Progress Rightly Understood

I do not consider myself a progressive. Progressivism is too often bent on changing man's nature, overcoming by pseudo-science and human effort problems which are far bigger than that. Put another way, progressivism usually involves redeeming man from the Fall through the proper application of politics. Sorry, but I don't go for that.

However, my rejection of progressivism has recently been tempered by reading Benedict XVI's Caritas in Veritate. He does not, of course, fall into the kind of errors I just sketched out. But he does remind us that a certain kind of progress is not merely compatible with, but integral to, Christianity. This is an important reminder for those of us - like myself - who have become jaded about "progress" and tend to ignore the term whenever we hear it.

Benedict's starting point in Caritas in Veritate is an encyclical by Pope Paul VI (pictured left), Populorum Progressio. Quoting the earlier encyclical, Benedict writes:

It is the primordial truth of God's love, grace bestowed upon us, that... makes it possible to hope for a “development of the whole man and of all men”, to hope for progress “from less human conditions to those which are more human”, obtained by overcoming the difficulties that are inevitably encountered along the way. (Section 8, quoting PP 42 & 20.)

Notice what they are talking about: "conditions", the physical circumstances, as well as the social and the spiritual, in which human beings live. However, that which gives us cause for hope with regards to these conditions is not our own willpower or technological might, but God's love. Elsewhere he writes:

Without the perspective of eternal life, human progress in this world is denied breathing-space. Enclosed within history, it runs the risk of being reduced to the mere accumulation of wealth; humanity thus loses the courage to be at the service of higher goods, at the service of the great and disinterested initiatives called forth by universal charity. Man does not develop through his own powers, nor can development simply be handed to him. (Section 11.)

Moreover, Benedict points out that this is not simply the improvement of material circumstances, building bigger, faster and stronger gizmos. There is a kind of progress to that sort of thing, but it is not quite what Benedict is interested in. He writes:

If man were merely the fruit of either chance or necessity, or if he had to lower his aspirations to the limited horizon of the world in which he lives, if all reality were merely history and culture, and man did not possess a nature destined to transcend itself in a supernatural life, then one could speak of growth, or evolution, but not development. (Section 29.)

Thus, human progress (or development, to use Benedict's preferred term) must be oriented towards our true human nature and our ultimate end. Any kind of progress which ignores the fact that we have been made in the divine image and are created for heaven is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic: perhaps a nice gesture, even interesting or meaningful in its way, but woefully missing the bigger issue at stake.

How are we to bring about this kind of progress? As with most aspects of the encyclical, Benedict avoids most details, preferring to make sure we have the principles sorted out first. However, he explains:

It should be stressed that progress of a merely economic and technological kind is insufficient. Development needs above all to be true and integral. The mere fact of emerging from economic backwardness, though positive in itself, does not resolve the complex issues of human advancement.... Human knowledge is insufficient and the conclusions of science cannot indicate by themselves the path towards integral human development.... The exclusion of religion from the public square... hinders an encounter between persons and their collaboration for the progress of humanity. (Sections 23, 30 & 56.)

This is no paltry project of social engineering, conducted by technocrats and ignoring the transcendent.

Finally, Benedict, following Paul VI, explains:

Progress, in its origin and essence, is first and foremost a vocation: “in the design of God, every man is called upon to develop and fulfill himself, for every life is a vocation”.... The vocation to progress drives us to “do more, know more and have more in order to be more”. (Sections 16 & 18, quoting PP 15 & 6.)

Thus, progress is not simply about a political ideology or a philosophic arguments: it is a part of the call given by God to mankind, redeemed by Christ and now eagerly pressing on toward the fullness of glory.


Photo credits: The picture of Benedict XVI comes from a mass in Paris, courtesy of Ammar Abd Rabbo. The image of Paul VI was ganked from the Per Christum blog, which no doubt ganked it from someone else.

