Pope Benedict's latest encyclical on social justice points out some hard truths, writes Emmet Bergin

I hope I'm not being presumptuous but I think it is true that few people, even readers of The Irish Catholic, are much aware of the existence, let alone the extraordinary breadth of Catholic Social Teaching.

Many people, including Catholics, think that when the Church talks to its members it lectures only on contraception, abortion and divorce. Yet beyond that sometimes self-inflicted stereotype there is a hidden treasure, a centuries-old tradition of radical, progressive insight on matters of social justice. Catholic Social Teaching is probably Catholicism's best kept secret.

Pope Benedict XVI's most recent and first ''social'' encyclical Caritas in Veritate ('Love in Truth') comes at a time when confidence in existing economic and political systems is at an all-time low. Many people, not just Catholics, are looking for a system that goes beyond mere economic transaction.

Common good

Caritas in Veritate could provide some answers. It talks about systems where global solidarity is real and meaningful and where the resources of the earth are used for the benefit of the common good, not the few. It proposes a political and economic system that allows people to be fully human.

Working with an Overseas Development NGO with progressive Catholic roots, indeed even our name Progressio comes from the landmark social encyclical Populorum Progressio of Pope Paul V, I would like to point out a few lines from Benedict's encyclical that might give us reason to pause.

Benedict says that ''solidarity with poor countries in the process of development can point towards a solution of the current global crisis. Through support for economically poor countries... not only can true economic growth be generated, but a contribution can be made towards sustaining the productive capacities of rich countries.''

If one accepts the wisdom and truth of these words then the Irish Government's massive 20% budget cut to overseas development in the past 12 months, slashing €255 million off development contributions to some of the poorest people in the world, seems hopelessly short sighted.

Is the Government really saying that we are now too poor to help stop hunger and deliver clean drinking water to children and adults living in some of the harshest conditions imaginable?

Damaging effect

Does the Government not think that the cut to our aid budget will have a very damaging effect to our relationship to the aid recipients who will be our economic trading partners in coming years? Does the Government not think that in an interdependent world we have a shared responsibility, especially considering the impact of climate change on the poor in developing countries and the fact that Ireland per head of population is the world's fifth worst polluter.

Pope Benedict in the same paragraph says that it is necessary ''to cultivate a public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination''. Instead the message coming from the Irish Government's grossly disproportionate cuts to the aid budget is that access to food and water are not rights but merely gifts that are only administered when the Government feels flush enough to grant them.

Benedict also says that, ''Insofar as they are instruments, the entire economy and finance must be used in an ethical way so as to create suitable conditions for human development and for the development of peoples... Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity.'' In these words I am reminded of the Progressio campaign to ensure that investments made by our National Pension Reserve Fund are not invested in companies that trade in war, use child labour, prop up murderous regimes or destroy the environment. The Government is presently reviewing their options on this matter. Let's hope they take Benedict's words into account.

Consequence

Or finally, consider Benedict's overarching comment ''Every economic decision has a moral consequence ... economic life needs just laws and forms of redistribution.'' This deceptively simple statement speaks to the heart of the issue.

Decisions taken on Wall Street or the IFSC can and have damaged developing economies, health and social security services, education, livelihoods - and people. Economic decision making does not exist in a technocratic bubble; it is intimately interconnected with people around the world, and has very real impacts. We can choose to be blind to our ethical responsibilities in the economic decisions that we make, but as Pope Benedict points out, the ethical issues we have chosen to ignore will come back to be experienced by us and others in our daily lives.

Emmet Bergin is Advocacy Officer with Progressio Ireland. Progressio has published a document ''For the common good: Reflections on Pope Benedict's encyclical Caritas in Veritate'' that you can download from the organisation's UK website www.progres sio.org.uk