Trust me, the harmonic convergence of Popes, Ms. Turner and Distributist economic and social theory make for a fascinating contemplation. This little nugget from the most recent Encyclical (which I must read in full) alone makes it worthwhile, although many more await: Intelligence and love are not in separate compartments: love is rich in intelligence and intelligence is full of love.
Precisely.
Be sure and click on over and read it all.
DJY
QUOTE Now comes Pope Benedict XVI with a new social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, which exceeds all the other social encyclicals by insisting that a proper economics is based not only on the natural virtue of justice, but on the super-natural virtue of love! Justice is, of course, a part of love; you cannot be said to love someone and treat him unjustly. But no other encyclical has gone as far in asserting the primacy of love as a practical consideration of economics and social life. But Benedict goes even further: He insists on a principle of gratuitousness in business, on the idea of pure gift. At this point, many reasonable observers could conclude that the Pope is indulging a pure utopian fantasy, suitable perhaps for a world of angelic figures, but disastrous in a world of fallen men. UNQUOTE - John Médaille
QUOTE Alongside profit-oriented private enterprise and the various types of public enterprise, there must be room for commercial entities based on mutualist principles and pursuing social ends to take root and express themselves. It is from their reciprocal encounter in the marketplace that one may expect hybrid forms of commercial behaviour to emerge, and hence an attentiveness to ways of civilizing the economy. Charity in truth, in this case, requires that shape and structure be given to those types of economic initiative which, without rejecting profit, aim at a higher goal than the mere logic of the exchange of equivalents, of profit as an end in itself. (38)UNQUOTE
- Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth)
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