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Caritas in veritate is the “social encyclical” of Pope Benedict XVI, following in the footsteps of his predecessors from Leo XIII to John Paul II. Benedict presents both a detailed theological basis for the tradition of Catholic social thought and concrete treatment of various particular moral problems facing the world today. In his integration of a deep life of faith with a commitment to work to improve justice in the world, Pope Benedict reaffirms the Catholic tradition’s rejection of two limits on religious faith. Some limit faith to an internal, spiritual experience in a world where so many of the people of the Earth are unable to meet their basic needs. Others limit faith to a this-worldly zeal for humanizing life in a world where so many people fail to order earthly goals to our higher destiny of life with God. This introductory chapter describes the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies and the symposium “Caritas in veritate and the United States”, which took place at the offices of the Pontifical Council in Rome, October 15–16, 2010. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

This chapter reviews the situation in which Caritas in veritate appeared, including some of the particular conditions of the United States that affect the ability to hear and act upon the teaching that Pope Benedict proposes. The following essays are presented: Caritas in veritate in Broader Context by J. Bryan Hehir, Who Are the Americans? by Amelia J. Uelmen, Americans and Government Today by Rebecca M. Blank, Our Current Economic Situation by Matthew J. Slaughter, and Global Economic Forces by Albino Barrera.

This chapter addresses a wide range of topics for understanding the theological background of Pope Benedict’s encyclical. The diversity of perspectives and the presence of an appreciative critique of Benedict’s arguments will be most helpful in situating the treatment of themes later in this volume. The following essays are presented: Situating Pope Benedict’s Theology by Bishop William F. Murphy, Developments in Pope Benedict’s Thinking by John A. Coleman, A Theology of Gratuitousness by Paulinus I. Odozor, Benedict’s View of the Person by Kenneth R. Himes, Challenges to Benedict’s Vision: Sin by Michael Novak, Theological Foundations of the Market by Albino Barrera, The Promise and Risk of Charity by David Hollenbach, and Listening to the Experience of the Poor by Johan Verstraeten.

This chapter provides a robust examination of Pope Benedict’s approach to the relation of markets and government. The following essays are presented: The Vitality of Markets by Michael Novak, Benefits Markets by Albino Barrera, Government and Juridical Framework by J. Bryan Hehir, Market Failure and the Role of Government by Rebecca M. Blank, Institutions and Individual Morality by Rebecca M. Blank, Globalization and Global Governance by J. Bryan Hehir, and From Government to Governance by John A. Coleman.

Because of the relational character of our Trinitarian God, Christians are continually challenged to conceive better of and embody more thoroughly the relatedness of persons that God’s call has insisted upon from biblical times to the present. Pope Benedict’s Caritas in veritate distinguishes itself in the eloquence of its call for rethinking our understanding of “relation,” not simply in our interpersonal lives but within economic life and structures. Particularly important here is careful attention to the theological understanding of relation and in particular of receptivity, as essential to relationships of integrity, which are too often idealistically described as acts of giving only. In trying to bring about social change informed by these basic features of relationships, an understanding of the role of culture in forming the context for relation is critical. This chapter presents the following essays: Theological Foundations of Human Relation by Miguel H. Diaz, Resources for Receptivity to a Transcendent Vocation by Amelia J. Uelmen, and Culture as the Locus for Economic Relation by Mary L. Hirschfeld.

One of the most stimulating proposals Pope Benedict makes in Caritas in veritate is to acknowledge and encourage reciprocity in economic life. In this he provides both a challenge to how economic life is lived and an implicit critique of scientific economic analysis. This chapter provides alternative but mutually supportive approaches to the notion of reciprocity in the thought of Benedict XVI. The following essays are presented: Reciprocity and Fraternity by Stefano Zamagni, Reciprocity, Trust, and Social Capital by Daniel K. Finn, and The Logic of Gift and the World of Business by Michael J. Naughton.

Not only does Pope Benedict provide Caritas in veritate with deep theological roots, but the branches of the tree extend into the practical world of business, where Benedict acknowledges the difficulties presented by a focus on profit alone and calls for a rethinking of the foundational purposes and culture of enterprise. This chapter presents the following essays: Leadership Ethics and Caritas in veritate by Luk Bouckaert and The Business Enterprise by Michael J. Naughton.

