Final

Question 1

Quali sono le conseguenze sociali della confessione trinitaria secondo la Evangelii Gaudium?

Answer 1

• God wants to save not just the individual but also the social relations between men.
• HS is creative, loosens the knots of human minds and we are called to cooperate.
• The Trinity reminds us we are rated in the image of the divine communion – we cannot achieve salvation on our own.
• God’s love should make us desire, seek and protect the good of others.

Question 2

Quale immagine usa l’A Diogneto per parlare del rapporto dei cristiani con il mondo? Cosa vuole esprimere?

Answer 2

• Christians = Soul (in the) body = world;
• Hence, diffused throughout world, yet distinct; animate world “imprisoned” in the world, incorrupt but living among corruptibility; fought against by the world as flesh fights the soul, which loves it and clings to it.

Question 3

Cita le tre rivoluzioni del mondo moderno che hanno cambiato il nostro concetto del sociale e spiegane una

Answer 3

• Scientific, industrial and political.
The Industrial Revolution: mass production of goods; poverty was no longer considered something necessarily natural as it had been in the past. We no longer speak of “alleviating” poverty, but “combating” poverty; it should be possible for all to share in the available wealth. New types of poverty that hadn’t existed before; proletariat emerges. Novelty: hence Rerum Novarum (1891).

Question 4

Quale sarebbe la specificità della teologia morale sociale rispetto alla teologia morale del singolo e della persona?

Answer 4

• Morals of the person: one’s duty around pre-existing social order which he cannot control.
• Social morals: the social structure itself. Is it in accordance with the dignity of the person or should it be adjusted through some common action?

Question 5

Cosa vorrebbe dire che la morale sociale è una morale del protagonismo divino?

Answer 5

• Is social morality a morality of divine leadership?
• Our faith is an encounter with a real person.
• God is present in history – only by understanding this can we understand the present.
• “I am the Lord, your God … therefore follow my commandments.” (indicative + imperative)
• Summary of the Gospel: The Kingdom is near! Repent and believe … (indicative + imperative)

Question 6

Quali cose ci porta a evitare e a distinguere il discernimento?

Answer 6

What leads us to avoid and distinguish discernment?
Avoidance:
• I’ll decide for myself based on my own values.
• Pope Francis calls for a communal responsibility.
Distinguishing discernment:
• Forbidding what is illicit
• Between licit and useful
• Between good and better – should wait for more opportune moment?

Social discernment

Analyse situation > acknowledge own subjectivity > let Gospel light the situation > use Church’s social teaching > apply four helpful principles

Four helpful principles
•	Time superior to space
•	Unity over conflict
•	Reality more important than idea
•	The all is greater than the part

Question 7

In che senso i loci teologici della morale sociale sono creatori di futuro?

Answer 7

• The loci theologici are not a bank of norms for when we have problems and they are not everything that’s happened.
• The logic theologici list of important things tradition preserves for future generations and going through it is an act of communion with the Church which is one.
• They may offer the answers to the questions we have today.

Question 8

Stando a Bittasi che tipo di “meccanismi” ci svela la Bibbia?

Answer 8

• What kind of mechanisms reveal the Bible?
• Mechanisms = experience of the past + world as described in the Scriptures + today’s continuing story.
• It is the correspondence of past and present, between message and context, event and word, between Hebrew- Christian experience and living situation today.
• Tools revealed prophetically to permit social and political discernment.

Question 9

Quando Bittasi parla di “meccanismi”, cosa vuol dire e come ci aiutano a fondare sulla Bibbia la nostra riflessione e il nostro discernimento sociali?

Answer 9

The mechanisms mediate between the experience of the past and the word laid out in the text of the Scriptures and the continuing story of today.
In other words: “the reality and comprehension of salvific experience is not given to us in the Bible or Tradition just as it is (fundamentalism) or merely in the context of the past (Biblicism) or present (Modernism) but in the correspondence of past and present, between message and context, event and word, between Hebrew-Christian experience and the living situation today” – thus the mechanisms become tools, “revealed prophetically” to us, to permit social and political discernment.

Question 10

In che senso la Bibbia è una scuola di discernimento?

Answer 10

• Creative tension: reflects on the formation of the world, permanent process of discernment within the community and not a daily newspaper.
• Bible does not inform, but it wishes to form: compare newspaper account of the bombing of Guernica (facts and figures) o Picasso’s painting of it (no facts and figures but we see the horror).
• Literary genres: a literary mediation of social relations, with certain rules that come from social relations, because social relations are structured.

Question 11

Quali sono gli strumenti perché l’uomo faccia il bene che ci dà il racconto della Creazione in Gn, 1?

Answer 11

The story has no concrete norms for social morals but offers concepts for interpretations:

• God calls, man free to respond or not. Society which is not free, man will not flourish.
• Social choices promote life.
• The choice for good is possible. We should take time and care to create like God did.
• Man is called to a patient and just domination. To act in patience, justice and with attention.

Question 12

Che due logiche rivela il racconto dell’esodo? Puoi spiegare una delle due?

