Pope speaks about sex, charity

2006-01-26 08:13

Nicole Winfield

Vatican - Pope Benedict XVI offered his vision for the Roman Catholic Church's mission in the world, saying in his first encyclical that it had a duty to influence political leaders to ease suffering and promote justice through its charitable work.

The encyclical "God is Love" - Benedict's most authoritative work to date - has been eagerly anticipated because inaugural encyclicals offer clues about a pontiff's major concerns and the priorities of his early pontificate.

As a result, the 71-page text can be seen as an effort by Benedict to stress the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith - love - and assert the church's duty to exercise that love through its works of charity in an unjust world.

In the encyclical released on Wednesday, Benedict rejected the criticism of charity found in Marxist thought, which holds that charity is merely an excuse by the rich to keep the poor in their place when the rich should be working for a more just society.

'There will always be suffering'

The criticism appeared to be an extension of Benedict's firm rejection of the Marxist-inspired liberation theology, which he firmly denounced in his early years as the Vatican's chief doctrinal watchdog.

Liberation theology, which originated in Latin America, holds that criticising the oppression of the poor and marginalized should be central to Christian theology, and that the Christian faith should be reinterpreted specifically to deliver oppressed people from injustice.

Benedict conceded that Marxist models of dealing with injustice by trying to provide for social needs did help the poor faster than the church did during the Industrial Revolution. But he said Marxism was a failed experiment because it could not respond to every human need.

"There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbour is indispensable," he said.

Benedict stressed that the state alone is responsible for creating a just society, not the church. But he said the church has the right and the duty to be involved in politics.

The text is divided into two parts: Part I explores what Benedict calls the "unity of love," in which he explores the two concepts of love found in the word "eros" - the erotic love between man and woman - and the Greek concept of love in the world "agape" - unconditional love.

Those two concepts are united in God's love for mankind and in marriage between man and woman, he said.

He warned that sex without unconditional love risked turning men and women into merchandise.

"Eros, reduced to pure 'sex' has become a commodity, a mere 'thing' to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself has become a commodity," he wrote.

- AP