ENCYCLICAL LETTER
CARITAS IN VERITATE
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
CARITAS IN VERITATE
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
BENEDICT XVI
TO THE BISHOPS
PRIESTS AND DEACONS
MEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUS
THE LAY FAITHFUL
AND ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL
ON INTEGRAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
IN CHARITY AND TRUTH
PRIESTS AND DEACONS
MEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUS
THE LAY FAITHFUL
AND ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL
ON INTEGRAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
IN CHARITY AND TRUTH
1. Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life
and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force
behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity. Love —
caritas — is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for
courageous
and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force
that
has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth. Each person
finds his
good by adherence to God's plan for him, in order to realize it fully:
in this
plan, he finds his truth, and through adherence to this truth he becomes
free (cf. Jn 8:32). To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility
and conviction,
and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and
indispensable forms
of charity. Charity, in fact, “rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor 13:6). All
people feel the interior impulse to love authentically: love and truth
never
abandon them completely, because these are the vocation planted by God
in the
heart and mind of every human person. The search for love and truth is
purified
and liberated by Jesus Christ from the impoverishment that our humanity
brings
to it, and he reveals to us in all its fullness the initiative of love
and the
plan for true life that God has prepared for us. In Christ, charity in truth
becomes the Face of his Person, a vocation for us to love our brothers and
sisters in the truth of his plan. Indeed, he himself is the Truth (cf. Jn
14:6).
2. Charity is at the heart of the Church's social doctrine. Every
responsibility and every commitment spelt out by that doctrine is derived from
charity which, according to the teaching of Jesus, is the synthesis of the
entire Law (cf. Mt 22:36- 40). It gives real substance to the personal
relationship with God and with neighbour; it is the principle not only of
micro-relationships (with friends, with family members or within small groups)
but also of macro-relationships (social, economic and political ones). For the
Church, instructed by the Gospel, charity is everything because, as Saint John
teaches (cf. 1 Jn 4:8, 16) and as I recalled in my first
Encyclical
Letter, “God is love” (Deus Caritas Est): everything has its origin in
God's love, everything is shaped by it, everything is directed towards it.
Love is God's greatest gift to humanity, it is his promise and our hope.
I am aware of the ways in which charity has been and continues to be
misconstrued and emptied of meaning, with the consequent risk of being
misinterpreted, detached from ethical living and, in any event, undervalued. In
the social, juridical, cultural, political and economic fields — the contexts,
in other words, that are most exposed to this danger — it is easily dismissed as
irrelevant for interpreting and giving direction to moral responsibility. Hence
the need to link charity with truth not only in the sequence, pointed out by
Saint Paul, of veritas in caritate (Eph 4:15), but also in the
inverse and complementary sequence of caritas in veritate. Truth needs to
be sought, found and expressed within the “economy” of charity, but charity in
its turn needs to be understood, confirmed and practised in the light of truth.
In this way, not only do we do a service to charity enlightened by truth, but we
also help give credibility to truth, demonstrating its persuasive and
authenticating power in the practical setting of social living. This is a matter
of no small account today, in a social and cultural context which relativizes
truth, often paying little heed to it and showing increasing reluctance to
acknowledge its existence.
3. Through this close link with truth, charity can be recognized as an
authentic expression of humanity and as an element of fundamental importance in
human relations, including those of a public nature. Only in truth does
charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth
is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the
light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to
the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift,
acceptance, and communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into
sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way.
In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to
contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word “love” is abused and
distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity
from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and
social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal
breathing-space. In the truth, charity reflects the personal yet public
dimension of faith in the God of the Bible, who is both Agápe and
Lógos: Charity and Truth, Love and Word.
4. Because it is filled with truth, charity can be understood in the
abundance of its values, it can be shared and communicated. Truth, in
fact, is lógos which creates diá-logos, and hence communication
and communion. Truth, by enabling men and women to let go of their subjective
opinions and impressions, allows them to move beyond cultural and historical
limitations and to come together in the assessment of the value and substance of
things. Truth opens and unites our minds in the lógos of love: this is
the Christian proclamation and testimony of charity. In the present social and
cultural context, where there is a widespread tendency to relativize truth,
practising charity in truth helps people to understand that adhering to the
values of Christianity is not merely useful but essential for building a good
society and for true integral human development. A Christianity of charity
without truth would be more or less interchangeable with a pool of good
sentiments, helpful for social cohesion, but of little relevance. In other words,
there would no longer be any real place for God in the world. Without truth,
charity is confined to a narrow field devoid of relations. It is excluded from
the plans and processes of promoting human development of universal range, in
dialogue between knowledge and praxis.
5. Charity is love received and given. It is “grace” (cháris). Its
source is the wellspring of the Father's love for the Son, in the Holy Spirit.
Love comes down to us from the Son. It is creative love, through which we have
our being; it is redemptive love, through which we are recreated. Love is
revealed and made present by Christ (cf. Jn 13:1) and “poured into our
hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5). As the objects of God's love,
men and women become subjects of charity, they are called to make themselves
instruments of grace, so as to pour forth God's charity and to weave networks of
charity.
This dynamic of charity received and given is what gives rise to the Church's
social teaching, which is caritas in veritate in re sociali: the
proclamation of the truth of Christ's love in society. This doctrine is a
service to charity, but its locus is truth. Truth preserves and expresses
charity's power to liberate in the ever-changing events of history. It is at the
same time the truth of faith and of reason, both in the distinction and also in
the convergence of those two cognitive fields. Development, social well-being,
the search for a satisfactory solution to the grave socio-economic problems
besetting humanity, all need this truth. What they need even more is that this
truth should be loved and demonstrated. Without truth, without trust and love
for what is true, there is no social conscience and responsibility, and social
action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in
social fragmentation, especially in a globalized society at difficult times like
the present.
6. “Caritas in veritate” is the principle around which the Church's
social doctrine turns, a principle that takes on practical form in the criteria
that govern moral action. I would like to consider two of these in particular,
of special relevance to the commitment to development in an increasingly
globalized society: justice and the common good.
First of all, justice. Ubi societas, ibi ius: every society draws up
its own system of justice. Charity goes beyond justice, because to love
is to give, to offer what is “mine” to the other; but it never lacks justice,
which prompts us to give the other what is “his”, what is due to him by reason
of his being or his acting. I cannot “give” what is mine to the other, without
first giving him what pertains to him in justice. If we love others with
charity, then first of all we are just towards them. Not only is justice not
extraneous to charity, not only is it not an alternative or parallel path to
charity: justice is inseparable from charity[1], and intrinsic to it.
