Abstract
This collection of essays explores the love of Jesus Christ as the primary guide for social justice, as articulated by Pope Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate (CV). Nineteen papers were given as part of a conference at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in April 2010. Casarella acknowledges a Bonventuran approach, in retracing to original NT wisdom for the social order of the twenty-first century (8).
The book is divided into four sections on economics, ecology, the social and political order, and the historical context of the encyclical. An essay by Horacio Vela points out the unique orientation with the Gospel of John, found in the encyclical’s prologue. Previous social encyclicals had relied primarily on Genesis 1–3 and the teachings found in the Synoptic Gospels. A fascinating essay by Patrick Callahan considers how Benedict XVI shares the visions of global order from John XXIII and John Paul II. CV does endorse a global political authority in a Johannine manner (CV 67); meanwhile, the encyclical also suggests the enabling of states to address world challenges (CV 24), in the mode of John Paul II.
Drawing from a wide range of disciplines, the book offers perceptive considerations of the encyclical’s role within wider Catholic social teaching. While the compendium has a briefer treatment of ecology, several substantial essays integrate CV’s factors for social progress into the complexity of twenty-first-century capitalism. The contributors recognize some of Benedict’s major advancements in economics in his call for intermediate groups (CV 7) and acts of gratuitousness (CV 36, 38, 39). William T. Cavanaugh notes that “Benedict’s preferred solution to the state–market binary is to encourage the formation of alternative spaces that outwit the logic of both market and state” (93). These groups may pursue mutualistic goals and transform the economy as a whole (CV 38). Simona Beretta posits that gratuitousness should necessarily end in ongoing investment in human and physical capital (253). Any reader intrigued by CV’s innovations in social and economic development would find this volume a worthy complement.