Caritas in Veritate is the title of the Pope's latest encyclical, letter addressed to "the bishops, priests, and deacons, men and women religious, lay faithful, and all people of Good will on integral human development in charity and truth."
The pope writes the letter and intends it for all, not just the scholarly, but everyone who seeks to serve humanity in love and truth.
In paragraph 2 of the encyclical Pope Benedict reflects on charity and truth in social living. He tells us that "truth needs to be sought, found, and expressed in the economy of charity, but charity in turn needs to be understood, confirmed and practiced in the light of truth. In this way to we do service to charity enlightened by truth, but we also help give credibility to truth, demonstrating its persuasive and authentic power in the practical setting of social living."
what?
I believe what the pope is saying is that the credibility of truth is revealed and experienced by the way we reach out in practical love toward our neighbor in the way we interact socially.
Thus, he is not advising social activism but rather social honesty.
Truth is not just a mind thing. Truth demands action and directs the way we live.
Otherwise, we as believers are simply living a lie. As St. Paul tells us in the first reading, "stop lying to one another."
The 7th commandment should come to mind, "thou shall not bear false witness..."
If martyrdom is a true witness of faith in action, then living socially must somehow embrace the reality of martyrdom, we must die so that love and truth are once and for all integrated.
Lying is more than words we speak or not speak, but is at the very heart of every sin; it is at the heart of every social disgrace and every hungry mouth and every homeless man and every battered woman and every abused and neglected child; lying is where charity and truth are torn apart; it is where the old wineskins lay busted on the floor and new wine wasted, spilled for nought.
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