Justice is the primary way of charity or, in Paul VI's words, “the minimum
measure” of it[2], an integral part of the love “in deed and in truth”
(1 Jn 3:18), to which Saint John exhorts us. On the one hand, charity
demands justice: recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of
individuals and peoples. It strives to build the earthly city according
to law and justice. On the other hand, charity transcends justice and completes
it in the logic of giving and forgiving[3]. The earthly city is
promoted not merely by relationships of rights and duties, but to an even
greater and more fundamental extent by relationships of gratuitousness, mercy
and communion. Charity always manifests God's love in human relationships as
well, it gives theological and salvific value to all commitment for justice in
the world.
7. Another important consideration is the common good. To love someone is to
desire that person's good and to take effective steps to secure it. Besides the
good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the
common good. It is the good of “all of us”, made up of individuals, families and
intermediate groups who together constitute society[4]. It is a good
that is sought not for its own sake, but for the people who belong to the social
community and who can only really and effectively pursue their good within it.
To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of
justice and charity. To take a stand for the common good is on the one hand
to be solicitous for, and on the other hand to avail oneself of, that complex of
institutions that give structure to the life of society, juridically, civilly,
politically and culturally, making it the pólis, or “city”. The more we
strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbours,
the more effectively we love them. Every Christian is called to practise this
charity, in a manner corresponding to his vocation and according to the degree
of influence he wields in the pólis. This is the institutional path — we
might also call it the political path — of charity, no less excellent and
effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbour directly,
outside the institutional mediation of the pólis. When animated by
charity, commitment to the common good has greater worth than a merely secular
and political stand would have. Like all commitment to justice, it has a place
within the testimony of divine charity that paves the way for eternity through
temporal action. Man's earthly activity, when inspired and sustained by charity,
contributes to the building of the universal city of God, which is the
goal of the history of the human family. In an increasingly globalized society,
the common good and the effort to obtain it cannot fail to assume the dimensions
of the whole human family, that is to say, the community of peoples and nations[5],
in such a way as to shape the earthly city in unity and peace, rendering
it to some degree an anticipation and a prefiguration of the undivided city
of God.
8. In 1967, when he issued the Encyclical
Populorum Progressio, my
venerable predecessor Pope Paul VI illuminated the great theme of the
development of peoples with the splendour of truth and the gentle light of
Christ's charity. He taught that life in Christ is the first and principal
factor of development[6] and he entrusted us with the task of
travelling the path of development with all our heart and all our intelligence[7],
that is to say with the ardour of charity and the wisdom of truth. It is the
primordial truth of God's love, grace bestowed upon us, that opens our lives to
gift and makes it possible to hope for a “development of the whole man and of
all men”[8], to hope for progress “from less human conditions to those
which are more human”[9], obtained by overcoming the difficulties that
are inevitably encountered along the way.
At a distance of over forty years from the Encyclical's publication, I intend
to pay tribute and to honour the memory of the great Pope Paul VI, revisiting
his teachings on integral human development and taking my place within
the path that they marked out, so as to apply them to the present moment. This
continual application to contemporary circumstances began with the Encyclical
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, with which the Servant of God Pope John Paul II
chose to mark the twentieth anniversary of the publication of
Populorum Progressio. Until that time, only
Rerum Novarum had been commemorated
in this way. Now that a further twenty years have passed, I express my
conviction that
Populorum Progressio deserves to be considered “the
Rerum Novarum of the present age”, shedding light upon humanity's journey
towards unity.
9. Love in truth — caritas in veritate — is a great challenge for the
Church in a world that is becoming progressively and pervasively globalized. The
risk for our time is that the de facto interdependence of people and
nations is not matched by ethical interaction of consciences and minds that
would give rise to truly human development. Only in charity, illumined by the
light of reason and faith, is it possible to pursue development goals that
possess a more humane and humanizing value. The sharing of goods and resources,
from which authentic development proceeds, is not guaranteed by merely technical
progress and relationships of utility, but by the potential of love that
overcomes evil with good (cf. Rom 12:21), opening up the path towards
reciprocity of consciences and liberties.
The Church does not have technical solutions to offer[10] and does
not claim “to interfere in any way in the politics of States.”[11] She
does, however, have a mission of truth to accomplish, in every time and
circumstance, for a society that is attuned to man, to his dignity, to his
vocation. Without truth, it is easy to fall into an empiricist and sceptical
view of life, incapable of rising to the level of praxis because of a lack of
interest in grasping the values — sometimes even the meanings — with which to
judge and direct it. Fidelity to man requires fidelity to the truth,
which alone is the guarantee of freedom (cf. Jn 8:32) and of
the possibility of integral human development. For this reason the Church
searches for truth, proclaims it tirelessly and recognizes it wherever it is
manifested. This mission of truth is something that the Church can never
renounce. Her social doctrine is a particular dimension of this proclamation: it
is a service to the truth which sets us free. Open to the truth, from whichever
branch of knowledge it comes, the Church's social doctrine receives it,
assembles into a unity the fragments in which it is often found, and mediates it
within the constantly changing life-patterns of the society of peoples and
nations[12].
THE MESSAGE
OF POPULORUM PROGRESSIO
OF POPULORUM PROGRESSIO
10. A fresh reading of
Populorum Progressio, more than forty years
after its publication, invites us to remain faithful to its message of charity
and truth, viewed within the overall context of Paul VI's specific magisterium
and, more generally, within the tradition of the Church's social doctrine.
Moreover, an evaluation is needed of the different terms in which the problem of
development is presented today, as compared with forty years ago. The correct
viewpoint, then, is that of the Tradition of the apostolic faith[13],
a patrimony both ancient and new, outside of which
Populorum Progressio would be a document without roots — and issues concerning development would be
reduced to merely sociological data.
11. The publication of
Populorum Progressio occurred immediately after
the conclusion of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, and in its opening
paragraphs it clearly indicates its close connection with the Council[14].
Twenty years later, in
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, John Paul II, in his
turn, emphasized the earlier Encyclical's fruitful relationship with the Council,
and especially with the Pastoral Constitution
Gaudium et Spes[15].
