Charity in Truth Released

The embargo on the new encyclical Charity in Truth has just been lifted.  (Sorry, we couldn't publish the text before the embargo was lifted.)  Already an unofficially-recognized text is appearing online in various places.  American Papist has a Word document of it here.  Here is the Vatican website's html version: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html.  Here is the first part of the text.

ENCYCLICAL LETTER

CARITAS IN VERITATE

OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF

BENEDICT XVI

TO THE BISHOPS

PRI ESTS AND DEACONS

MEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUS

THE LAY FAITHFUL

AND ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL

ON INTEGRAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

IN CHARITY AND TRUTH

LIBRERIA EDITRICE VATICANA

VATICAN CITY

INTRODUCTION

1. Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity. Love — caritas — is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force that has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth. Each person finds his good by adherence to God's plan for him, in order to realize it fully: in this plan, he finds his truth, and through adherence to this truth he becomes free (cf. Jn 8:22). To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity. Charity, in fact, “rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor 13:6). All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically: love and truth never abandon them completely, because these are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of every human person. The search for love and truth is purified and liberated by Jesus Christ from the impoverishment that our humanity brings to it, and he reveals to us in all its fullness the initiative of love and the plan for true life that God has prepared for us. In Christ, charity in truth becomes the Face of his Person, a vocation for us to love our brothers and sisters in the truth of his plan. Indeed, he himself is the Truth (cf. Jn 14:6).

Comments

[BillyHW]

...the great Pope Paul VI...?

So does that make it official then? Are we to refer to him as Pope Paul the Great now?

[bill bannon]

It suffers from depending on generalities that are not followed by concrete examples within our time. Praising labor unions as a good... equals a generality. Encyclicals like to do that. By now however we in real life in the US know that unions can also be infiltratd by organized crime and otherwise can ask so many benefits that they along with other factors can collapse an auto industry. All of which concreteness....doesn't fit into the papal generality style and is absent. Heck when he finally mentioned "outsourcing" and briefly defined it, I was glad to encounter a concrete reality that had not occurred in other encyclicals.
And his calling Paul VI "great" was odd. Does this mean that this term is going to appear all over the Catholic media so that we will be swimming in recent "great" Popes. If you use certain words too much, it starts to lose its meaning. But I doubt that I can stop one of these papal trends. I must simply get out of the way.

[Jack G.]

When will this be available on the Kindle?

[Bender]

I know that it is and has been fashionable to dump all over Paul VI, but it is ever-increasingly clear that he was, in fact, a great pope.

[John Herreid]

It suffers from depending on generalities...

Huh. I thought it was remarkably specific, considering that he is addressing the entire world, not just the economic problems that have arisen in the US.

[Deacon Harold]

Good point, John!

Also, the title "Great" has been ascribed to only three popes out of 265: Pope St. Leo I, Pope St. Gregory I, and Pope St. Nicholas I. However, it's important to note that the Church has never officially pronounced these Popes as "great"; rather, they have been identified as great both by popular acclamation at the time of their deaths and by history itself. Give this fact, I don't believe Pope Benedict was placing Paul VI in this category.

I believe (along with many others!) that Pope John Paul II is the fourth "Great" pope.

[Paul Zummo]

I also second John's comments. If anything, this Encyclical deal with far more specifics than I would have anticipated. Sure we can quibble with little bits and pieces of what the Pope wrote, but I think to do so is to miss the larger points that the Pope was trying to lay out.

[Mark Brumley]

The e-book edition of the encyclical is now available for download here:
http://www.ignatius.com/viewproduct.aspx?SID=1&Product_ID=3677&

This is in a format that Kindle can read.

The book will be available from Amazon for Kindle in a couple of days. But why wait? You can download it today!

[Jeff Grace]

What I wanna know is... will From Aristotle to Darwin & Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species and Evolution be available from Amazon Kindle? :)

[Mark Brumley]

Yes.

[Jesuit John]

Ignatius Press is the best in Catholic book publishing. But, I'd like to know why the audio version of a single encyclical is over $14. Consider that the text version is available on the web for free and that it costs nothing to make electronic copies of the audio version. Most book-length audio files on i-tunes are under $10! What gives?

[Mark Brumley]

The text may be available for free on the internet but publishers must pay a royalty for its use. And while it may cost nothing to replicate the many electronic files in which the audio version of the book is recorded, it certainly costs something to record and edit it in the first place. And of course it costs money to be able to download it on a website.

I don't know why most book-length audio files on itunes are undert $10 or even whether that is so. But it is certainly not the case that most audio books sold for download are under $10.

If we can bring the cost down on the audio we will do so. Right now, we are in the initial stages of downloadable audio books and we have to proceed with care in our pricing.

[Scott]

I am a devout Catholic and devout Capitalist. I find this literature disturbing and completely reject it. Giving of my own free will is called charity. Being forced to give is extortion. Poor nations are poor not because rich nations are hoarding resources. Poor nations are poor because the governments are incredibly corrupt, and take the lions share of an individuals income. Unquestioned and un-scrutinized charity leads to abuse. Until poor nations embrace capitalism and economic freedom for its citizens, they will remain poor. Capitalism is the best way to guarantee economic prosperity. All other roads lead poverty and chaos. Growing up in Nazi Germany, the pope should know this. I refuse to feel guilty for working hard and reaping the fruits of my labor. The pope should remember the Holy Church get most of its contributions from free-willed Catholics living in rich capitalist nations.

[Jonathan Aquino]

I took American Papist’s Word document and created a printable booklet version:
http://cooltoolsforcatholics.blogspot.com/2009/07/caritas-in-veritate-in-booklet-form.html

[Jesuit John]

I noticed the price went down! w00h00!