Zenit: Allan Carlson: The Family Wage in "Caritas in Veritate"

In contrast, "Caritas in Veritate" seems to assume that mothers will be in the workforce (No. 63). It makes no mention of the special work of women in the home, while acknowledging "the right to a just wage and to the personal security of the worker and his or her family." In discussing "decency" in regard to work, Benedict XVI describes "work that is freely chosen, effectively associating workers, both men and women, with the development of their community; work that enables the worker to be respected and free from any form of discrimination; work that makes it possible for families to meet their needs and provide schooling for their children, without the children themselves being forced into labor." Earlier Popes would have added "and mothers" to that last phrase; Benedict XVI seems to have quietly accepted the two-earner or two-career family as the new social and economic norm.

This may be a case of simply acknowledging current reality. In the developed world (and starting in the late 1960s), capitalism’s hunger for the labor of adult women broke though the legal and cultural barriers created over the prior 100 years to protect the mother in the home. In the developing world, women's labor is now simply assumed. To progressive eyes, the mother in the home is at best an antiquarian curiosity.

However, this potential shift raises troubling questions about the nature of the Catholic family. Has the rich concept of complementarity -- men and women being equal in dignity but different in function -- been deemphasized? Has the Christian Democratic defense of the full-time mother subtly given way to the Swedish model of gender equality in the workplace?

Benedict XVI has spoken about the dignity of motherhood in many other settings, but the silence in this encyclical concerning familial roles has created an ambiguity that could undermine the very institution the Pope is strenuously trying to protect. Perhaps a future apostolic letter will clarify these points.

"This may be a case of simply acknowledging current reality," could perhaps be said of the assumptions behind many of the points that the encyclical makes. If this is the case, then is meeting everyone where they are at (and not asking them to question their customs and assumptions, but instead asking them to "make the best of things as they are") really effective? To those who are given more, isn't more required of them?

Russell Hittinger talked about how the papal encyclical replaced dogmatic declarations (if that is the proper term to use -- statements like the Syllabus of Errors). It may have the appearance of being more pastoral, but I cannot help but sympathize with those who say the letter will be read by only a few, and only by the faithful. It will fall on deaf ears for the rest. Perhaps the office of the papacy would be better employed in another way.