I too wish to recall here the importance of the Second Vatican Council for Paul
VI's Encyclical and for the whole of the subsequent social Magisterium of the
Popes. The Council probed more deeply what had always belonged to the truth of
the faith, namely that the Church, being at God's service, is at the service of
the world in terms of love and truth. Paul VI set out from this vision in order
to convey two important truths. The first is that the whole Church, in all
her being and acting — when she proclaims, when she celebrates, when she
performs works of charity — is engaged in promoting integral human development.
She has a public role over and above her charitable and educational activities:
all the energy she brings to the advancement of humanity and of universal
fraternity is manifested when she is able to operate in a climate of freedom. In
not a few cases, that freedom is impeded by prohibitions and persecutions, or it
is limited when the Church's public presence is reduced to her charitable
activities alone. The second truth is that authentic human development
concerns the whole of the person in every single dimension[16].
Without the perspective of eternal life, human progress in this world is denied
breathing-space. Enclosed within history, it runs the risk of being reduced to
the mere accumulation of wealth; humanity thus loses the courage to be at the
service of higher goods, at the service of the great and disinterested
initiatives called forth by universal charity. Man does not develop through his
own powers, nor can development simply be handed to him. In the course of
history, it was often maintained that the creation of institutions was
sufficient to guarantee the fulfilment of humanity's right to development.
Unfortunately, too much confidence was placed in those institutions, as if they
were able to deliver the desired objective automatically. In reality,
institutions by themselves are not enough, because integral human development is
primarily a vocation, and therefore it involves a free assumption of
responsibility in solidarity on the part of everyone. Moreover, such development
requires a transcendent vision of the person, it needs God: without him,
development is either denied, or entrusted exclusively to man, who falls into
the trap of thinking he can bring about his own salvation, and ends up promoting
a dehumanized form of development. Only through an encounter with God are we
able to see in the other something more than just another creature[17],
to recognize the divine image in the other, thus truly coming to discover him or
her and to mature in a love that “becomes concern and care for the other.”[18]
12. The link between
Populorum Progressio and the Second Vatican
Council does not mean that Paul VI's social magisterium marked a break with that
of previous Popes, because the Council constitutes a deeper exploration of this
magisterium within the continuity of the Church's life[19]. In this
sense, clarity is not served by certain abstract subdivisions of the Church's
social doctrine, which apply categories to Papal social teaching that are
extraneous to it. It is not a case of two typologies of social doctrine, one
pre-conciliar and one post-conciliar, differing from one another: on the
contrary, there is a single teaching, consistent and at the same time ever
new[20]. It is one thing to draw attention to the particular
characteristics of one Encyclical or another, of the teaching of one Pope or
another, but quite another to lose sight of the coherence of the overall
doctrinal corpus[21]. Coherence does not mean a closed system:
on the contrary, it means dynamic faithfulness to a light received. The Church's
social doctrine illuminates with an unchanging light the new problems that are
constantly emerging[22]. This safeguards the permanent and historical
character of the doctrinal “patrimony”[23] which, with its specific
characteristics, is part and parcel of the Church's ever-living Tradition[24].
Social doctrine is built on the foundation handed on by the Apostles to the
Fathers of the Church, and then received and further explored by the great
Christian doctors. This doctrine points definitively to the New Man, to the
“last Adam [who] became a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45), the
principle of the charity that “never ends” (1 Cor 13:8). It is attested
by the saints and by those who gave their lives for Christ our Saviour in the
field of justice and peace. It is an expression of the prophetic task of the
Supreme Pontiffs to give apostolic guidance to the Church of Christ and to
discern the new demands of evangelization. For these reasons,
Populorum Progressio, situated within the great current of Tradition, can still speak
to us today.
13. In addition to its important link with the entirety of the Church's
social doctrine,
Populorum Progressio is closely connected to the
overall magisterium of Paul VI, especially his social magisterium. His was
certainly a social teaching of great importance: he underlined the indispensable
importance of the Gospel for building a society according to freedom and justice,
in the ideal and historical perspective of a civilization animated by love. Paul
VI clearly understood that the social question had become worldwide
[25] and he grasped the interconnection between the impetus towards the
unification of humanity and the Christian ideal of a single family of peoples in
solidarity and fraternity. In the notion of development, understood in human
and Christian terms, he identified the heart of the Christian social message,
and he proposed Christian charity as the principal force at the service of
development. Motivated by the wish to make Christ's love fully visible to
contemporary men and women, Paul VI addressed important ethical questions
robustly, without yielding to the cultural weaknesses of his time.
14. In his Apostolic Letter Octogesima Adveniens of 1971, Paul VI
reflected on the meaning of politics, and the danger constituted by utopian
and ideological visions that place its ethical and human dimensions in
jeopardy. These are matters closely connected with development. Unfortunately
the negative ideologies continue to flourish. Paul VI had already warned against
the technocratic ideology so prevalent today[26], fully aware of the
great danger of entrusting the entire process of development to technology
alone, because in that way it would lack direction. Technology, viewed in itself,
is ambivalent. If on the one hand, some today would be inclined to entrust the
entire process of development to technology, on the other hand we are witnessing
an upsurge of ideologies that deny in toto the very value of development,
viewing it as radically anti-human and merely a source of degradation. This
leads to a rejection, not only of the distorted and unjust way in which progress
is sometimes directed, but also of scientific discoveries themselves, which, if
well used, could serve as an opportunity of growth for all. The idea of a world
without development indicates a lack of trust in man and in God. It is therefore
a serious mistake to undervalue human capacity to exercise control over the
deviations of development or to overlook the fact that man is constitutionally
oriented towards “being more”. Idealizing technical progress, or contemplating
the utopia of a return to humanity's original natural state, are two contrasting
ways of detaching progress from its moral evaluation and hence from our
responsibility.
15. Two further documents by Paul VI without any direct link to social
doctrine — the Encyclical
Humanae Vitae (25 July 1968) and the Apostolic
Exhortation
Evangelii Nuntiandi (8 December 1975) — are highly important
for delineating the fully human meaning of the development that the Church
proposes. It is therefore helpful to consider these texts too in relation to
Populorum Progressio.
The Encyclical
Humanae Vitae emphasizes both the unitive and the
procreative meaning of sexuality, thereby locating at the foundation of society
the married couple, man and woman, who accept one another mutually, in
distinction and in complementarity: a couple, therefore, that is open to life[27].
