Ecuadoran president forgets ‘Caritas in Veritate,’ asks Pope to write social encyclical

Madrid, Spain, Oct 30, 2009 / 19:58 pm

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador surprised reporters in Europe during a conference at the University of Oxford in which he reviewed various papal documents and complained that Pope Benedict XVI should issue an encyclical that addresses social issues, unaware apparently of “Caritas in Veritate.”

According to the Cope Radio Network, Correa was claiming to address Church issues during his remarks at Oxford and said he “would like to see an encyclical that vigorously and directly denounces, without euphemisms, the ideology disguised as science that some wanted to impose on us as the conclusion of the story.”

Cope reported that Correa mentioned various Episcopal and magisterial documents but made no mention of the documents of Benedict XVI, such as the recent encyclical “Caritas in Veritate.”

He claimed that his own personal social and economic principals “are founded upon the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church, on Liberation Theology, and the 21st century Socialism which we are building in Latin America, at least in Ecuador, which also draws from these sources.”

Correa also accused the Church in Latin America of removing social concerns from the “center of pastoral action” and placing “greater emphasis on the issues of individual morality and the liturgy.”

He praised Pope Leo XIII's encyclical “Rerum Novarum” by for rebelling against “the consequences of the industrial revolution and workers’ issues,” and he said, “As a Catholic, I anxiously await an analogous encyclical for the times in which we live, denouncing the issues of employment and immigration.”

“How will we be able to ethically explain to future generations that in this supposed globalization, we want to be able to mobilize capital and markets more and more easily, but we penalize and even criminalize the movement of human beings with ever greater rigor?” Correa asked.  “We cannot end misery with coercive measures, with an institutionalized apartheid,” Correa said.

To the surprise of many, Correa insisted that as a Catholic he “anxiously awaits an encyclical that denounces how in today’s world, as during the industrial revolution, capital has more rights than human beings.”