Key Church Documents

Deus Caritas Est
(God is Love)

Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love), 2006, affirms that Catholic identity and values must be evident in the way charitable services are organized and delivered.

Read the encyclical.

Quotes from Deus Caritas Est

The unbreakable bond between love of God and love of neighbor is emphasized. One is so closely connected to the other that to say that we love God becomes a lie if we are closed to our neighbor or hate him altogether. Saint John’s words should rather be interpreted to mean that love of neighbor is a path that leads to the encounter with God, and that closing our eyes to our neighbor also blinds us to God.

As the years went by and the Church spread further afield, the exercise of charity became established as one of her essential activities, along with the administration of the sacraments and the proclamation of the word: love for widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as essential to her as the ministry of the sacraments and preaching of the Gospel. The Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the Sacraments and the Word.

For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, but is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being.

In All Things Charity: A Pastoral Challenge for the New Millennium

In this 1999 pastoral statement, the U.S. Catholic Bishops challenge all people of faith to greater solidarity with people in need and call on Catholics to turn to the Church’s social message from theory into action by learning about and responding to their vulnerable brothers and sisters.

Read the statement.

Quotes from In All Things Charity

Through our works of charity and justice, we Catholics are challenged to put into practice the principles that we have learned from our Church's teachings and tradition. Thus, in marking the one-hundredth anniversary of contemporary Catholic social teaching, Pope John Paul II called on us to consider the social message of the Gospel as not just a "theory, but above all else a basis and a motivation for action."

No man or woman of good will should stand as an idle witness to the complex social problems of our day. Equally deserving of our attention and care is the private suffering of countless children, women, and men who do not have enough food to eat; who are deprived of adequate education, housing, or employment; or who suffer the trauma of abuse or neglect.

Social ministry is an expression of the Gospel and of the prophetic, servant ministry of Jesus Christ; as such, it is a fundamental element of the mission of the Church.

The charitable and justice-oriented activities of the Church are integral to the collective responsibility of all citizens to build the common good of our nation and of the entire human family.

As bishops, we recognize the need for Catholic Charities to develop professional and specialized competency in the diverse fields of human and social services. We urge these agencies to respect the cultural and faith traditions of those they serve and to collaborate actively with Catholic health care and education apostolates and with human service organizations sponsored by other faith communities.

A Place at the Table: A Catholic Recommitment to Overcome Poverty and to Respect the Dignity of All God's Children

In this 2002 pastoral, the U.S. Catholic Bishops issue a call to all Catholics to speak out on behalf of those suffering the most, to lift up those in need, to work together to eliminate the scourge of poverty from this land of plenty.

Get the pastoral.

Quotes from A Place at the Table

As Catholics, we must come together with a common conviction that we can no longer tolerate the moral scandal of poverty in our land and so much hunger and deprivation in our world.

The principle of solidarity reminds us that as members of one human family, we see every "other" as our neighbor, who must share in the "banquet of life to which all area equally invited by God."

In the Catholic tradition, concern for the poor is advanced by individual and common action, works of charity, efforts to achieve a more just social order, the practice of virtue, and the pursuit of justice in our own lives. It requires action to confront structures of injustice that leave people poor.

Our Church's commitment to find A Place at the Table for all God's children is expressed in every part of our country and in the poorest places on earth…Our faith gives us the strength, identity, and principles we need to sustain this work.

The table we seek for all rests on these four institutions, or legs: (1) what families and individuals can do, (2) what community and religious institutions can do, (3) what the private sector can do, and (4) what the government can do to work together to overcome poverty.

Other Papal Statements and Church Documents

Love for others, and especially for the poor, is made concrete by promoting justice.
–Pope John Paul II
Centesimus Annus (The Hundredth Year)

A consistent theme of Catholic social teaching is the option or love of preference for the poor. Today, this preference has to be expressed in worldwide dimensions, embracing the immense numbers of the hungry, the needy, the homeless, those without medical care, and those without hope.
–Pope John Paul II
Solicitudo Rei Socialis (On Social Concern)

Poverty is not only a question of having no material goods. Is the lack of human rights not also a form of poverty? 
–Pope John Paul II
Solicitudo Rei Socialis (On Social Concern)

In teaching us charity, the Gospel instructs us in the preferential respect due the poor and the special situation they have in society: the more fortunate should renounce some of their rights so as to place their goods more generously at the service of others.
–Pope Paul VI
Octogesima Adveniens (A Call to Action)

The struggle against destitution, though urgent and necessary, is not enough. It is a question, rather, of building a world where every man, no matter what his race, religion or nationality, can live a fully human life, freed from servitude imposed on him by other men or by natural forces over which he has not sufficient control; a world where freedom is not an empty word and where the poor man Lazarus can sit down at the same table with the rich man.
—Pope Paul VI 
Populorum Progressio (On the Development of Peoples)

In protecting the rights of private individuals, however, special consideration must be given to the weak and the poor. For the nation, as it were, of the rich, is guarded by its own defenses and is in less need of governmental protection, whereas the suffering multitude, without the means to protect itself, relies especially on the protection of the State. Wherefore, since wage workers are numbered among the great mass of the needy, the State must include them under its special care and foresight.
–Pope Leo XIII
Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of Workers)

As followers of Christ, we are challenged to make a fundamental "option for the poor" – to speak for the voiceless, to defend the defenseless, to assess life styles, policies, and social institutions in terms of their impact on the poor. This "option for the poor" does not mean pitting one group against another, but rather, strengthening the whole community by assisting those who are the most vulnerable. As Christians, we are called to respond to the needs of all our brothers and sisters, but those with the greatest needs require the greatest response.

—U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Economic Justice for All