Benedict & Kirk: On Ideology

In his recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI writes:

Today the picture of development has many overlapping layers. The actors and the causes in both underdevelopment and development are manifold, the faults and the merits are differentiated. This fact should prompt us to liberate ourselves from ideologies, which often oversimplify reality in artificial ways, and it should lead us to examine objectively the full human dimension of the problems. (Section 22)

I do not think Benedict is here advocating the "moderation" of the politically lazy or cowardly, who cannot be spared the time or risk involved in choosing sides in difficult questions. No, I think Benedict is advocating a level of nuance and sophistication in our political and economic dealings that surpasses the slogans and phrases that typically characterize our political discourse: progress, change, limited government. As if any of those were sufficient to apply to all situations, in all times and places. And yet, that is what most political ideologues try to do.

On reading the above passage, I was struck by how well Benedict's admonition harmonizes with the writings of another thinker, Russell Kirk (1918-1994). In the the forward to the 7th edition of The Conservative Mind, he writes:

The conservative abhors all forms of ideology. An abstract rigorous set of political dogmata: that is ideology, a "political religion," promising the Terrestrial Paradise to the faithful; and ordinarily that paradise is to be taken by storm. (xv)

An overzealous conservative might be tempted to claim that Benedict is here alluding to Kirk. I highly doubt it. But that need not rule out the possibility of some unknown intellectual connection. Two men as well-read and thoughtful as Benedict and Kirk are likely to have vastly overlapping libraries. Indeed, the most obvious intellectual tradition shared by these two is their Catholic faith. Icons point beyond themselves; idols point only to themselves. Ideologies that oversimplify to the point of losing touch with reality have become idols. Benedict and Kirk, and like-minded Christian intellectuals, recognize this.

One final thought, a disclaimer of sorts. Some might object to my favorable comparison between the Holy Father and the father of modern American conservativism. Am I suggesting that all good Catholics must be conservatives? Hardly. One of my rabbis in the world of conservative thought explained, "I naturally shy away from the term conservative because it has become an ideology of its own in the culture at large." (Which is why many self-identified conservatives have criticized the neocons as being ideologues of the very kind Kirk warned about.) However, insofar as the writings of conservatives such as Russell Kirk harmonize with the teachings of the Church - and I think they do fairly well - I have no qualms about commending them.

Special thanks go out to Maggie Perry and Daniel R. Suhr for their assistance on this post.

Cultural Eclecticism & Irish Music

In his recent post on Caritas in Veritate, Aaron noted Pope Benedict’s call for the integral development of culture as a protection against the dangers of relativism and cultural eclecticism. An integral culture is one that forms a true unity; all the parts of such a culture fit together in a coherent way. The way these individual parts fit together is usually determined by a culture’s ethos, its ordering principles. However, if a culture doubts its own ordering principles, or if outside forces upset a culture’s ordering principles, the culture’s individual parts will be distorted in some way. They either appear too large or too small, anything but their right size, and out of all proportion to the surrounding parts of the culture.

The usual result of the breakdown of an integral culture is eclecticism. Eclecticism essentially dispenses with all ordering principles besides individual preference—which is why throughout history eclecticism has usually been closely linked to relativism in metaphysics, and commercialism in economics. Eclecticism, though, is an unfortunate name for what I mean to discuss. The word “eclecticism,” at least in my mind, usually conjures up images of agnostic elites desperately searching for meaning in the universe by scouring every culture they know for fragments of intelligibility. I think of demoralized Roman senators worshiping the latest fashionable oriental divinity, or 19th-century decadents dabbling in the occult. In the modern world, though, cultural eclecticism has assumed a new, more democratic form. Thanks to the spread of videos, sound recordings, and mere factual knowledge (on the encyclopedia model), a lonely individual can appreciate one aspect of a culture, in abstraction from the rest of the culture. Then, if the enough of the masses share this individual’s taste, the newspapers (or today, the Internet feuilleton) will announce that this particular foreign element has “entered the culture.” But, what the newspapers usually ignore, or do not even know enough to investigate, is how this new development relates to the ordering principles of the culture. All they ever really notice is that someone has become rich and famous in the process. However, the crucial question to ask is: Is this an integral development of culture?

