The Mixed Blessing: Caritas in Veritate, Part III

The Pope also turns his attention to new challenges, challenges which he addresses rigorously from the standpoint of Catholic social teaching.

The one most pertinent to the modern world is the issue of the environment. He notes that "[t]oday the subject of development is also closely related to the duties arising from our relationship to the natural environment."[1] However, the Pope's care for the environment is not one of valuing nature for nature's sake, nor one of promoting the good of nature above that of man. Rather, it is based firmly in man's duty, as expounded in the Sacred Scriptures, to care for the earth, a duty that is frequently called Christian stewardship.

In other words, the environment exists for man, not man for the environment; as such, it becomes even more important to ensure that it is well cared for and protected:

The environment is God's gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole. When nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or evolutionary determinism, our sense of responsibility wanes. In nature, the believer recognizes the wonderful result of God's creative activity, which we may use responsibly to satisfy our legitimate needs, material or otherwise, while respecting the intrinsic balance of creation. If this vision is lost, we end up either considering nature an untouchable taboo or, on the contrary, abusing it. Neither attitude is consonant with the Christian vision of nature as the fruit of God's creation.[2]

Surely, St. Thomas Aquinas would have been hard pressed to have said it better. Both ways---that of giving nature too much value and that of giving it too little---are fraught with danger. The Pope teaches that "it should also be stressed that it is contrary to authentic development to view nature as something more important than the human person. This position leads to attitudes of neo-paganism or a new pantheism."[3] Which is, of course, precisely where it has led. On the other hand, viewing nature as irrelevant, subject to any whim of man, is also dangerous, because it neglects the order which God put into nature for man to use, not to abuse:

[I]t is also necessary to reject the opposite position, which aims at total technical dominion over nature, because the natural environment is more than raw material to be manipulated at our pleasure; it is a wondrous work of the Creator containing a 'grammar' which sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use, not its reckless exploitation.[4]

Both the environmentalists and the anti-environmentalists are, the Pope teaches, wrong. The environment exists for the service of man; as such, man is entitled to use it as he sees fit. However, nature also contains an order which must not be violated, even on the pretext of serving man.

In this vein, the depletion of natural resources also falls under the Pope's gaze. Personally, I'm not sure I concur with the so-called "Peak Oil" theorists; however, the fact is that many natural resources are limited in nature, and the Pope addresses such resources in a reasonable and thoughtful way.

It is likewise incumbent upon the competent authorities to make every effort to ensure that the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations.[5]

This is nothing more than a straightforward application of traditional principles of distributive justice. He who reaps the benefits must pay the cost. An excellent example is a collapsing fishery, which is generally utilized by many countries. A country which consumes the bulk of the produce of this hypothetical fishery ought to pay the costs of its collapse, given that that collapse is primarily due to its own overfishing. However, frequently not only the overfishing country, but also all other countries who use the fishery, no matter how responsibly, suffer from its collapse. This is unjust. The Pope teaches here that we must ensure that when a natural resource is depleted, countries should bear the costs of that depletion in proportion to the benefits they've derived from it. Similarly, we have no right to use up all our resources without providing for future generations in some way.

How can we ensure that nature is protected and utilized properly, and that natural resources are justly distributed? The Pope speaks to that question, too. While some of what he writes is entangled in what both distributists and others have found to be an objectionable internationalism (for which see the upcoming Part IV), he makes another observation about solving these difficult problems which distributists and Catholics should find inspiring:

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.[6]

If we do not respect human life and the order of human society, it is unsurprising that we do not respect anything else in the natural order. No economic policy, no matter how wise, will rectify this. We need to respect the order of creation first of all in ourselves; only then will we respect it in everything else.

His Holiness also speaks against what he calls "relativistic education," which is a great force preventing true development of peoples. While education has been on a decline for decades, its relativism is now so explicit and so widespread that the Pope's treatment of it must qualify as addressing a new problem.

The increasing prominence of a relativistic understanding of that nature presents serious problems for education, especially moral education, jeopardizing its universal extension. Yielding to this kind of relativism makes everyone poorer and has a negative impact on the effectiveness of aid to the most needy populations, who lack not only economic and technical means, but also educational methods and resources to assist people in realizing their full human potential.[7]

We educate people to be good at things, but not simply to be good. Education in both developing and developed countries now teaches only techniques, not truth. But without a good foundation in truth, the economic and social realities cannot change.

