The Significance of "Caritas in Veritate" for Legal Studies

Abstract

The article examines the significance of Caritas in Veritate for contemporary legal thought, highlighting the encyclical's contribution to understanding law as a reality ordered to the service of the human person and the common good. The author shows that Benedict XVI proposes a conception of law grounded in a relational anthropology capable of moving beyond both legal positivism and purely procedural conceptions of justice. From this perspective, the categories of truth, charity and social responsibility provide new criteria for interpreting the role of legal institutions in the context of globalization and integral human development.