St. Louise de Marillac, pray for us!
St. Louise de Marillac | Saint of the Day | AmericanCatholic.org
Pope Benedict XVI Calls the World to Follow Mary in Responding to the Gospel of Her Son - International - Catholic Online
Redemptor hominis - Pope John Paul II
16. Progress or threat
If therefore our time, the time of our generation, the time that is
approaching the end of the second millennium of the Christian era, shows itself
a time of great progress, it is also seen as a time of threat in many forms for
man. The Church must speak of this threat to all people of good will and must
always carry on a dialogue with them about it. Man's situation in the modern
world seems indeed to be far removed from the objective demands of the moral
order, from the requirements of justice, and even more of social love. We are
dealing here only with that which found expression in the Creator's first
message to man at the moment in which he was giving him the earth, to
"subdue" it100. This first message was confirmed by Christ
the Lord in the mystery of the Redemption. This is expressed by the Second
Vatican Council in these beautiful chapters of its teaching that concern man's
"kingship"; that is to say his call to share in the kingly
function-the munus regaleof Christ himself101. The essential
meaning of this "kingship" and "dominion" of man over the
visible world, which the Creator himself gave man for his task, consists in the
priority of ethics over technology, in the primacy of the person over things,
and in the superiority of spirit over matter.
This is why all phases of present-day progress must be followed attentively.
Each stage of that progress must, so to speak, be x-rayed from this point of
view. What is in question is the advancement of persons, not just the
multiplying of things that people can use. It is a matter-as a contemporary
philosopher has said and as the Council has stated-not so much of "having
more" as of "being more"102. Indeed there is already a
real perceptible danger that, while man's dominion over the world of things is
making enormous advances, he should lose the essential threads of his dominion
and in various ways let his humanity be subjected to the world and become
himself something subject to manipulation in many ways-even if the manipulation
is often not perceptible directly-through the whole of the organization of
community life, through the production system and through pressure from the
means of social communication. Man cannot relinquish himself or the place in
the visible world that belongs to him; he cannot become the slave of things,
the slave of economic systems, the slave of production, the slave of his own
products. A civilization purely materialistic in outline condemns man to such
slavery, even if at times, no doubt, this occurs contrary to the intentions and
the very premises of its pioneers. The present solicitude for man certainly has
at its root this problem. It is not a matter here merely of giving an abstract
answer to the question: Who is man? It is a matter of the whole of the dynamism
of life and civilization. It is a matter of the mean ingfulness of the various
initiatives of everyday life and also of the premises for many civilization
programmes, political programmes, eco nomic ones, social ones, state ones, and
many others.
If we make bold to describe man's situation in the modern world as far
removed from the objective demands of the moral order, from the exigencies of
justice, and still more from social love, we do so because this is confirmed by
the well-known facts and comparisons that have already on various occasions
found an echo in the pages of statements by the Popes, the Council and the
Synod103. Man's situation today is certainly not uniform but marked
with numerous differences. These differences have causes in history, but they
also have strong ethical effects. Indeed everyone is familiar with the picture
of the consumer civilization, which consists in a certain surplus of goods
necessary for man and for entire societies-and we are dealing precisely with
the rich highly developed societies-while the remaining societies-at least
broad sectors of them-are suffering from hunger, with many people dying each
day of starvation and malnutrition. Hand in hand go a certain abuse of freedom
by one group-an abuse linked precisely with a consumer attitude uncontrolled by
ethics -and a limitation by it of the freedom of the others, that is to say
those suffering marked shortages and being driven to conditions of even worse
misery and destitution.
This pattern, which is familiar to all, and the contrast referred to, in the
documents giving their teaching, by the Popes of this century, most recently by
John XXIII and by Paul VI,104 represent, as it were, the gigantic
development of the parable in the Bible of the rich banqueter and the poor man
Lazarus105. So widespread is the phenomenon that it brings into question
the fìnancial, monetary, production and commercial mechanisms that, resting on
various political pressures, support the world economy. These are proving
incapable either of remedying the unjust social situations inherited from the
past or of dealing with the urgent challenges and ethical demands of the
present. By submitting man to tensions created by himself, dilapidating at an
accelerated pace material and energy resources, and compromising the
geophysical environment, these structures unceasingly make the areas of misery
spread, accompanied by anguish, frustration and bitterness106.
