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.