Truth be told

Pope Benedict’s recently released social encyclical is too compelling to sit on the ‘to do’ list of those who are too busy or find it too daunting to read anytime soon.

Cardinal Francis George has just written about it, with his own unique insights.

Note this snip:

Human development is the goal of political and economic plans, and their success is measured to the extent that all people are respected and able to live with the goods that constitute the common good of all.

This column is a must read as well as Benedict’s work, and is a good companion piece. Politicians refer to ‘the common good’ a lot, but not with the understanding of that term that goes way back in Catholic social teaching. If it doesn’t line up however, politicians tell the Church to stay out of politics. George address that:

Because the social doctrine of the church brings the light of truth and moral judgment to political and economic questions, some will warn about the “separation of church and state.”

First of all, this complaint is almost always politically motivated, since different political factions raise it only when one of their favorite causes is judged. In other words, the church’s teaching is acceptable when it condemns theft or perjury; these are still considered immoral by most people, and nobody complains when the church says they should be illegal. But the church is not supposed to instruct the left about the evil of abortion or the right about strengthening international political agencies. In other words, politics trumps morality and truth.

Secondly, it is not the church but the state that is the greatest threat to separation of church and state. The threat becomes real when the state takes it upon itself, especially through the courts, to tell the church what the church can say and do. Preaching morality is what the church is supposed to do. Because, for example, the state has decided that abortion should be legal, penalties for objecting to it on religious grounds are multiplying in medical schools and corporations. When the state determines what is religious and how religious people should think and act, when it meddles in religious affairs, the reach of religious freedom is reduced. There is a problem in this country about the separation of church and state, but the problem is generated by the state, not the church.

True.