That was all rather abstract, so what is needed is a concrete example. The example I have chosen is traditional Irish music, since it is a hobby of mine (well, more of an obsession). About fifteen years ago, traditional Irish music received a lot of popular attention due to Riverdance, the dance extravaganza starring Michael Flatley. Soon there was a craze for Irish music and dance across America, and parents with Irish surnames—and even those without Irish surnames—were signing up their little girls for dancing lessons (and buying those horrible sequined dresses). This was a major “cultural event.” Yet, after a couple years, the hype died down and Irish music and dancing in America returned to their pre-Riverdance status. At the end of the day, a lot of people had heard some Irish music, seen some amazing dancing, and Michael Flatley was a wealthy man—and people genuinely devoted to Irish music and dance returned to their prior obscurity and their small groups of like-minded individuals. Riverdance, with its incorporation of elements of tap, flamenco, and ballet, marked the victory of modern eclecticism over integral culture. Many people now realize that Riverdance was only based on traditional music and dance, but have no conception of the broader tradition. What was Irish music—and Irish culture—like before Riverdance?

To answer that question, we need to go back to the early 1800s, a time when Irish peasant culture was relatively intact. The Irish have never been a very urban people, and so most of what we think of as traditionally Irish developed in the context of the countryside. At this time, music and dancing were firmly embedded in village social life, which revolved around the farming year and the special events in a community—births, weddings, and funerals—as well as around the Church’s liturgical year. In addition to these grander events, there was the informal practice of visiting neighbors in the countryside, when it was common to tell stories, sing songs, and play a few tunes at home. Music and dance were certainly developed art forms, but they were not art in the way we educated city-dwellers usually think of art. Very few musicians earned a living by their music, though a few wandering musicians did travel from village to village and play for dances, often supplementing their meager income by other work, especially by repairing pots and pans. Moreover, while some musicians were certainly known throughout a region for their skill, they did not think of themselves as virtuosos, and did not define themselves as musicians. Instead, their art and their ego were subordinate to the needs of the community. They simply provided music so that people could dance and celebrate the most important occasions throughout the year. Their celebrations were (at least loosely) bound up with the larger cosmic perspectives of agriculture and salvation history, as well as their own life and death.

At the same time, however, Irish peasant culture was under tremendous pressure from outside. Their English lords had already been persecuting Catholic priests under the Penal Laws for many years. The English language was steadily displacing Irish. The death blow came, though, with the Potato Famine in 1845. From then on, Irish peasants left their homeland in droves, seeking new homes primarily in England and the United States. This mass exodus would last well into the 20th century. If the Irish could resist religious persecution and the loss of their native language, they could not withstand starvation and emigration.

Village life in late 19th-century Ireland was severely disrupted, and the people demoralized. With many children knowing that they were destined to leave their homes once they were old enough to find work on their own, there was understandably little call for celebration. Paradoxically, though, what kept music and dancing alive during this period was the “American wake.” American wakes were farewell parties held for members of the community the night before they left for America, and featured much music and dancing.

Constant emigration, however, eventually took its toll. Many towns and rural areas were so decimated that they did not have enough people for dances. It was at this point that many musicians simply stopped playing. If there were no dances, there was no point in playing. Music and dance were so closely connected that one without the other was barely imaginable. Modern technology in the early 20th century also undermined the foundations of the integral Irish culture. In those places that still had enough people for a dance, the record player brought new, usually American, music to the Irish countryside. People in larger towns usually rejected traditional music as uncouth and un-modern—and so did many peasants in the countryside. Interestingly enough, even recordings of Irish music in some ways had detrimental effects. Many older fiddlers abandoned their instruments when they first heard the likes of New York virtuoso Michael Coleman’s blazing reels and heavily ornamented jigs; they felt they just could not compete with Coleman.

By the first half of the 20th century, traditional Irish music was on life support. The traditional Irish village was no longer a place where most people lived, but simply a place where they were born before they decided to cross the ocean for America. Moreover, with the disappearance of the Irish language from wide parts of the island, a vast store of older sean-nos songs was lost. Finally, the spread of modern technology even to the more backward parts of Ireland discouraged people from playing traditional music.

To be continued tomorrow...