This chapter provides a diversity of perspectives and questions helping to enrich the notion of economic development implicit in Pope Benedict’s encyclical. The following essays are presented: How Much of True Development Can Be Measured? by Mary Jo Bane, Expanding the Economic Paradigm of Development by Mary L. Hirschfeld, International Aid: Charity Is Insufficient by Katherine Marshall, and Development and Institutional Failures by Stefano Zamagni.

Few features of contemporary life are as debilitating as polarization, the acerbic opposition and at times the mutual demonization that occur across lines dividing people of different fundamental convictions. Pope Benedict’s encyclical Caritas in veritate is founded on the presumption that careful thinking and conversation can assist the Church and each of its members to become clearer in recognizing the truth of the gospel and more receptive to its message, even if it challenges personal or cultural presumptions. This chapter presents the following essays: The Problem of Public Polarization by John L. Allen, Resources for Reducing Polarization in Government by Mary Jo Bane, and Hope in Polarization by Amelia J. Uelmen.

The close relation between faith and reason is fundamental to the Catholic view of the universe: since everything has been created by God, insights of reason into how things work cannot ultimately be at odds with the insights provided by faith and divine revelation. Pope Benedict’s intimate interweaving of charity and truth—Caritas in veritate—stands as a testimony to the conviction that what we can express in language can serve the ineffable mysteries known only by faith. This means, however, that our use of language should be as careful and our dialogue as effective as we can make them. This chapter presents the following essays: The Need for Accessible Language by John A. Coleman, The Ambiguities of Accessible Language by Mary L. Hirschfeld, Tensions Between Proclamation and Dialogue by Luk Bouckaert, and Dialogue in Light of the Signs of the Times by Johan Verstraeten.

Sorting through the implications of Pope Benedict’s encyclical requires careful reflection from a variety of backgrounds and methods. This requires attention to current cultural and technical trends, and the potential for change in business, government, the Church, and daily civil life. This chapter identifies differing implications of Benedict’s encyclical, but points to an integrated response to the world’s problems by Catholic social thought. The following essays are presented: New Institutions and Social Processes by Mary Jo Bane, A Better Legal Definition of What Is Reasonable by Amelia J. Uelmen, Participation as Key for a Just Economy by Johan Verstraeten, Reconceiving Welfare Policies by Stefano Zamagni, Shifting Attention Within the Church by Mary Jo Bane, Developing Resources for Business and Business Schools by Michael J. Naughton, and Improving Business Education by Matthew J. Slaughter.

Caritas in veritate is a social encyclical in the tradition of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891). In it the insights of theology, philosophy, economics, ecology, and politics have been harnessed coherently to formulate a social teaching that places total and integral development of the human person at the center of all world systems of thought and activity. This chapter reviews the place of Caritas in veritate in the tradition of Catholic social thought. A true understating of the nature of the Church’s social doctrine starts with the faith experience of the ecclesial community itself.

This chapter investigates the particular form of commodification previously identified as ‘routed wages’. The notion of a partnership between the welfare state and its caring citizens and its citizen care users is, at least notionally, developed. There were two examples of fully commodified ‘informal’ care: the Dutch system which is organised by the Social Insurance Bank and framed by welfare state legislation, and an arrangement organised by a major Catholic charity, Caritas, in Austria, which pays informal carers to care. The different funding regimes for ‘routed wages’ show that, as a result of regulation and whether or not relatives can be paid, they can have various impacts on the lives of the women (and men) caregivers/workers involved. Perhaps, the most important conclusion to draw is that the assumptions of increased independence and empowerment have to be tempered by the form in which the system is delivered.

This essay explores the care economy, defined as activity oriented toward sustaining life and promoting basic well-being, whether that activity is paid or unpaid. The essay finds parallels between Pope Benedict XI’s concerns about neoclassical economics as expressed in Caritas in Veritate and feminist scholarship addressing the care economy. Both Benedict and feminist economists challenge sharp binaries between the market and the state and affirm a spectrum of motives driving economic activity. Both Benedict and feminist economists critique an individualistic, voluntaristic anthropology of self-interest, and both understand true economic development to promote the holistic well-being of all persons. However, Benedict does not draw on scholarship about development and the care economy. Progress toward the vision of development outlined in CV requires consideration of this economy and acceptance of a more complex and pluralist account of the social organization of caregiving than Benedict envisions.