Another new circumstance, largely unknown at the time of most of the previous great social encyclicals, is tourism. The Pope addresses tourism as an "industry" at some length, noting that it "can be a major factor in economic development and cultural growth."[8] However, he also argues persuasively that it "can also become an occasion for exploitation and moral degradation."[9] One's mind is immediately brought to so-called "sexual tourism" in places like parts of Southeast Asia, in which the locality and its inhabitants are treated as tools for richer countries' enjoyment, a situation tolerated and even embraced by local communities because there is no other way for them to bring in this extra coin. This, of course, is one of the extreme cases; however, the Pope has strong words for tourism even as practiced in less drastically exploitative circumstances:

Even in less extreme cases, international tourism often follows a consumerist and hedonistic pattern, as a form of escapism planned in a manner typical of the countries of origin, and therefore not conducive to authentic encounter between persons and cultures.[10]

Now, one's mind is immediately brought to trips to Mexico by thousands of drunken, drug-besotten teenagers for "spring break" (formerly called "Easter vacation," though given that it's currently given over entirely to debauchery it is perhaps good that it no longer takes its name from that most sacred of holidays).

The Pope does not, of course, condemn tourism entirely. Some tourism does, in fact, have "the ability to promote genuine mutual understanding, without taking away from the element of rest and healthy recreation."[11] This type of tourism ought to be promoted, and the others discouraged. The precise means for doing so, of course, is up to the localities which depend on such tourism for their livelihoods.

The distributist answer, of course, is to rely on something else for one's livelihood. A locality relying on the wealth and spending habits of an entirely separate population for its economic health is a clear violation of subsidiarity. While tourism can be a part of a healthy economy, it ought not be the majority of it. For tourist locations, as everywhere, the sources of real wealth are the fields, the forests, the factories, and the mines; tourism certainly isn't productive, and therefore while it is not bad in itself, is not an appropriate driver for economic development.

Finally, the Pope addresses another industry that has arisen in recent decades: that of psychiatry. While it's clear that psychiatry and psychology are legitimate fields with real value---the Pope steers well clear of a Scientological condemnation of all psychology---it's equally clear that our society overvalues them and relies on them in an inappropriate way:

One aspect of the contemporary technological mindset is the tendency to consider the problems and emotions of the interior life from a purely psychological point of view, even to the point of neurological reductionism. In this way man's interiority is emptied of its meaning and gradually our awareness of the human soul's ontological depths, as probed by the saints, is lost.[12]

Depression, failure to pay attention, failure to behave, failure to avoid criminal activity---none of these are considered as indicators of bad behavior, bad spiritual formation, or even bad judgment. Too often, these and other behaviors and conditions are seen solely as the result of disordered psychology, due primarily to a chemical imbalance in the brain. This is the "neurological reductionism" to which the Pope objects. The Pope teaches that

[s]ocial and psychological alienation and the many neuroses that afflict affluent societies are attributable in part to spiritual factors. A prosperous society, highly developed in material terms but weighing heavily on the soul, is not of itself conducive to authentic development.[13]

Yet because our society has become so reductionist, equating accumulation of money with economic health and economic with societal health, we are unable to recognize this fact. Ironically, this emphasis on psychological causes---"neurological reductionism"---prevents us from ensuring the psychological health of our people. This is because "[d]evelopment must include not just material growth"---this includes the neuroses that psychology too often explains as mere physical issues---"but also spiritual growth."[14]

The Pope has addressed these new concerns in a way deeply consonant with past Catholic social teaching, faithful to his teaching that "the Tradition of the apostolic faith . . . [is] a patrimony both ancient and new."[15] Some limited aspects of this encyclical, however, gives the distributist some pause and discomfort. That will be the subject of the next part.

Praise be to Christ the King!

1. Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, no. 48.
2. Id.
3. Id.
4. Id.
5. Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, no. 50.
6. Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, no. 51.
7. Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, no. 61.
8. Id.
9. Id.
10. Id.
11. Id.
12. Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, no. 76.
13. Id.
14. Id.
15. Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, no. 10.


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