This is not a question of purely individual morality:
Humanae Vitae indicates the strong links between life ethics and social ethics,
ushering in a new area of magisterial teaching that has gradually been
articulated in a series of documents, most recently John Paul II's Encyclical
Evangelium Vitae[28]. The Church forcefully maintains this link
between life ethics and social ethics, fully aware that “a society lacks solid
foundations when, on the one hand, it asserts values such as the dignity of the
person, justice and peace, but then, on the other hand, radically acts to the
contrary by allowing or tolerating a variety of ways in which human life is
devalued and violated, especially where it is weak or marginalized.”[29]
The Apostolic Exhortation
Evangelii Nuntiandi, for its part, is very
closely linked with development, given that, in Paul VI's words,
“evangelization would not be complete if it did not take account of the
unceasing interplay of the Gospel and of man's concrete life, both personal and
social.”[30] “Between evangelization and human advancement —
development and liberation — there are in fact profound links”[31]: on
the basis of this insight, Paul VI clearly presented the relationship between
the proclamation of Christ and the advancement of the individual in society.
Testimony to Christ's charity, through works of justice, peace and development,
is part and parcel of evangelization, because Jesus Christ, who loves us, is
concerned with the whole person. These important teachings form the basis for
the missionary aspect[32] of the Church's social doctrine, which is an
essential element of evangelization[33]. The Church's social doctrine
proclaims and bears witness to faith. It is an instrument and an indispensable
setting for formation in faith.
16. In
Populorum Progressio, Paul VI taught that progress, in its
origin and essence, is first and foremost a vocation: “in the design of
God, every man is called upon to develop and fulfil himself, for every life is a
vocation.”[34] This is what gives legitimacy to the Church's
involvement in the whole question of development. If development were concerned
with merely technical aspects of human life, and not with the meaning of man's
pilgrimage through history in company with his fellow human beings, nor with
identifying the goal of that journey, then the Church would not be entitled to
speak on it. Paul VI, like Leo XIII before him in
Rerum Novarum[35],
knew that he was carrying out a duty proper to his office by shedding the light
of the Gospel on the social questions of his time[36].
To regard development as a vocation is to recognize, on the one hand,
that it derives from a transcendent call, and on the other hand that it is
incapable, on its own, of supplying its ultimate meaning. Not without reason the
word “vocation” is also found in another passage of the Encyclical, where we
read: “There is no true humanism but that which is open to the Absolute, and is
conscious of a vocation which gives human life its true meaning.”[37]
This vision of development is at the heart of
Populorum Progressio, and
it lies behind all Paul VI's reflections on freedom, on truth and on charity in
development. It is also the principal reason why that Encyclical is still timely
in our day.
17. A vocation is a call that requires a free and responsible answer.
Integral human development presupposes the responsible freedom of the
individual and of peoples: no structure can guarantee this development over and
above human responsibility. The “types of messianism which give promises but
create illusions”[38] always build their case on a denial of the
transcendent dimension of development, in the conviction that it lies entirely
at their disposal. This false security becomes a weakness, because it involves
reducing man to subservience, to a mere means for development, while the
humility of those who accept a vocation is transformed into true autonomy,
because it sets them free. Paul VI was in no doubt that obstacles and forms of
conditioning hold up development, but he was also certain that “each one remains,
whatever be these influences affecting him, the principal agent of his own
success or failure.”[39] This freedom concerns the type of development
we are considering, but it also affects situations of underdevelopment which are
not due to chance or historical necessity, but are attributable to human
responsibility. This is why “the peoples in hunger are making a dramatic appeal
to the peoples blessed with abundance”[40]. This too is a vocation, a
call addressed by free subjects to other free subjects in favour of an
assumption of shared responsibility. Paul VI had a keen sense of the importance
of economic structures and institutions, but he had an equally clear sense of
their nature as instruments of human freedom. Only when it is free can
development be integrally human; only in a climate of responsible freedom can it
grow in a satisfactory manner.
18. Besides requiring freedom, integral human development as a vocation
also demands respect for its truth. The vocation to progress drives us to
“do more, know more and have more in order to be more”[41]. But herein
lies the problem: what does it mean “to be more”? Paul VI answers the question
by indicating the essential quality of “authentic” development: it must be
“integral, that is, it has to promote the good of every man and of the whole
man”[42]. Amid the various competing anthropological visions put
forward in today's society, even more so than in Paul VI's time, the Christian
vision has the particular characteristic of asserting and justifying the
unconditional value of the human person and the meaning of his growth. The
Christian vocation to development helps to promote the advancement of all men
and of the whole man. As Paul VI wrote: “What we hold important is man, each man
and each group of men, and we even include the whole of humanity”[43]. In
promoting development, the Christian faith does not rely on privilege or
positions of power, nor even on the merits of Christians (even though these
existed and continue to exist alongside their natural limitations)[44],
but only on Christ, to whom every authentic vocation to integral human
development must be directed. The Gospel is fundamental for development,
because in the Gospel, Christ, “in the very revelation of the mystery of the
Father and of his love, fully reveals humanity to itself”[45]. Taught
by her Lord, the Church examines the signs of the times and interprets them,
offering the world “what she possesses as her characteristic attribute: a global
vision of man and of the human race”[46]. Precisely because God gives a
resounding “yes” to man[47], man cannot fail to open himself to the
divine vocation to pursue his own development. The truth of development consists
in its completeness: if it does not involve the whole man and every man, it is
not true development. This is the central message of
Populorum Progressio,
valid for today and for all time. Integral human development on the natural
plane, as a response to a vocation from God the Creator[48], demands
self-fulfilment in a “transcendent humanism which gives [to man] his greatest
possible perfection: this is the highest goal of personal development”[49].
The Christian vocation to this development therefore applies to both the natural
plane and the supernatural plane; which is why, “when God is eclipsed, our
ability to recognize the natural order, purpose and the ‘good' begins to wane”[50].
19. Finally, the vision of development as a vocation brings with it the
central place of charity within that development. Paul VI, in his Encyclical
Letter
Populorum Progressio, pointed out that the causes of
underdevelopment are not primarily of the material order. He invited us to
search for them in other dimensions of the human person: first of all, in the
will, which often neglects the duties of solidarity; secondly in thinking, which
does not always give proper direction to the will. Hence, in the pursuit of
development, there is a need for “the deep thought and reflection of wise men in
search of a new humanism which will enable modern man to find himself anew”[51].
But that is not all. Underdevelopment has an even more important cause than lack
of deep thought: it is “the lack of brotherhood among individuals and peoples”[52].
