The Acton Institute and George Weigel are two of Catholic America’s most prominent proponents of market-based economics.
But they have quite different views of Pope Benedict XVI’s new social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth).
The Acton Institute offers a strongly positive assessment, available here in a section of its website that it has devoted to the new papal document.
In contrast, Weigel yesterday published an analysis at National Review Online in which he was sharply critical of portions of the encyclical that appear to favor economic redistribution over free-market economics.
Weigel concludes that Caritas in Veritate is an unsatisfactory hybrid of these negative elements, which he attributes to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and of positive components of the encyclical that Weigel attributes to the sole authorship of Pope Benedict XVI. According to Weigel, “The net result is, with respect, an encyclical that resembles a duck-billed platypus.”
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I agree with Weigel’s assesment. I got the same opinion after reading it as he did. In addition, in all my contacts with lay Church people in the Peace and Justice groups I found them to be left of center, and pro government involvement in carrying out their goals.
This “Which is it?” could be resolved by the Pope if he came out and publicly proclaimed that Jesus never taught his followers to get government to do what he directed them to do themselves. That would settle it for those Church goers who are unsure how to take the Pope’s teaching. But it won’t make any difference to the liberal Catholic left that will vote for the pro-abortion party candidates no matter what the Pope says.
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