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Philanthropy's utilitarianism can achieve neither the heights of charity nor provide the foundations of justice, both of which are intertwined in an authentic human care of neighbor.

"In an address delivered [May 6, 2016], Pope Francis observed that, 'The just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labour is not mere philanthropy.  It is a moral obligation.'

"There is also a passage from Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate that runs as follows:

Charity goes beyond justice, because to love is to give, to offer what is “mine” to the other; but it never lacks justice, which prompts us to give the other what is “his”, what is due to him by reason of his being or his acting. I cannot “give” what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice. If we love others with charity, then first of all we are just towards them. Not only is justice not extraneous to charity, not only is it not an alternative or parallel path to charity: justice is inseparable from charity[1], and intrinsic to it. Justice is the primary way of charity or, in Paul VI’s words, “the minimum measure” of it…

"This principle is a refutation of the common attempt in some political circles to avoid dealing with social justice by insisting that it is fulfilled by carrying out acts of so-called charity, by which they mean voluntary acts of service to the poor and their fellow man. This sort of action also goes by the name of “philanthropy.” The transition from the old scheme, which taught that justice was a bare minimum, to be complemented by acts of charity, to the new one in which charity is proffered as an alternative to justice, or as if acts of charity encompassed justice and automatically satisfied its requirements, is outlined very thoroughly in Jeremy Beer’s The Philanthropic Revolution. I reviewed the book sometime ago here."--Daniel Schwindt, Patheos

Photo By Sailko - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32706247


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