Will it ever be possible to obtain this brotherhood by human effort alone? As
society becomes ever more globalized, it makes us neighbours but does not make
us brothers. Reason, by itself, is capable of grasping the equality between men
and of giving stability to their civic coexistence, but it cannot establish
fraternity. This originates in a transcendent vocation from God the Father, who
loved us first, teaching us through the Son what fraternal charity is. Paul VI,
presenting the various levels in the process of human development, placed at the
summit, after mentioning faith, “unity in the charity of Christ who calls us all
to share as sons in the life of the living God, the Father of all”[53].
20. These perspectives, which
Populorum Progressio opens up, remain
fundamental for giving breathing-space and direction to our commitment for the
development of peoples. Moreover,
Populorum Progressio repeatedly
underlines the urgent need for reform[54], and in the face of
great problems of injustice in the development of peoples, it calls for
courageous action to be taken without delay. This urgency is also a
consequence of charity in truth. It is Christ's charity that drives us on: “caritas
Christi urget nos” (2 Cor 5:14). The urgency is inscribed not only in
things, it is not derived solely from the rapid succession of events and
problems, but also from the very matter that is at stake: the establishment of
authentic fraternity.
The importance of this goal is such as to demand our openness to understand
it in depth and to mobilize ourselves at the level of the “heart”, so as to
ensure that current economic and social processes evolve towards fully human
outcomes.
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
IN OUR TIME
IN OUR TIME
21. Paul VI had an articulated vision of development. He understood
the term to indicate the goal of rescuing peoples, first and foremost, from
hunger, deprivation, endemic diseases and illiteracy. From the economic point of
view, this meant their active participation, on equal terms, in the
international economic process; from the social point of view, it meant their
evolution into educated societies marked by solidarity; from the political point
of view, it meant the consolidation of democratic regimes capable of ensuring
freedom and peace. After so many years, as we observe with concern the
developments and perspectives of the succession of crises that afflict the world
today, we ask to what extent Paul VI's expectations have been fulfilled
by the model of development adopted in recent decades. We recognize, therefore,
that the Church had good reason to be concerned about the capacity of a purely
technological society to set realistic goals and to make good use of the
instruments at its disposal. Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an
end that provides a sense both of how to produce it and how to make good use of
it. Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means
and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and
creating poverty. The economic development that Paul VI hoped to see was meant
to produce real growth, of benefit to everyone and genuinely sustainable. It is
true that growth has taken place, and it continues to be a positive factor that
has lifted billions of people out of misery — recently it has given many
countries the possibility of becoming effective players in international
politics. Yet it must be acknowledged that this same economic growth has been
and continues to be weighed down by malfunctions and dramatic problems,
highlighted even further by the current crisis. This presents us with choices
that cannot be postponed concerning nothing less than the destiny of man, who,
moreover, cannot prescind from his nature. The technical forces in play, the
global interrelations, the damaging effects on the real economy of badly managed
and largely speculative financial dealing, large-scale migration of peoples,
often provoked by some particular circumstance and then given insufficient
attention, the unregulated exploitation of the earth's resources: all this leads
us today to reflect on the measures that would be necessary to provide a
solution to problems that are not only new in comparison to those addressed by
Pope Paul VI, but also, and above all, of decisive impact upon the present and
future good of humanity. The different aspects of the crisis, its solutions, and
any new development that the future may bring, are increasingly interconnected,
they imply one another, they require new efforts of holistic understanding and a
new humanistic synthesis. The complexity and gravity of the present economic
situation rightly cause us concern, but we must adopt a realistic attitude as we
take up with confidence and hope the new responsibilities to which we are called
by the prospect of a world in need of profound cultural renewal, a world that
needs to rediscover fundamental values on which to build a better future. The
current crisis obliges us to re-plan our journey, to set ourselves new rules and
to discover new forms of commitment, to build on positive experiences and to
reject negative ones. The crisis thus becomes an opportunity for discernment,
in which to shape a new vision for the future. In this spirit, with
confidence rather than resignation, it is appropriate to address the
difficulties of the present time.
22. Today the picture of development has many overlapping layers. The
actors and the causes in both underdevelopment and development are manifold, the
faults and the merits are differentiated. This fact should prompt us to liberate
ourselves from ideologies, which often oversimplify reality in artificial ways,
and it should lead us to examine objectively the full human dimension of the
problems. As John Paul II has already observed, the demarcation line between
rich and poor countries is no longer as clear as it was at the time of
Populorum Progressio[55]. The world's wealth is growing in
absolute terms, but inequalities are on the increase. In rich countries, new
sectors of society are succumbing to poverty and new forms of poverty are
emerging. In poorer areas some groups enjoy a sort of “superdevelopment” of a
wasteful and consumerist kind which forms an unacceptable contrast with the
ongoing situations of dehumanizing deprivation. “The scandal of glaring
inequalities”[56] continues. Corruption and illegality are
unfortunately evident in the conduct of the economic and political class in rich
countries, both old and new, as well as in poor ones. Among those who sometimes
fail to respect the human rights of workers are large multinational companies as
well as local producers. International aid has often been diverted from its
proper ends, through irresponsible actions both within the chain of donors and
within that of the beneficiaries. Similarly, in the context of immaterial or
cultural causes of development and underdevelopment, we find these same patterns
of responsibility reproduced. On the part of rich countries there is excessive
zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to
intellectual property, especially in the field of health care. At the same time,
in some poor countries, cultural models and social norms of behaviour persist
which hinder the process of development.
23. Many areas of the globe today have evolved considerably, albeit in
problematical and disparate ways, thereby taking their place among the great
powers destined to play important roles in the future. Yet it should be stressed
that progress of a merely economic and technological kind is insufficient.
Development needs above all to be true and integral. The mere fact of emerging
from economic backwardness, though positive in itself, does not resolve the
complex issues of human advancement, neither for the countries that are
spearheading such progress, nor for those that are already economically
developed, nor even for those that are still poor, which can suffer not just
through old forms of exploitation, but also from the negative consequences of a
growth that is marked by irregularities and imbalances.
After the collapse of the economic and political systems of the Communist
countries of Eastern Europe and the end of the so-called opposing blocs,
a complete re-examination of development was needed. Pope John Paul II called
for it, when in 1987 he pointed to the existence of these blocs as one of the
principal causes of underdevelopment[57], inasmuch as politics withdrew
resources from the economy and from the culture, and ideology inhibited freedom.