Caritas in veritate: On Cultural Eclecticism

In section 26 of Caritas in veritate, Benedict XVI describes two dangers facing the modern world, modes of thinking which "separat[e] culture from human nature." The second of these is fairly straightforward: "Cultural leveling, [the] indiscriminate acceptance of types of conduct and life-styles." We all see this, probably every day. In a world of cultural leveling, Benedict writes, "one loses sight of the profound significance of the culture of different nations, of the traditions of the various peoples, by which the individual defines himself in relation to life's fundamental questions."

But the second danger against which he warns is more subtle: "cultural eclecticism, [by which] cultures are simply placed alongside one another and viewed as substantially equivalent and interchangeable." I must confess, this is the danger by which I am more tempted. (As you may have noticed, my interests include pow-wowing with Afghans, praising obscure African peoples and observing esoteric regions of post-Soviet republics.)

Following Paul VI's Populorum progressio, one of Benedict's major themes throughout Caritas in veritate is the importance of integral human development: the economic, political, educational, social and spiritual must all go together. Likewise, I think cultures are unitary things as well. The philosophy or world-view of a people does not simply exist alongside their literature and political institutions, but infuses them; moreover, ideas may exist in their most pristine form in treatises and high culture, but they are usually transmitted through earthy rituals and low culture. Though Benedict does not elaborate to this degree, I think one of the potential pitfalls of cultural eclecticism is that cultures are often broken into pieces which are then viewed as interchangeable, when in fact they usually are not. This phenomenon can be seen in the cultured agnostic who attends a high liturgy and is overwhelmed by the ceremony of it all, but misses that which the believer considers most important. Likewise, the same phenomenon is at play when a certain economic model which works well in one culture is exported to another culture, often with disastrous results for families or traditional ways of life.

Benedict warns that cultural eclecticism "easily yields to a relativism that does not serve true intercultural dialogue; on the social plane, cultural relativism has the effect that cultural groups coexist side by side, but remain separate, with no authentic dialogue and therefore no true integration." Superficial cultural dialogue says, "I eat X for breakfast; you eat Y? How interesting..." But more profound cultural dialogue considers the way in which various elements of a culture interact with one another and the functions they fulfill in society. True cultural dialogue must consider cultures as a whole and ask about their end. Put another way, authentic cultural dialogue must look beyond the mere elements of a culture and even beyond culture itself, to that outside culture, the philosophic and theological truths it supports.

But relativism says that there is no truth, or at least that all claims to the truth are equal. Thus, relativism stymies authentic cultural dialogue by preventing any consideration of what cultures really mean or the ends which they truly serve. Coupled with cultural eclecticism, the result of such relativism can be that the bits and bobs of different cultures are generously intermixed, but to no meaningful end.


Many of the pictures used on this blog are uncopyrighted or just too plain boring to credit. But oceanic's Flickr account deserves a shout-out for this great find.

Caritas in veritate: Manifesto for the New World Order?

Some of the furor over Caritas in veritate may have died down, but I am only now really digging into it. So for the next week or two I will be posting various passages and insights that I found interesting.

The single phrase upon which the media most fixated was "world political authority," something Benedict called for and which any freedom-loving conspiracy theorist can see is a manifesto for One World Government.

That line comes up in section 67 - to which we shall return - but I found it interesting that two key passages near the beginning of the document were apparently overlooked by the same media sensationalists:

In the course of history, it was often maintained that the creation of institutions was sufficient to guarantee the fulfilment of humanity's right to development. Unfortunately, too much confidence was placed in those institutions, as if they were able to deliver the desired objective automatically. In reality, institutions by themselves are not enough, because integral human development is primarily a vocation, and therefore it involves a free assumption of responsibility in solidarity on the part of everyone. Moreover, such development requires a transcendent vision of the person, it needs God: without him, development is either denied, or entrusted exclusively to man, who falls into the trap of thinking he can bring about his own salvation, and ends up promoting a dehumanized form of development.

Caritas in veritate, 11; emphasis added.

Thus, even if Benedict is calling for some sort of super United Nations, he has already given us several qualifiers. Institutions alone cannot solve our problems and we must not look to them for our salvation. Moreover, only if it is animated by an understanding of man's relationship to God can an institution truly aid mankind. Frankly, I have not seen a lot of transcendence at the UN lately, though there has been plenty of anti-Christian policy. So if the UN is to be the "true world political authority" Benedict is talking about, some serious changes will be in order.

