Vatican City, Sep 28, 2011 / 16:00 pm
The Catholic Association of Latino Leaders has become the first lay organization in the world to give the Vatican an official response to Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical “Caritas in Veritate.”
“The response provides a beautiful vision of how to practice your Catholic faith in the business world and how that world is supposed to be,” said Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, who is a founding member of the group.
Archbishop Gomez was in Rome as part of a delegation to present the Vatican with a 28-page book that outlines the Latino leaders' response to the Pope’s encyclical.
In “Caritas in Veritate,” translated as “Charity in Truth, Pope Benedict offers an ethical framework for new thinking on social and economic matters. Published in 2009, it made headlines worldwide as it was seen as a Vatican response to the global economic crisis.
“The idea of responding to a papal encyclical – as unusual as that may be – was actually born when we were here for meeting in the Vatican last year,” explained the association's president, Robert Aguirre, who was also in Rome for the handover.
Aguirre told CNA how the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Peter Turkson, told them during last year's trip that “encyclicals go out and yet we never hear back from lay people.”
“So we thought it would be a wonderful idea if we took up that responsibility and said here is how we as lay people must respond to the Holy Father’s words and teachings,” said Aguirre.