Caritas et Veritas

Caritas et Veritas is the name of our new Catholic blog.  We hope to bring both love and truth simultaneously and in every post – rooted in the teachings of the Church, and with a genuine hope to bring these teachings and perspectives to others in a manner that is interesting, charitable, and fun.  To speak love and truth can be difficult at times, and frankly, in my life, sometimes the most loving thing is the outright, blunt truth.

We, like you, are in a process of continual conversion.  It is our desire to teach from the heart of the Church. But, the writings and the individual opinions and approaches expressed are our own and as such are open to correction and development. Together we come from academic and pastoral backgrounds and we hope to bring a balance of both to you in our postings. 

We encourage you to join with us in dialogue and to participate in a fruitful, meaningful discussion.  It is also important for you, the reader, to know that the authors are friends– some of us having become Catholic and some of us reverting back to the Church.  I can remember staying up talking many nights about Christianity and Catholicism in college with these friends and in many ways this blog is a continuation of that conversation started many years ago after some time of reflection, schooling, and differing experiences.  We welcome you to that conversation and encourage you to check back often.

So, why Caritas et Veritas as opposed to “love in truth”?  For me, keeping love and truth together is imperative and important.  It is a key principle to keep in mind when thinking about the Church, about Christ, and an important hermeneutic in evaluating orthodoxy.   Please notice that it is “love and truth” as distinct from “love in truth” of which Pope Benedict’s latest encyclical brilliantly addresses.

The Catholic Church is about love and truth held together simultaneously and in balance. Pope Benedict discusses the need for truth in love and inversely love in truth.  To capture this meaning, we have added an “and” to signify the need in our world, in our Church, and in our lives for both love and truth.  Of course it is not a correction of the Pope’s work, but rather a recongnition and acknowledgment that in our world and in some circles within the Church there can be a denial of truth altogether and thus a misunderstanding regarding the meaning of love, or a acceptance of “truth” albeit exclusively scientific or defined by the world so as to deny the love of God and the faith (most certainly rational) needed to acquire it.  As Cardinal Ratzinger said in his homily before the conclave of which he would be elected Pope, “love without truth is blind and truth without love is empty.”

This viewpoint helps us discover where the Church would be on particular issue, on how it approaches ministry and how it approaches the world.  It is our hope for this blog to use this as a paradigm in our thought, in our writing, and in our approach.