Answer 12

• Genesis reveals the good, Exodus reveals the common good.
• Two logics: the logic of fear and the logic of abundance and generosity
• Logic of fear: those who live in fear and anxiety have neither the time nor the desire to work for the common good.
• Logic of abundance and generosity: generosity breaks a system of anxiety. Beneficiaries are able to look away from their own selves and work towards common good. Those in fear, however, think that outside of their system there is no salvation.

Question 13

Che tre tesi, tre criteri per il discernimento cristiano del sociale possiamo desumere dalla narrazione dell’Esodo?

Answer 13

• Logic of fear: those in fear are selfish, not interested in common good.
• Logic of abundance and generosity: generosity is needed to break a system of anxiety.
• Those who break out of this narrative of fear break away from egoism and focus on common good (ie, saints).

Question 14

Da un esempio e spiega come le parabole del Regno di Mt, 13 offrono criteri per il discernimento e l’agire sociale cristiano?

Answer 14

• The Sower: success and failure are together, in the hands of God. We must be ready for a lack of success and the possibility of success that overwhelms any failure.
• The Grain and the Chaff: we must tolerate evil until the harvest. Trust in God for justice and avoid creating a utopia here and now. There will always be chaff among the grain until harvest time.
• The Mustard Seed: the seed starts small but gets bigger to super abundant proportions like the Kingdom. In the weak God can work wonders. Examples: JPII, Mother Theresa.
• The Leaven: we measure differently in front of God. What is inert and small can be the principle for growth and life. In social work, do we look for size or life?
• The Treasure in the Field: finding the Kingdom is a joy that cannot be contained, it overflows. We work for a treasure in the field. To find the treasure pushes us to risk everything.

Question 15

Come può la distinzione nella lingua greca fra eros e agape aiutarci nel discernimento sociale Cristiano?

Answer 15

Eros is possessive love, agape is God’s love.
God does not love us because of our merits, but His love gives us value. In social work, our job is to recognise the value in others that God’s love creates in them. Do we look for fulfilment of our own desires do we wish to create value in others? In international relations, it is often eros in the sense that one party seeks to possess something that another has.

Question 16

Cosa vuol dire che i Padri ci insegnano la contemporaneità della Scrittura?

Answer 16

• Bible does not offer pre-packaged solutions to everything but has criteria whose application helps to find valid solutions to problems.
• Still, St Ambrose affirms that the Bible is our contemporary. Eg, the story of Naboth is old but in morality it is current. Moral values in OT are also sustained in the NT.

Question 17

Puoi dare un esempio e spiegarlo di come i Padri ci insegnano il legame tra la dogmatica e la morale?

Answer 17

• Why did the early ecumenical councils focus so much on dogma? Because dogmatic problems had social consequences!
• Today, for example, the truths of natural law is relevant in discussing the “culture of death” in our society due to shifts in understanding of the nature of human person.
• Justice in the dogmatic sense and the social sense are the same.
• Ambrose: mercy and justice are the same because everything is given by God and we don’t really own anything.
• St Basil: the hungry can’t live as image and likeness of God so when we help them we help them to live in the image of God.
• Conversely, when we do not help a poor person, we distort the very image of God in ourselves.

Question 18

Puoi dare un esempio di come nei Padri si trova un profondo legame fra il culto e la solidarietà?

Answer 18

St Basil on the Eucharist: says that we cannot share incorruptible goods if we are not willing to share corruptible goods and that works of charity are a way to expiate sins. So there is a profound link between worship and solidarity, as in both worship and in caring for the poor we confess God’s lordship.

Question 19

In che senso parla san Basilio di Cesarea del ricco come amministratore [di Dio]?

Answer 19

The rich man’s wealth is a commission from God and so he becomes a bursar. Riches are to be spent on feeding the poor, making the rich man “a public fountain” who gives refreshment to others on behalf of God.

Question 20

In che consiste l’esortazione “imita la terra, uomo” del De avaritia di san Basilio di Cesarea?

Answer 20

Detachment deepens awareness of divine providence. Basil says that we should imitate the earth which does not keep the fruit it produces for itself.

Question 21

In che senso afferma san Tommaso che la vita sociale è necessaria?

Answer 21

• Aristotle: polis is the perfect community in which there is human fulfilment.
• Bellarmine: refers to the Church as the perfect community since it leads to perfection in God.
• Aristotle: when an Athenian votes, he is not just fulfilling a duty towards the polis – he’s doing something which has to do with his own self-fulfilment.
• Co-operation: there is no self-sufficiency. Man cannot reach his end alone.

Question 22

Quale definizione di giustizia da san Tommaso nella sua opera La politica dei principi cristiani?

Answer 22

• Justice is defined as “The constant and perpetual will to render to each person his proper due.”
• Justice can be legal, distributive, or communicative.
• Without justice, there is no civic life, according to Aristotle.

Question 23

Quali ragioni da san Tommaso per dimostrare la necessità della virtù dell’amicizia?

Answer 23

• Promotes the living together, nobody chooses to live without friendship.
• It is useful in times of misfortune.
• Adds harmony and sweetness to the soul
• Facilitates the ordering of the city.

