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Do we pick, choose among papal teachings?
By George Evans
April 25, 2008
     As I write this article, Pope Benedict XVI has landed in Washington and begun his five-day visit in the United States. My deadline does not allow me to comment on what he has to say to us as Americans.
     Based on his two encyclicals to date, I trust his words will be pastoral, scholarly and challenging. I know Pope John XXIII would be happy he has come to the United States to speak directly to its people.
     I say this because John XXIII followed “Mater et Magistra” (“Mother and Teacher”) just two years later with another blockbuster encyclical, “Pacem in Terris” (“Peace on Earth”), breaking with papal tradition to address “all people of good will” as well as ecclesiastical prelates and Catholic faithful, the normal addressees.
     The time is 1963, the first year of Vatican II. “Peace on Earth” is written soon after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the world tested on the brink of nuclear disaster, and shortly after the Berlin Wall was erected in the summer of 1962, compounding Cold War tensions.
     Blessed Pope John wrote to a world aware of the dangers of nuclear war and brought to it a message with a tone of optimism and the development of a philosophy of rights, which made a significant impression on Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
     His message is that peace can only come about if the social order set down by God is fully observed and man can know this order by reason and the natural law tradition. “Peace will be an empty sounding word unless it is founded on the order which this present document has outlined in confident hope: an order founded on truth, built according to justice, vivified and integrated by charity, and put into practice in freedom.” (Par 167)
     Pope John delineates the rights necessary to be acknowledged to include life, worthy standard of living, religion and conscience, right to work and a just and sufficient wage, private property, education, political rights and the right to emigrate and immigrate. (Par 11-27)
     Duties include the necessity to acknowledge and respect the rights of others, to collaborate mutually and to act for others responsibly (Par 30-39). “It is not enough, for example, to acknowledge and respect every man’s right to the means of subsistence if we do not strive to the best of our ability for a sufficient supply of what is necessary for his sustenance.” (Par 32)
     With striking resonance, 45 years later for our current world, Pope John states: First among the rules governing the relations between states is that of truth. This calls, above all, for the elimination of every trace of racism, and the consequent recognition of the principle that all states are by nature equal in dignities.
     “Each of them accordingly is vested with the right to existence, to self-development, to the means fitting to its attainment, and to be the one primarily responsible for this self-development. Add to that the right of each to its good name, to the respect which is its due. (Par 86)
     And, again with striking relevance for today, he writes about immigration and the common good, particularly as to political refugees: Now among the rights of a human person there must be included that by which a man may enter a political community where he hopes he can more fittingly provide a future for himself and his dependents. Wherefore, as far as the common good rightly understood permits, it is the duty of that state to accept such immigrants and to help to integrate them into itself as new members.
     Wherefore, on this occasion, we publicly approve and commend every undertaking, founded on the principles of human solidarity and Christian charity, which aims at making migration of persons from one country to another less painful. (Par 106-07)
     The pope urges the world, as an essential condition to build a peaceful planet, to respect the dignity of every man and the universal, inviolable and inalienable rights which stem from that dignity, and strongly endorses the United Nations in its efforts to accomplish that herculean task. (Par 142) This struggle continues today in a world torn asunder in too many places.
     Finally, he addresses the arms race, in full swing in 1963 and unabated today, and the deterrence argument, issuing a challenge, still directed to us today; “Justice, then, right reason, and consideration for human dignity and life urgently demand the arms race should cease; the stockpiles which exist in various countries should be reduced equally and simultaneously by the parties concerned; nuclear weapons should be banned; and finally all come to an agreement on a fitting program of disarmament, employing mutual and effective controls. (Par 112)
     Have we made any true progress in this regard in 45 years? Some say peace is a utopian dream. Nonetheless it is our Catholic teaching, based on the message of peace in the Gospels and promulgated not only by John XXIII but also Pope Benedict XVI.
     Many tend to pick and choose the papal teachings to adopt. There can be no doubt what “Pacem in Terris” teaches and Benedict XVI and John Paul II’s positions on the war in Iraq.
     The question is do we choose to adopt them as our own.
(George Evans is a pastoral minister at Jackson St. Richard Parish. Contact him via evans@saintrichard.com)

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