This presentation examines how Pope Benedict XVI's social teaching contributes to understanding the normative foundations of the modern political community, with particular attention to the problem of equality and inequality. As a point of departure, it engages Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde's thesis that the liberal state depends on moral and cultural preconditions it cannot generate by itself. In Joseph Ratzinger's interpretation, these "pre-political" foundations - anthropological, moral, and religious assumptions - decisively shape conceptions of justice, human dignity, and social solidarity. The first part of the presentation reconstructs Ratzinger's argument that a pluralist state cannot be fully value-neutral, since it presupposes a substantive understanding of the human person and moral responsibility. The second part analyzes Deus Caritas Est and especially Caritas in Veritate, showing how normative moral claims are linked to empirical social realities such as structural inequalities, uneven development, and asymmetries of power. In Caritas in Veritate, Benedict XVI criticizes purely technocratic or market-driven approaches to development and emphasizes the equal dignity of persons, the ethical limits of economic rationality, and the need for solidarity and institutional responsibility in addressing global inequalities. The presentation argues that Benedict's social teaching provides critical resources for evaluating unjust forms of inequality, while also revealing internal tensions between universal moral ideals and historically contingent institutional arrangements. In doing so, it contributes to methodological debates in Catholic social thought and to broader interdisciplinary discussions on equality, justice, and the normative foundations of political community.