymore: knowledge, and even our

understanding of the human person, have become compartmentalized; ethics has been

divorced from business and science; there is no longer an understanding of the relation

between personal morality and social justice, as reflected in everything from court

decisions to school curricula. This last point was brought home to me in a rather

disquieting way a little over a year ago, when I had flown up here from San Diego for the

announcement of my appointment as the bishop of the Diocese. I was being given a tour

of the city, and I especially wanted to see the inner city neighborhoods. Every so often I

would see a billboard typically showing a picture of an African-American man holding a

baby in his arms with the words above, “Take Time to be a Father Today.” I was

encouraged by what I perceived to be some sort of a campaign to promote fatherhood.

Then, at one point we drove past a school where I saw a sign on the widow, facing out to

the street, announcing, “Vote No on Proposition 8.” Then, when we reached the end of

the block, I look across the street, and what did I see? A billboard announcing, “Take

Time to be a Father Today.” The disconnect here could not be more obvious: one cannot,

at one and the same time, both affirm the importance of fatherhood and deny the need for

children to be connected to their mothers and fathers. Indeed, this is the very purpose of

marriage. Nature connects mothers to their children, but society needs a cultural

mechanism to do that with fathers, and that mechanism is marriage. We are now reaping

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 22 the bitter fruits of the demise of fatherhood, and they are most especially evident in our

inner city neighborhoods.

While this should be immediately perceptible to reason alone, as Catholics we can

go way beyond that. We are aided by the light of revelation, which not only helps us to

perceive divine truths but also to understand with greater clarity natural truths already

accessible to reason alone. We have a body of moral teaching and of social teaching,

both based on the truth of the human person and both necessary, together, for a healthy

society and the flourishing of the individual. This is the lens through which we view all

of life, and will consequently affect our attitudes and actions in all that we do.

Thus, from our Catholic perspective on education, human ecology and integral

human development, we understand that it is not enough that our young people be smart,

competent and ambitious. They must also be honest, sober and chaste. It means nothing

if they have the capacity for ingenuity, productivity and multi-tasking if they lack the

capacity for empathy, compassion and generosity; if they are good at making money but

not keeping their promises; if they have lots of material things to enjoy but cannot be

faithful in their primary commitments in life. We do them a grave disservice if we teach

them to be globally literate and culturally competent, but not virtuous; to be passionate

but not exercise moderation and self-restraint; to respect the integrity of the environment

but not the integrity of marriage. They will fall woefully short of the mark, and

ultimately fail in life, if they learn to believe in themselves without first believing in God,

and are encouraged to dream big dreams and pursue those dreams if they are not educated

in knowing, loving and serving God in this life so they may be happy with Him in the

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 23 next. A culture of career might make people wealthy, but it will never make them wise,

or, for that matter, human in the fullest sense of the word. In fact, it will make and keep

some people poor. Only a culture of vocation, reflected in a thriving marriage culture,

will make people authentically human, and therefore truly happy.

Conclusion

We are, at this precise historical moment, at a critical juncture in our society with

regard to the most basic question in life: what does it mean to be a human being? Failing

to answer this question correctly will hasten our ultimate demise. I referenced early in

this talk the materialistic ideologies of the last two centuries which promised justice but

produced the most brutal regimes in human history, because of their misunderstanding of

the human person. We are witnessing a similar phenomenon in our country now: the

social and sexual revolutions which exploded in the 60’s promised freedom, but have

produced oppression, people trapped in poverty, cycles of violence, despair. This is all a

result of the same mistake: seeing the human person as a purely material reality, devoid

of any spiritual and transcendent meaning. As a Catholic institution of higher education,

Saint Mary’s College can serve the unique and invaluable role – as I truly believe God is

calling you to do – of reversing our nation’s slide toward self-destruction, serving as

nothing less than an instrument of God’s salvation by teaching our young people how to

make the connections that promote a true human ecology.

I began my reflections referring to the relationship between Saint Mary’s College

and the Diocese. Even more precious, though, than our long history together is the

Caritas in Veritate: Economic Justice and Human Ecology p. 24 patroness we share in common: Mary the Mother of God and Queen of the World. She is

our guide to the proper understanding of the human person, the image of all that God

created the human person to be and model of what it means to live the truth in charity. In

her indispensable role in God’s plan of salvation for the human race, she lived her life in

complete service to the Truth and Love: her Son Jesus Christ. With him and her husband

Saint Joseph, God gifts us with the paradigmatic subsidiary society and pattern of true

inclusive excellence. Allow me to conclude, then, with the Opening Prayer for the Mass

of the Feast of the Holy Family, and let us strive to live this prayer every day of our lives:

Oh God, You have given us the Holy Family of Your Son as the

perfect model for our families. Kindly grant that we may practice

their virtues in family life and unite us by the bond of Your love,

that we may enjoy with them the eternal happiness of Your home.

We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.