A Study Seminar on "Caritas in Veritate"

Abstract

The study day on Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in veritate, which took place at Sophia University Institute on 24 September 2009, was a significant in-depth, interdisciplinary and dialogical reflection between a variety of interlocutors. It sought to look, from the perspectives of theology, philosophy, politics, economics and law, at the implications of the ‘humanism of giving’ favoured by the text. The text asks for a new departure in thinking, one ready to rise to the opportunity offered by the ‘signs of the times’, in particular in the contemporary world that shows itself at once wounded and filled with a longing for the surprising regeneration that comes from gratuitousness and reciprocity. This new departure is seen to demand the contribution of all. It is, indeed, already present in history, having begun with God’s self-gift in Jesus as a relationship and communion that is always new and distinct, that is and that communicates the fullness of life. ‘Truth,’ writes Benedict XVI, ‘is lógos which creates diálogos, and hence communication and communion’, opening and uniting ‘our minds in the lógos of love’ (CV, 4).