Argentine bishop: Social doctrine of the Church is not an ideology

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Aug 14, 2005 / 22:00 pm

The Apostolic Administrator of Resistencia, Argentina, Bishop Carmelo Giaquinta, said this week “the social doctrine of the Church is not an ideology,” but rather “a light that helps us see clearly the nucleus, which is mankind, of all social problems.”

“The social doctrine of the Church is not an ideology, which always runs the risk of making one particular way of viewing things absolute, of enslaving man,” he said.  Neither is it a government program nor “a platform for a political party fighting to obtain power,” the bishop added.

Rather, the social doctrine of the Church allows for the relativization of all ideologies, “keeping them within democratic channels.”

Bishop Giaquinta called on Catholics to be careful that the Church’s social teachings are not twisted for political or partisan gain and that emphasis not be placed on some of them while others are completely ignored.  The faithful “should not be fooled into believing there is a ‘Catholic’ political party,” he said.

“The Church grants no such recognition to any political party or public authority,” Bishop Giaquinta stated.

He reminded Catholics of the need to study the Church’s social teachings in order to be able to apply them in today’s society.  “The study of the social teachings presupposes a method, an effort.  The worse thing that could happen would be for this Compendium (of the Church’s social doctrine) to just collect dust on the library shelves,” he said in conclusion.