Benedict writes further:

The “types of messianism which give promises but create illusions” always build their case on a denial of the transcendent dimension of development, in the conviction that it lies entirely at their disposal. This false security becomes a weakness, because it involves reducing man to subservience, to a mere means for development, while the humility of those who accept a vocation is transformed into true autonomy, because it sets them free.

Caritas in veritate 17; internal quotation from Populorum progressio, 11.

He denounces false messiahs and illusions and condemns a system which turns man into a cog in the system, a "humanitarianism" which tramples the very people it seeks to help. This is a critique that can be applied to the great totalitarian regimes of history - in particular Communism, which, in the name of helping the downtrodden worker, trod him down further - and many schemes regarding world government of one form or another.

But with those qualifications in mind, let us turn to section 67, home of the infamous line itself. Benedict begins, "In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth." Notice he says "reform" of the UN, not "empowerment." The thing that should get empowered, should "acquire real teeth" is "the concept of the family of nations." Insofar as the UN or other international organizations genuinely foster such familial relations: great, we should support them. In the mean time, reform is the day's task.

He continues,

One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago.

All of the issues here listed are international issues; by their very nature sovereign nation states alone cannot address them. In theory a large number of bilateral or regional agreements could address such questions, and I do not think Benedict is condemning those approaches. But some issues may require a larger framework.

He goes on to say:

Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations.

Again, the vision is not of a vast bureaucracy responsible to no one, nor is it of a cabal of the powerful. It must be governed by law, it must include subsidiarity - the notion that problems are best solved by those closest to them, it must serve the common good, ensure justice and respect rights. This sounds a lot like the Preamble of the Constitution... There is, of course, the somewhat sinister line about having "the authority to ensure compliance," but notice that he says "authority," not "power". Power may be a component of that authority, but without legitimacy that comes from the consent of the governed, such power is tyranny.

Benedict concludes:

The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization[149]. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations.

Just as he told the members of the General Assembly last year, the UN must return to high ideals upon which it was founded.

Is the Holy Father calling for one world government? I think it would be disingenuous to say he is not. Is he calling for One World Government, the New World Order? Probably not in the way those terms are usually used. How is he proposing we get from here to there? That, it seems to me, is a crucial question. While he indicated the United Nations by name, policy details are few. His frequent calls for UN reform seem to acknowledge that, however much a world authority may be needed today, the situation is not fully ripe. The means of executing Benedict's vision of global solidarity and fraternity have been left to the prudential judgment of the lay faithful, in their various areas of expertise and in the various situations they find themselves.

The Enthymemic Nature of Discourse

There are many current events in the Church and State that merit our consideration and discussion: the Pope's meeting with the President, Caritas in Veritate, and the Palin resignation come immediately to mind. It seems to me that as important as considering and discussing these events are, some treatment of how we consider and discuss them is of fundamental importance. I think that a helpful way to consider our interpretation of and discussion about current events is found in the Aristotelian concept of the enthymeme and Richard Weaver's application of it to discourse.

Many readers of this blog may have run across Aristotle's enthymeme in courses on logic or rhetoric; the enthymeme is usually described as a syllogism that lacks a middle term; compare:

Syllogism:

All men are mortal;
Socrates is a man;
Therefore Socrates is mortal.

Enthymeme:

All men are mortal;
Therefore Socrates is mortal.
(The middle term is left unstated; presumably understood by the audience.)

This description does not do great justice to the enthymeme, though Aristotle himself is not terribly helpful ("kalo d' enthymema men rhetorikon sylloyismon"--"Accordingly I call an enthymeme a rhetorical syllogism"; Rhetoric, 1.2.8; 1356 b). What is important to note about the enthymeme in discourse is that it relies on the audience to make the connection between statements; the audience cooperates in the creation of meaning. As such, in the hands of a skillful rhetor, the enthymeme can be more persuasive than the syllogism, insofar as the minds of the audience are engaged in a cooperative process of reasoning.