Moreover, in 1991, after the events of 1989, he asked that, in view of the
ending of the blocs, there should be a comprehensive new plan for development,
not only in those countries, but also in the West and in those parts of the
world that were in the process of evolving[58]. This has been achieved
only in part, and it is still a real duty that needs to be discharged, perhaps
by means of the choices that are necessary to overcome current economic problems.
24. The world that Paul VI had before him — even though society had already
evolved to such an extent that he could speak of social issues in global terms —
was still far less integrated than today's world. Economic activity and the
political process were both largely conducted within the same geographical area,
and could therefore feed off one another. Production took place predominantly
within national boundaries, and financial investments had somewhat limited
circulation outside the country, so that the politics of many States could still
determine the priorities of the economy and to some degree govern its
performance using the instruments at their disposal. Hence
Populorum Progressio assigned a central, albeit not exclusive, role to “public
authorities”[59].
In our own day, the State finds itself having to address the limitations to
its sovereignty imposed by the new context of international trade and finance,
which is characterized by increasing mobility both of financial capital and
means of production, material and immaterial. This new context has altered the
political power of States.
Today, as we take to heart the lessons of the current economic crisis, which
sees the State's public authorities directly involved in correcting
errors and malfunctions, it seems more realistic to re-evaluate their role
and their powers, which need to be prudently reviewed and remodelled so as to
enable them, perhaps through new forms of engagement, to address the challenges
of today's world. Once the role of public authorities has been more clearly
defined, one could foresee an increase in the new forms of political
participation, nationally and internationally, that have come about through the
activity of organizations operating in civil society; in this way it is to be
hoped that the citizens' interest and participation in the res publica
will become more deeply rooted.
25. From the social point of view, systems of protection and welfare, already
present in many countries in Paul VI's day, are finding it hard and could find
it even harder in the future to pursue their goals of true social justice in
today's profoundly changed environment. The global market has stimulated first
and foremost, on the part of rich countries, a search for areas in which to
outsource production at low cost with a view to reducing the prices of many
goods, increasing purchasing power and thus accelerating the rate of development
in terms of greater availability of consumer goods for the domestic market.
Consequently, the market has prompted new forms of competition between States as
they seek to attract foreign businesses to set up production centres, by means
of a variety of instruments, including favourable fiscal regimes and
deregulation of the labour market. These processes have led to a downsizing
of social security systems as the price to be paid for seeking greater
competitive advantage in the global market, with consequent grave danger for the
rights of workers, for fundamental human rights and for the solidarity
associated with the traditional forms of the social State. Systems of social
security can lose the capacity to carry out their task, both in emerging
countries and in those that were among the earliest to develop, as well as in
poor countries. Here budgetary policies, with cuts in social spending often made
under pressure from international financial institutions, can leave citizens
powerless in the face of old and new risks; such powerlessness is increased by
the lack of effective protection on the part of workers' associations. Through
the combination of social and economic change, trade union organizations
experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the
interests of workers, partly because Governments, for reasons of economic
utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labour unions.
Hence traditional networks of solidarity have more and more obstacles to
overcome. The repeated calls issued within the Church's social doctrine,
beginning with
Rerum Novarum[60], for the promotion of workers'
associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honoured today even
more than in the past, as a prompt and far-sighted response to the urgent need
for new forms of cooperation at the international level, as well as the local
level.
The mobility of labour, associated with a climate of deregulation, is
an important phenomenon with certain positive aspects, because it can stimulate
wealth production and cultural exchange. Nevertheless, uncertainty over working
conditions caused by mobility and deregulation, when it becomes endemic, tends
to create new forms of psychological instability, giving rise to difficulty in
forging coherent life-plans, including that of marriage. This leads to
situations of human decline, to say nothing of the waste of social resources. In
comparison with the casualties of industrial society in the past, unemployment
today provokes new forms of economic marginalization, and the current crisis can
only make this situation worse. Being out of work or dependent on public or
private assistance for a prolonged period undermines the freedom and creativity
of the person and his family and social relationships, causing great
psychological and spiritual suffering. I would like to remind everyone,
especially governments engaged in boosting the world's economic and social
assets, that the primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man, the
human person in his or her integrity: “Man is the source, the focus and the
aim of all economic and social life”[61].
26. On the cultural plane, compared with Paul VI's day, the difference is
even more marked. At that time cultures were relatively well defined and had
greater opportunity to defend themselves against attempts to merge them into
one. Today the possibilities of interaction between cultures have
increased significantly, giving rise to new openings for intercultural dialogue:
a dialogue that, if it is to be effective, has to set out from a deep-seated
knowledge of the specific identity of the various dialogue partners. Let it not
be forgotten that the increased commercialization of cultural exchange today
leads to a twofold danger. First, one may observe a cultural eclecticism
that is often assumed uncritically: cultures are simply placed alongside one
another and viewed as substantially equivalent and interchangeable. This easily
yields to a relativism that does not serve true intercultural dialogue; on the
social plane, cultural relativism has the effect that cultural groups coexist
side by side, but remain separate, with no authentic dialogue and therefore with
no true integration. Secondly, the opposite danger exists, that of cultural
levelling and indiscriminate acceptance of types of conduct and life-styles.
In this way one loses sight of the profound significance of the culture of
different nations, of the traditions of the various peoples, by which the
individual defines himself in relation to life's fundamental questions[62].
What eclecticism and cultural levelling have in common is the separation of
culture from human nature. Thus, cultures can no longer define themselves within
a nature that transcends them[63], and man ends up being reduced to a
mere cultural statistic. When this happens, humanity runs new risks of
enslavement and manipulation.
27. Life in many poor countries is still extremely insecure as a consequence
of food shortages, and the situation could become worse: hunger still
reaps enormous numbers of victims among those who, like Lazarus, are not
permitted to take their place at the rich man's table, contrary to the hopes
expressed by Paul VI[64]. Feed the hungry (cf. Mt 25: 35,
37, 42) is an ethical imperative for the universal Church, as she responds to
the teachings of her Founder, the Lord Jesus, concerning solidarity and the
sharing of goods. Moreover, the elimination of world hunger has also, in the
global era, become a requirement for safeguarding the peace and stability of the
planet. Hunger is not so much dependent on lack of material things as on
shortage of social resources, the most important of which are institutional.
