Kathryn Lopez, editor of National Review Online, has a Townhall.com column on Caritas in Veritate titled, “Liberal Catholics Can’t Handle the Truth.” Lopez looks at the commentary on Caritas in Veritate, especially by the left, and shows why the encyclical should not be politicized. The encyclical is about truth, which can not be bent to advance a political agenda, she asserts. Kishore Jayabalan, director of Acton’s Rome office, was also quoted in Lopez’s article:
Neither side . . . seems ready to take Benedict’s theology — his own field of expertise — seriously. Part of this is a result of our habitual, liberal-democratic tendency to separate Church and State and not let theological arguments influence our politics. This tendency invariably blinds us to the pope’s combination of respect for life with the demands of social justice. … Reading ‘Charity in Truth’ for partisan purposes can yield moments of agony and ecstasy for left and right alike.
Both Jayabalan and Lopez remind us to read Caritas in Veritate without politicizing it or categorizing it left or right.