This chapter discusses the fragile organisation of welfare in southern Europe, with Italy and Greece as examples. In the Mediterranean countries, it is the idea of ‘familism’ that best captures a system where the family—more especially women—is the basic unit of care for dependent family members, migrants, and refugees. Although a state welfare system does exist, it is essentially a stopgap when the family is no longer able to cope with the demands of a particular situation. The religious majorities, in this case the Catholic Church in Italy and the Greek Orthodox Church in Greece, have different approaches to social care. In both cases, church organisations participate locally in order to reduce poverty and exclusion. The Greek tradition has, however, resulted in a much weaker civil society in terms of ‘voice’. In Italy, Caritas is involved both in local activities and in social advocacy work, alongside other social movements in support of migrants.

In this chapter, I shall try to advance our thinking about college and university education in the United States through a critical study of contemporary conceptions of the academic vocation. Current reflection upon the state of higher learning in America makes this task at once more urgent and more difficult than it has ever been since the rise of the modern research university. Consider, for example, former Harvard President Derek Bok’s 1986–87 report to the Harvard Board of Overseers. On the one hand, Bok repeatedly insists that universities are obliged to help students learn how to lead ethical, fulfilling lives. On the other hand, he admits that faculty are ill-equipped to help the university discharge this obligation. “Professors,” Bok writes, “. . . are trained to transmit knowledge and skills within their chosen discipline, not to help students become more mature, morally perceptive human beings.” Notice Bok’s assumptions. Teaching history or chemistry or mathematics or literature has little or nothing to do with forming students’ characters. Faculty members must therefore be exhorted, cajoled, or otherwise maneuvered to undertake this latter endeavor in addition to teaching their chosen disciplines. The pursuit of knowledge and the cultivation of virtue are, for Bok at least, utterly discrete activities. To complicate matters still further, the Harvard faculty, together with most faculty members at other modern research universities, would very probably resist the notion that their principal vocational obligation is, as Bok suggested, to transmit the knowledge and skills of their disciplines. They believe that their calling primarily involves making or advancing knowledge, not transmitting it. How else could we explain the familiar academic lament “Because this is a terribly busy semester for me, I do not have any time to do my own work”? Among all occupational groups other than the professoriate, such a complaint, voiced under conditions of intensive labor, is inconceivable. Among university faculty members, it is expected. Never mind the number of classes taught, courses prepared, papers graded, and committees convened.

All communities of higher learning are formed in large part by an ethos or spirit of inquiry. Indeed, all higher learning depends not simply upon the possession of certain cognitive skills but also upon the possession of moral dispositions or virtues that enable inquiry to proceed. Academies, if they are to flourish over the long run, must therefore cultivate and sustain in their members those virtues that are required for the kind of learning they hope to promote. Taken together, these virtues constitute the ethos of inquiry. As epistemologies differ, however, so too do spirits of inquiry. I have argued that the Weberian ethos, connected as it is to a purely instrumental view of reason, exhibits its own characteristic set of motives (mastery, manipulation, and control) and virtues (clarity, honesty, diligence, dedication, and devotion to a rigorous regimen of disciplinary procedures). By contrast, communitarian epistemologies necessarily favor virtues that are less matters of purely personal integrity and more interpersonal or social in character. For communitarians, the pursuit of truth is linked inextricably to care taken with the lives and the thoughts of others. Though Weber banished charity and friendship from his conception of the academy, virtues such as these have constituted the spirit of inquiry for most of Western history. These virtues have, moreover, been spiritual in at least the strictly historical sense that they arose initially within communities that were self-consciously religious in character. In this chapter, I propose to redescribe the present-day academy by examining the sense in which and the extent to which the conduct of academic life still depends upon such spiritual virtues as humility, faith, self-sacrifice, and charity. I offer this critical redescription as a corrective to the Weberian account of academic life, as an answer to Bok and others who are concerned about the ethical dimension of higher learning but who seem uncertain about where properly to locate the ethical within the academy, and as an effort to enrich current, communitarian accounts of learning. First, I shall mention briefly some historical warrants for and some cultural implications of linking spiritual virtues to learning and teaching.