What is missing, in other words, is a network of economic institutions capable
of guaranteeing regular access to sufficient food and water for nutritional
needs, and also capable of addressing the primary needs and necessities ensuing
from genuine food crises, whether due to natural causes or political
irresponsibility, nationally and internationally. The problem of food insecurity
needs to be addressed within a long-term perspective, eliminating the structural
causes that give rise to it and promoting the agricultural development of poorer
countries. This can be done by investing in rural infrastructures, irrigation
systems, transport, organization of markets, and in the development and
dissemination of agricultural technology that can make the best use of the human,
natural and socio-economic resources that are more readily available at the
local level, while guaranteeing their sustainability over the long term as well.
All this needs to be accomplished with the involvement of local communities in
choices and decisions that affect the use of agricultural land. In this
perspective, it could be useful to consider the new possibilities that are
opening up through proper use of traditional as well as innovative farming
techniques, always assuming that these have been judged, after sufficient
testing, to be appropriate, respectful of the environment and attentive to the
needs of the most deprived peoples. At the same time, the question of equitable
agrarian reform in developing countries should not be ignored. The right to
food, like the right to water, has an important place within the pursuit of
other rights, beginning with the fundamental right to life. It is therefore
necessary to cultivate a public conscience that considers food and access to
water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or
discrimination[65]. It is important, moreover, to emphasize that
solidarity with poor countries in the process of development can point towards a
solution of the current global crisis, as politicians and directors of
international institutions have begun to sense in recent times. Through support
for economically poor countries by means of financial plans inspired by
solidarity — so that these countries can take steps to satisfy their own
citizens' demand for consumer goods and for development — not only can true
economic growth be generated, but a contribution can be made towards sustaining
the productive capacities of rich countries that risk being compromised by the
crisis.
28. One of the most striking aspects of development in the present day is the
important question of respect for life, which cannot in any way be
detached from questions concerning the development of peoples. It is an aspect
which has acquired increasing prominence in recent times, obliging us to broaden
our concept of poverty[66] and underdevelopment to include questions
connected with the acceptance of life, especially in cases where it is impeded
in a variety of ways.
Not only does the situation of poverty still provoke high rates of infant
mortality in many regions, but some parts of the world still experience
practices of demographic control, on the part of governments that often promote
contraception and even go so far as to impose abortion. In economically
developed countries, legislation contrary to life is very widespread, and it has
already shaped moral attitudes and praxis, contributing to the spread of an
anti-birth mentality; frequent attempts are made to export this mentality to
other States as if it were a form of cultural progress.
Some non-governmental Organizations work actively to spread abortion, at
times promoting the practice of sterilization in poor countries, in some cases
not even informing the women concerned. Moreover, there is reason to suspect
that development aid is sometimes linked to specific health-care policies which
de facto involve the imposition of strong birth control measures. Further
grounds for concern are laws permitting euthanasia as well as pressure from
lobby groups, nationally and internationally, in favour of its juridical
recognition.
Openness to life is at the centre of true development. When a society
moves towards the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding
the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man's true good. If personal
and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other
forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away[67].
The acceptance of life strengthens moral fibre and makes people capable of
mutual help. By cultivating openness to life, wealthy peoples can better
understand the needs of poor ones, they can avoid employing huge economic and
intellectual resources to satisfy the selfish desires of their own citizens, and
instead, they can promote virtuous action within the perspective of production
that is morally sound and marked by solidarity, respecting the fundamental right
to life of every people and every individual.
29. There is another aspect of modern life that is very closely connected to
development: the denial of the right to religious freedom. I am not
referring simply to the struggles and conflicts that continue to be fought in
the world for religious motives, even if at times the religious motive is merely
a cover for other reasons, such as the desire for domination and wealth. Today,
in fact, people frequently kill in the holy name of God, as both my predecessor
John Paul II and I myself have often publicly acknowledged and lamented[68].
Violence puts the brakes on authentic development and impedes the evolution of
peoples towards greater socio-economic and spiritual well-being. This applies
especially to terrorism motivated by fundamentalism[69], which
generates grief, destruction and death, obstructs dialogue between nations and
diverts extensive resources from their peaceful and civil uses.
Yet it should be added that, as well as religious fanaticism that in some
contexts impedes the exercise of the right to religious freedom, so too the
deliberate promotion of religious indifference or practical atheism on the part
of many countries obstructs the requirements for the development of peoples,
depriving them of spiritual and human resources. God is the guarantor of man's
true development, inasmuch as, having created him in his image, he also
establishes the transcendent dignity of men and women and feeds their innate
yearning to “be more”. Man is not a lost atom in a random universe[70]:
he is God's creature, whom God chose to endow with an immortal soul and whom he
has always loved. If man were merely the fruit of either chance or necessity, or
if he had to lower his aspirations to the limited horizon of the world in which
he lives, if all reality were merely history and culture, and man did not
possess a nature destined to transcend itself in a supernatural life, then one
could speak of growth, or evolution, but not development. When the State
promotes, teaches, or actually imposes forms of practical atheism, it deprives
its citizens of the moral and spiritual strength that is indispensable for
attaining integral human development and it impedes them from moving forward
with renewed dynamism as they strive to offer a more generous human response to
divine love[71]. In the context of cultural, commercial or political
relations, it also sometimes happens that economically developed or emerging
countries export this reductive vision of the person and his destiny to poor
countries. This is the damage that “superdevelopment”[72] causes to
authentic development when it is accompanied by “moral underdevelopment”[73].
30. In this context, the theme of integral human development takes on an even
broader range of meanings: the correlation between its multiple elements
requires a commitment to foster the interaction of the different levels of
human knowledge in order to promote the authentic development of peoples.
Often it is thought that development, or the socio-economic measures that go
with it, merely require to be implemented through joint action. This joint
action, however, needs to be given direction, because “all social action
involves a doctrine”[74]. In view of the complexity of the issues, it
is obvious that the various disciplines have to work together through an orderly
interdisciplinary exchange. Charity does not exclude knowledge, but rather
requires, promotes, and animates it from within. Knowledge is never purely the
work of the intellect. It can certainly be reduced to calculation and experiment,
but if it aspires to be wisdom capable of directing man in the light of his
first beginnings and his final ends, it must be “seasoned” with the “salt” of
charity. Deeds without knowledge are blind, and knowledge without love is
sterile. Indeed, “the individual who is animated by true charity labours
skilfully to discover the causes of misery, to find the means to combat it, to
overcome it resolutely”[75]. Faced with the phenomena that lie before
us, charity in truth requires first of all that we know and understand,
acknowledging and respecting the specific competence of every level of knowledge.
