An exclamation mark

The new social encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI is a “moral exclamation mark”, declared Mgr. Reinhard Marx, chairman of the Social Commission of the German Bishops’ Conference and Archbishop of Munich and Freising, during a press conference in the Bavarian capital on 7 July, in which he described the document and made some evaluations of its content. Archbishop Mark is also Vice-President of the Commission of the Episcopates of the European Community (COMECE) and author of the book “Capital. A Christian critique of the reasons of the market”, in which, taking his cue provocatively from the key text of Communism (Das Kapital), he tries to give new responses to the effects of globalization and the economic crisis of our time. We report some passages from his comments today on the encyclical.The encyclical “tackles many aspects of the challenges of our time and interprets them in the light of Catholic social doctrine. In the months ahead it will be necessary to study the encyclical attentively and discuss it at the scientific, political and economic level”, said Archbishop Marx. “The encyclical is inserted in the great tradition of the Church’s social encyclicals which were aimed at stimulating, and wish to stimulate, the thought and action not only of Christians but of all persons of good will”, he declared. “An encyclical – pointed out Monsignor Marx – is not a scientific text, though it ought to be scientifically well-founded in its affirmations, nor is it a sermon, or a political programme. It is a guidance that is binding at the doctrinal level and aimed at forming policy, society and the economy”. “The Pope – the Archbishop of Munich continued – has given us this guidance at the right time”, and he added: “Our task is to bring this guidance into the public debate and also give it concrete form in the different situations”. In presenting the various contents of the encyclical, Mgr. Marx emphasized that the intention of the Pope is to “spell out that social problems can be solved in a more human and fairer way in the light of the fundamental principle of love”, regarded “not only as feeling and experience”, but as “fundamental willingness to engage with other people, to the point of gaining the consciousness of belonging to one human family. This conviction can be viable and sustainable only if it springs from the concept, valid for all human beings, of the person as image of God”, he declared. “A world trapped merely in the interests and opinions, in the prejudices and calculations of power can never succeed in finding the strength for a global structure at whose centre man is placed. From this point of view, the Pope is absolutely open to collaboration with other religions and ideologies, so long as they mutually recognize an opening to the dialogue between faith and reason”.Another “important challenge”, in the view of Archbishop Marx, is “a new determination of the role of the State, market and civil society at the global level”. A review of the market economy and the search for a new calibration between these entities are issues that, according to Marx “will require further detailed reflections. This is one of the major challenges of the 21st century”. “We will also have to consider what priorities should be given to ethical rules and impulses. Therefore, the Pope also underlines the importance of cooperation in development, which does not obey the laws of the market”.