Question 24

Che sei nozioni del bene comune troviamo nella scolastica? Spiegane una che sia rilevante per la morale sociale.

Answer 24

• God - final cause is the common good par excellence for all creatures
• Being - because shared by all beings, it is better to be than not to be
• Praise, reverence and service to the Creator - it is a common good that is present in the Bible and scholastic theology
more centered with social morality:
• beatitudo - beatitudo given in creation - natural that is found in the moral life
• good order - when everyone is capable of fulfilling his role. Good harmony order.
• ultimate end - common good extrinsic to everything. Common good of the limited political community and unlimited common good which is God, beyond the political community

Question 25

In che senso la visione della politica di san Tommaso è diversa di quella di sant’Agostino

Answer 25

Augustine, the politics is the basis of violence. Therefore the responsibility of political authority has to reduce the violence. It is like as if to stop the violence with violence. In this case Augustine speaks about the implication of the principle of lesser evil.
Thomas, the politics is to search the good. The law is to repress the major vices which affects others who cannot live equally with others of the vices.

Question 26

Cosa vorrebbe dire che il concetto di bene comune ha un valore euristico per san Tommaso?

Answer 26

This common good has a Heuristic value because it helps us in the search of a concept through a discernment which help us to understand what goes against or in favour of the cooperation. What is cooperation? It is a way of well-made conversation, which is a fruit of dialogue.

Question 27

Come afferma Müller che intende la Teologia della liberazione il lavoro teologico?

Answer 27

• Liberation Theology understands theological work as an active, practical, and above all, transformative participation in the integrated activity of liberation.
• It is a whole movement initiated by God which enables man’s historical activity and to serve liberation and humanisation of man himself.

Question 28

Perché afferma Müller che redenzione e liberazione son sinonimi della complessiva, integrale relazione dell’uomo con Dio che, in Gesù Cristo, si è chinato sull’uomo sofferente e bisognoso di salvezza?

Answer 28

Three levels of liberation:
• From sin as a rupture of the most profound friendship of God and man.
• From interior slavery to an uncontrolled thirst to profit from others.
• From oppression, marginalisation, etc. which manifest personal sin in social structures of sin.

Question 29

In che senso afferma Müller che è da intendersi l’espressione di Giovanni Paolo II che, in una lettera alla Conferenza episcopale del Brasile del 1986, sottolineava come la Teologia della liberazione fosse “non solo opportuna, ma utile e necessaria”?

Answer 29

• JPII: “Hunger from bread needs to be overcome, hunger for God needs to remain.”
• Physical poverty is man’s degrading destitution, refers to the need for salvation announced in the Gospels.
• Poverty then is a spiritual opening to serving the Kingdom.
• A religious’ vow to poverty renounces personal property to participate fully in the mission of their community.

Question 30

Che tre livelli di liberazione, o rispettivamente, di peccato distingue Gutiérrez?

Answer 30

Three levels of liberation:
• From sin as a rupture of the most profound friendship of God and man.
• From interior slavery to an uncontrolled thirst to profit from others.
• From oppression, marginalisation, etc. which manifest personal sin in social structures of sin.

Question 31

Qual è la definizione del principio del bene comune?

Answer 31

• The principle of the common good stems from the dignity, unity and equality of all people.
• “The sum total of social conditions which allow people, as groups or individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily.” (GS)
• It is the social and community dimension of the moral good.
• A person exists with and for others.
• The common good is the authentic reason for any form of social life (eg, family, friends).

Question 32

Puoi definire il principio della destinazione universale dei beni?

Answer 32

• God gave the earth to the whole human race for the sustenance of all its members, without excluding or favouring anyone.
• Each person must have access to the level of well-being necessary for his full development.
• The right to the common use of goods is the first principle of the whole ethical and social order and the characteristic principle of Christian social doctrine.
• All other rights are subordinate.
• Regulated interventions are necessary, interventions that are the result of national and international agreements

Question 33

Qual è l’impatto del principio della destinazione universale dei beni sulla visione dell’economia?

Answer 33

• An invitation to develop an economic vision inspired by moral values, and not lose sight of the origin or purpose of these goods.
• Guided by resourcefulness, planning and labour while preventing exclusion and exploitation.
• Strive for conditions necessary for integral development in which everyone can contribute.
• Private property is essential element of an authentically social and democratic society – ownership of goods should be equally accessible to all.

Question 34

Come enunciò Pio XI il principio di sussidiarietà nella Quadragesimo Anno (1931)?

Answer 34

• Depriving people of what they can do with their own resources at the local level is unlawful.
• The more perfectly a graduated order is kept among the various associations, the stronger social authority and effectiveness will be and the happier and more prosperous the condition of the State.

Question 35

Puoi definire la solidarietà come principio sociale e come virtù morale?

Answer 35

• Relationships need to be transformed into relationships tending towards genuine ethical-social solidarity.
• Solidarity is above all a moral value that determines the order of institutions.
• Structures of sin must be turned into structures of solidarity through the creation of laws, market regulations and juridical systems.
• Solidarity is also a moral virtue. Not about feeling sorry for others but commitment of oneself to the common good.
• A moral virtue because it places itself in the sphere of justice.