We have before us here a great drama that can leave nobody indifferent. The
person who, on the one hand, is trying to draw the maximum profit and, on the
other hand, is paying the price in damage and injury is always man. The drama
is made still worse by the presence close at hand of the privileged social
classes and of the rich countries, which accumulate goods to an excessive
degree and the misuse of whose riches very often becomes the cause of various
ills. Add to this the fever of inflation and the plague of unemployment -these
are further symptoms of the moral disorder that is being noticed in the world
situation and therefore requires daring creative resolves in keeping with man's
authentic dignity107.
Such a task is not an impossible one. The principle of solidarity, in a wide
sense, must inspire the effective search for appropriate in stitutions and
mechanisms, whether in the sector of trade, where the laws of healthy
competition must be allowed to lead the way, or on the level of a wider and
more immediate redistribution of riches and of control over them, in order that
the economically developing peoples may be able not only to satisfy their essential
needs but also to advance gradually and effectively.
This difficult road of the indispensable transformation of the structures of
economic life is one on which it will not be easy to go forward without the
intervention of a true conversion of mind, will and heart. The task reguires
resolute commitment by individuals and peoples that are free and linked in
solidarity. All too often freedom is confused with the instinct for individual
or collective interest or with the instinct for combat and domination, whatever
be the ideological colours with which they are covered. Obviously these
instincts exist and are operative, but no truly human economy will be possible
unless they are taken up, directed and dominated by the deepest powers in man,
which decide the true culture of peoples. These are the very sources for the
effort which will express man's true freedom and which will be capable of
ensuring it in the economic field also. Economic development, with every factor
in its adequate functioning, must be constantly programmed and realized within
a perspective of universal joint development of each individual and people, as
was convincingly recalled by my Predecessor Paul VI in Populorum Progressio.
Otherwise, the category of "economic progress" becomes in isolation
a superior category subordinating the whole of human existence to its partial
demands, suffocating man, breaking up society, and ending by entangling itself
in its own tensions and excesses.
It is possible to undertake this duty. This is testified by the certain
facts and the results, which it would be difficult to mention more analytically
here. However, one thing is certain: at the basis of this gigantic sector it is
necessary to establish, accept and deepen the sense of moral responsibility,
which man must undertake. Again and always man.
This responsibility becomes especially evident for us Christians when we
recall-and we should always recall it-the scene of the last judgment according
to the words of Christ related in Matthew's Gospel108.
This eschatological scene must always be "applied" to man's
history; it must always be made the "measure" for human acts as an
essential outline for an examination of conscience by each and every one:
"I was hungry and you gave me no food ... naked and you did not clothe
me... in prison and you did not visit me"109. These words become
charged with even stronger warning, when we think that, instead of bread and
cultural aid, the new States and nations awakening to independent life are
being offered, sometimes in abundance, modern weapons and means of destruction
placed at the service of armed conflicts and wars that are not so much a
requirement for defending their íust rights and their sovereignty but rather a
form of chauvinism, imperialism, and neocolonialism of one kind or another. We
all know well that the areas of misery and hunger on our globe could have been
made fertile in a short time, if the gigantic investments for armaments at the
service of war and destruction had been changed into investments for food at
the service of life.
This consideration will perhaps remain in part an "abstract" one.
It will perhaps offer both "sides" an occasion for mutual accusation,
each forgetting its own faults. It will perhaps provoke new accusations against
the Church. The Church, however, which has no weapons at her disposal apart
from those of the spirit, of the word and of love, cannot renounce her
proclamation of "the word ... in season and out of
season"110. For this reason she does not cease to implore each
side of the two and to beg everybody in the name of God and in the name of man:
Do not kill! Do not prepare destruction and extermination for men! Think of
your brothers and sisters who are suffering hunger and misery! Respect each
one's dignity and freedom!
"Whatever did not fit in with my plan, did lie within the plan of God." St. Teresa Benedicta
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