John 1, 35-42 + CSDC and CV

John 1, 35-42 + CSDC and CV

CV  66b (b) Consumers should be continually educated [145] regarding their daily role, which can be exercised with respect for moral principles without diminishing the intrinsic economic rationality of the act of purchasing. In the retail industry, particularly at times like the present when purchasing power has diminished and people must live more frugally, it is necessary to explore other paths: for example, forms of cooperative purchasing like the consumer cooperatives that have been in operation since the nineteenth century, partly through the initiative of Catholics.

Notes: [145] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 36: loc. cit., 838-840.

Recourse to usury is to be morally condemned

CSDC 341. Although the quest for equitable profit is acceptable in economic and financial activity, recourse to usury is to be morally condemned: “Those whose usurious and avaricious dealings lead to the hunger and death of their brethren in the human family indirectly commit homicide, which is imputable to them”.[714] This condemnation extends also to international economic relations, especially with regard to the situation in less advanced countries, which must never be made to suffer “abusive if not usurious financial systems”.[715] More recently, the Magisterium used strong and clear words against this practice, which is still tragically widespread, describing usury as “a scourge that is also a reality in our time and that has a stranglehold on many peoples' lives”.[716]

  

Notes: [714] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2269. [715] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2438. [716] John Paul II, Catechesis at General Audience (4 February 2004), 3: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 11 February 2004, p. 11.

(Jn 1, 35-42) Come, and you will see 

[35] The next day John was there again with two of his disciples, [36] and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, "Behold, the Lamb of God." [37] The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus. [38] Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" [39] He said to them,"Come, and you will see." So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon. [40] Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus. [41] He first found his own brother Simon and told him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed). [42] Then he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Kephas" (which is translated Peter).

CSDC 32. Meditating on the gratuitousness and superabundance of the Father's divine gift of the Son, which Jesus taught and bore witness to by giving his life for us, the Apostle John grasps its profound meaning and its most logical consequence. “Beloved, if God so loves us, we also ought to love one another. No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 Jn 4:11-12). The reciprocity of love is required by the commandment that Jesus describes as “new” and as “his”: “that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (Jn 13:34). The commandment of mutual love shows how to live in Christ the Trinitarian life within the Church, the Body of Christ, and how to transform history until it reaches its fulfilment in the heavenly Jerusalem.

 
[Initials and Abbreviations.- CSDC: Pontifical Council for Justice And Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church; -  SDC: Social Doctrine of the Church; - CV: Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in truth)]