How does the enthymeme apply to discourse? Though he doesn't use the term, Richard Weaver recognizes it as the underlying mode of discourse within a given culture, explained through the problems of academic speech:

"In the speech of a culture maintained by a traditional society, there will occur many elisions and ellipses of meaning. It is not necessary to state them, because anyone can supply the omissions; it is rather the awkwardness of pedantry to put them into words. But the man who is outside the tradition, or who is self-consciously halfway between the tradition and something else, goes about it in a different way: its beliefs, values, and institutions are 'objects' to him, and he refers to them with something of the objective completeness of the technical description. This is why professors 'sound so funny' when they talk of something that is an everyday subject to the ordinary man. This ordinary man wonders why the professor, instead of using lumbering phrases to designate the obvious, cannot assume more. It may also explain why professors as a class are suspected of dissidence. Their speech does not sound like the speech of a person who is perfectly solid with his tradition, which is oftentimes the case." (Richard Weaver. Visions of Order. Wilmington, DE: ISI Press, 1995 [1962]. Page 8, footnote 2)

In other words, the average person's language is enthymemic; the interlocutor's agreement regarding key omissions is taken for granted. Most significantly, we tend to assume and demand this kind of enthymemic agreement when making statements.

Recognizing this fact, we see why political and religions discussions in our culture (particularly in the online culture, as I've come to discover) are often doomed to discord: we do not, as 21st-century Americans, have a robust set of traditional cultural assumptions, and thus our enthymemes often assume agreement on premises that does not exist. Consider the following two (actual) examples:

Person on observing the American flag at half-staff earlier this year: "I guess it's mourning the death of American democracy."

Person commenting on the 2004 election in 2004: "This is the end of democracy in America."

If one were to fill in the elisions of these two statements, one would get something like this:

"President Obama won the election; liberal policies are not democratic; these policies are contrary to real democracy; American democracy is dead."

"President Bush won the election; conservative policies are not democratic; Bush will continue conservative policies; America is no longer a democracy."

Notice how in each case, the person speaking to me expected assent, expected that I shared their assumptions that need not be stated. The flaw in both statements, of course, is that policies that one dislikes are, de facto, policies contrary to democracy. In fact, in the previous two examples, both candidates won solid victories in democratically conducted electoral processes, making their victories examples of democracy in action.

An oddly heartening aspect of this example, however, is that the unstated premise common to both is that democracy is an unquestionably good thing, and that its end is somehow tragic. The two contradictory edifices of assumptions share the common foundation of faith in democracy. Thus we get something like a common cultural assumption shared by both people.

Thus there are two points I wish to make here, displayed in this example:

1. Recognizing that it is natural for us to talk this way, and that without a unified cultural tradition enthymemic discourse may be problematic, let's consider our audience in discussions of current events, and how they might fill in our elisions. Such a consideration may save much wasted time and energy, and get to more productive dialogue.

2. Even in a culture as fragmented as our own, there may be shared assumptions that can provide a foundation on which to build; getting down to these common foundational principles of our worldview may be the best way to begin learning from one another (and learn much about ourselves).

Social Encyclical?

In my own humble opinion, the blogging world has waited like vultures (instead of an eager flock) for the release of Pope Benedict's Caritas in Veritate. Some, George Weigel notably among them, decry this encyclical as leftist leaning and unclear. Weigel writes, "The net result is, with respect, an encyclical that resembles a duck-billed platypus." Disrespect for the Pope aside, it seems that many have focused on seeking to criticize and reading quickly according to their own agendas, instead of appreciating the words of Pope Benedict.

Admittedly, I have not finished the encyclical. But I would like to offer the following quote, which seems to point at a purpose for the encyclical that transcends the blogging disputes. Our Holy Father writes,

The Church does not have technical solutions to offer and does not claim "to interfere in any way in the politics of States." She does, however, have a mission of truth to accomplish, in every time and circumstance, for a society that is attuned to man, to his dignity, to his vocation.

Far from being mere "sentimentality," as some claim, this thesis speaks to the very purpose of man on earth. The Church speaks of the dignity of man in every situation, because She is the best organ to do so. Perhaps instead of reading this lengthy and in-depth encyclical in under 24 hours and spinning off a quick heated argument, we all would do better to read and pray over this work that the Vicar of Christ has labored over for all to read.

Your thoughts?