Florida Catholic | Bishop Ricard On Catholic Social Teaching

Bishop shares challenges of Catholic social teaching

Bishop Ricard: ‘Neighborhood is not dependent on proximity … all are responsible for all,’

KATHY GROBE | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Published: 11.02.07

Bishop John H. Ricard, SSJ, addresses a Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights gathering Oct. 18.
PHOTO | BRO. ALLEN MARQUEZ

TALLAHASSEE | Bishop John H. Ricard, SSJ, opened a series of meetings at Florida State University on the role of religion in human rights with a statement of what Catholic social teaching is not.

“Catholic social teaching is not a recipe or a set of instructions on how to throw a social; it’s not a 12-step process,” the Pensacola-Tallahassee bishop said during his Oct. 18 presentation, the first in a series sponsored by the university’s Center for the Advancement of Human Rights.

After an introduction by center director Dr. Terry Koonan, Bishop Ricard shared how he began what had already been a very busy day. He had traveled that morning to Washington, D.C., for a meeting of bishops with Catholic members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Two years in the making, the meeting focused on Iraq, he said. Although he could share no details of the off-the-record meeting, he said the bishops sought to provide guidance to the representatives.

COURSE NOTES
Bishop Ricard's Oct. 18 presentation notes.

“There was passion and pathos to the discussion,” he noted. “Many of them are feeling a moral dilemma if they voted for the war (in Iraq),” Bishop Ricard said to some 60 people in FSU’s Dodd Hall auditorium.

“The gravity of Iraq is coming home to them,” the bishop continued, “and they are seeking guidance on what to do next. It was clear to me that they were asking for direction. It was an excellent way to begin the day — Catholic social teaching was definitely taking place.”

After explaining what it is not, the bishop said, “Catholic social teaching is a set of principles to guide individuals and help them make correct moral decisions in all phases of life.” It has a long tradition in Catholic Christianity, he noted. Two trends in world history gave rise to the tradition — the Industrial Revolution and resulting exploitation of labor which in turn gave rise to communism. Pope Leo XIII addressed the issues with “Rerum Novarum” (“Of New Things,” 1891), the church’s first encyclical on social justice.

“This began the church venturing out of itself,” Bishop Ricard said.

Numerous other social encyclicals followed, according to the bishop, including “Quadragesimo Anno,” (“Fortieth Year”) issued in 1931 by Pope Pius XI, and a number issued by Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II. Two basic principles of Catholic social teaching followed: the “option for the poor” and solidarity, the principle in which “all are responsible for all.”

The bishop outlined several concepts underlying Catholic social teaching. Beginning with human life and human dignity, community and common good, the bishop addressed the “option for the poor and vulnerable. This is very, very difficult to put into practice,” he noted. “It is very difficult for Catholics or anyone to live this in our complex society.”

Turning next to the dignity of work and the rights of workers, the bishop said the U.S. bishops have reaffirmed this in a pastoral letter (“Economic Justice for All,” 1986) and other documents. We also have stewardship of creation, and our solidarity should be global, the bishop said.

“Neighborhood is not dependent on proximity,” he noted, reiterating once again the concept of solidarity in which “all are responsible for all. We should seek a constructive role for government. We need to be peacemakers as well as peacekeepers.”

With some 2,000 staff members in 100 countries, Catholic Relief Services, which Bishop Ricard chaired from 1995 until 2002, is “a concrete expression of these principles. I was in Rwanda in 1995 when the genocide began. I was in Sudan in July (2007), about my 12th trip there,” Bishop Ricard said regarding his personal efforts to live the principles of Catholic social teaching. “North Korea opened up briefly in 1995,” he continued, “and it was the most controlled society I have ever experienced. Catholic Relief Services lasted there only about one-and-a-half years.”

In a question-and-answer session following his presentation, the bishop noted that at the morning’s meeting in Washington, “The discussion ran the total spectrum — representatives who totally support the war and those who totally oppose it. We provided a forum guided by Catholic social teaching, a safe place for both sides to come together.”

Another audience member wondered what the Catholic Church required of its members beyond financial support. “Our greatest challenge is that we live in a society of affluence and our affluence can blind us,” Bishop Ricard said. “Our affluence blinds us to the poverty of the rest of the world. None of it is easy,” he added. “Catholic social teaching requires us to be informed, requires us to be aware, requires our attentiveness to our brothers and sisters around the world. It is an invitation to be engaged, to wrestle with these issues.”

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