V.
CIVICANDPOLITICALLOVE
228. Care for nature is part of a lifestyle which includes the capacity for living together and
communion. Jesus reminded us that we have God as our common Father and that this makes us
brothers and sisters. Fraternal love can only be gratuitous; it can never be ameans of repaying others
for what they have done or will do for us. That is why it is possible to love our enemies. This same
gratuitousness inspires us to love and accept the wind, the sun and the clouds, even though we cannot
control them. In this sense, we can speakof a “universal fraternity”.
229. We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility
for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it. We have had enough of
immorality and themockeryof ethics, goodness, faith and honesty. It is time to acknowledge that light-
hearted superficiality has done us no good. When the foundations of social life are corroded, what
ensues are battles over conflicting interests, new forms of violence and brutality, and obstacles to the
growthof a genuine cultureof care for the environment.
230. Saint Therese of Lisieux invites us to practise the little way of love, not to miss out on a kind
word, a smile or any small gesturewhich sows peace and friendship. An integral ecology is alsomade
up of simple daily gestures which breakwith the logic of violence, exploitation and selfishness. In the
end, a world of exacerbated consumption is at the same time a world which mistreats life in all its
forms.
231. Love, overflowing with small gestures of mutual care, is also civic and political, and it makes
itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world. Love for society and commitment to the
common good are outstanding expressions of a charity which affects not only relationships between
individuals but also “macro-relationships, social, economic and political ones”.
156
That is why the
Church set before the world the ideal of a “civilization of love”.
157
Social love is the key to authentic
development: “In order tomake societymore human, more worthy of the human person, love in social
life – political, economic and cultural – must be given renewed value, becoming the constant and
156
BENEDICTXVI,Encyclical Letter
Caritas inVeritate
(29 June 2009) 2:AAS 101 (2009), 642.
157
PAULVI,
Message for the1977WorldDayof Peace
:AAS 68 (1976), 709.
