If a hungry person comes to me and I give him or her a garment, I am not recognizing the real good of that person, which I do if I give him or her food. The example was given by the Cardinal of Bologna, Carlo Caffarra, in a lecture given in that city (November 2009) on the encyclical "Caritas in veritate". The Cardinal defended that "charity in truth" consists in this: wanting the real good, the true good, for the other. "In truth" means "that human reason has the natural capacity to discern what are the fundamental goods of man."

Without truth, says the encyclical of Benedict XVI, charity would be reduced to empty sentimentality. For this reason," continued Carlo Caffarra, "if we fall under the tyranny of relativism-if we no longer know what truth is, and therefore where good or evil lies for man-then we cannot avoid the temptation to impose our own interests in social life.

Paraphrasing a well-known definition of theology (faith that seeks to understand), Caffarra said that the Social Doctrine of the Church becomes "love that seeks to understand" (read, in social life). This explains why the encyclical says: the true driving force of development is not simply charity, but "charity in truth".

In order to show the ways of the true development of man, of society and of humanity as a whole, the encyclical goes through a "double thread" of very concrete questions, pointing out positive and negative answers, that is, errors. A positive example: the true development is facilitated by the "lived" knowledge of fraternity and its original relationship, that is, paternity. In the negative: "the absolutism of technology" or technocracy reduces the good of people to what is useful or pleasurable; consequently, there is no other sense of things than that which we have created: the lack of sense (nihilism), which closes the way to happiness.

The Cardinal concluded that the encyclical is addressed to everyone - those on the "right" and those on the "left" - and not only to those who have political, social or economic responsibilities; because what is at stake is a vision of man (an individual closed in on himself or called to a relationship with others?).

"Love that seeks to understand". Is this not a good definition, not of Social Doctrine, but in a certain way of theology itself? Since the faith of the theologian must be a "lived faith" and, therefore, a knowledge that is love. When the classics said that theology is "faith that seeks to understand", they were not referring to a theoretical faith, but to the faith that, according to St. Paul, lives and acts through love (cf. Gal 5:6).

That is why we are also before a good definition of what could be called "the life of Christian intelligence"; and therefore a good goal for the training of all Christians: the one who works in the field, in the home or in industry, in business management or in the university teaching . "Love that seeks to understand". Indeed, what other reality is more fruitful for thought and life, more credible and attractive than Christian love?

Let us not forget that "to love authentically" - as the encyclical "Caritas in veritate" says - is "the vocation that God has placed in the heart and mind of every human being". A vocation that Christ manifests, frees from human limitations and makes fully possible.