Charity is not an added extra, like an appendix to work already concluded in
each of the various disciplines: it engages them in dialogue from the very
beginning. The demands of love do not contradict those of reason. Human
knowledge is insufficient and the conclusions of science cannot indicate by
themselves the path towards integral human development. There is always a need
to push further ahead: this is what is required by charity in truth[76].
Going beyond, however, never means prescinding from the conclusions of reason,
nor contradicting its results. Intelligence and love are not in separate
compartments: love is rich in intelligence and intelligence is full of love.
31. This means that moral evaluation and scientific research must go hand in
hand, and that charity must animate them in a harmonious interdisciplinary whole,
marked by unity and distinction. The Church's social doctrine, which has “an
important interdisciplinary dimension”[77], can exercise, in this
perspective, a function of extraordinary effectiveness. It allows faith,
theology, metaphysics and science to come together in a collaborative effort in
the service of humanity. It is here above all that the Church's social doctrine
displays its dimension of wisdom. Paul VI had seen clearly that among the causes
of underdevelopment there is a lack of wisdom and reflection, a lack of thinking
capable of formulating a guiding synthesis[78], for which “a clear
vision of all economic, social, cultural and spiritual aspects”[79] is
required. The excessive segmentation of knowledge[80], the rejection of
metaphysics by the human sciences[81], the difficulties encountered by
dialogue between science and theology are damaging not only to the development
of knowledge, but also to the development of peoples, because these things make
it harder to see the integral good of man in its various dimensions. The
“broadening [of] our concept of reason and its application”[82] is
indispensable if we are to succeed in adequately weighing all the elements
involved in the question of development and in the solution of socio-economic
problems.
32. The significant new elements in the picture of the development of peoples
today in many cases demand new solutions. These need to be found together,
respecting the laws proper to each element and in the light of an integral
vision of man, reflecting the different aspects of the human person,
contemplated through a lens purified by charity. Remarkable convergences and
possible solutions will then come to light, without any fundamental component of
human life being obscured.
The dignity of the individual and the demands of justice require,
particularly today, that economic choices do not cause disparities in wealth to
increase in an excessive and morally unacceptable manner[83], and that
we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for
everyone. All things considered, this is also required by “economic logic”.
Through the systemic increase of social inequality, both within a single country
and between the populations of different countries (i.e. the massive increase in
relative poverty), not only does social cohesion suffer, thereby placing
democracy at risk, but so too does the economy, through the progressive erosion
of “social capital”: the network of relationships of trust, dependability, and
respect for rules, all of which are indispensable for any form of civil
coexistence.
Economic science tells us that structural insecurity generates
anti-productive attitudes wasteful of human resources, inasmuch as workers tend
to adapt passively to automatic mechanisms, rather than to release creativity.
On this point too, there is a convergence between economic science and moral
evaluation.
Human costs always include economic costs, and economic dysfunctions
always involve human costs.
It should be remembered that the reduction of cultures to the technological
dimension, even if it favours short-term profits, in the long term impedes
reciprocal enrichment and the dynamics of cooperation. It is important to
distinguish between short- and long-term economic or sociological considerations.
Lowering the level of protection accorded to the rights of workers, or
abandoning mechanisms of wealth redistribution in order to increase the country's
international competitiveness, hinder the achievement of lasting development.
Moreover, the human consequences of current tendencies towards a short-term
economy — sometimes very short-term — need to be carefully evaluated. This
requires further and deeper reflection on the meaning of the economy and its
goals[84], as well as a profound and far-sighted revision of the
current model of development, so as to correct its dysfunctions and deviations.
This is demanded, in any case, by the earth's state of ecological health; above
all it is required by the cultural and moral crisis of man, the symptoms of
which have been evident for some time all over the world.
33. More than forty years after
Populorum Progressio, its basic theme,
namely progress, remains an open question, made all the more acute and
urgent by the current economic and financial crisis. If some areas of the globe,
with a history of poverty, have experienced remarkable changes in terms of their
economic growth and their share in world production, other zones are still
living in a situation of deprivation comparable to that which existed at the
time of Paul VI, and in some cases one can even speak of a deterioration. It is
significant that some of the causes of this situation were identified in
Populorum Progressio, such as the high tariffs imposed by economically
developed countries, which still make it difficult for the products of poor
countries to gain a foothold in the markets of rich countries. Other causes,
however, mentioned only in passing in the Encyclical, have since emerged with
greater clarity. A case in point would be the evaluation of the process of
decolonization, then at its height. Paul VI hoped to see the journey towards
autonomy unfold freely and in peace. More than forty years later, we must
acknowledge how difficult this journey has been, both because of new forms of
colonialism and continued dependence on old and new foreign powers, and because
of grave irresponsibility within the very countries that have achieved
independence.
The principal new feature has been the explosion of worldwide
interdependence, commonly known as globalization. Paul VI had partially
foreseen it, but the ferocious pace at which it has evolved could not have been
anticipated. Originating within economically developed countries, this process
by its nature has spread to include all economies. It has been the principal
driving force behind the emergence from underdevelopment of whole regions, and
in itself it represents a great opportunity. Nevertheless, without the guidance
of charity in truth, this global force could cause unprecedented damage and
create new divisions within the human family. Hence charity and truth confront
us with an altogether new and creative challenge, one that is certainly vast and
complex. It is about broadening the scope of reason and making it capable of
knowing and directing these powerful new forces, animating them within the
perspective of that “civilization of love” whose seed God has planted in every
people, in every culture.
FRATERNITY, ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT AND CIVIL SOCIETY
DEVELOPMENT AND CIVIL SOCIETY
34. Charity in truth places man before the astonishing experience of
gift. Gratuitousness is present in our lives in many different forms, which
often go unrecognized because of a purely consumerist and utilitarian view of
life. The human being is made for gift, which expresses and makes present his
transcendent dimension. Sometimes modern man is wrongly convinced that he is the
sole author of himself, his life and society. This is a presumption that follows
from being selfishly closed in upon himself, and it is a consequence — to
express it in faith terms — of original sin. The Church's wisdom has
always pointed to the presence of original sin in social conditions and in the
structure of society: “Ignorance of the fact that man has a wounded nature
inclined to evil gives rise to serious errors in the areas of education,
politics, social action and morals”[85]. In the list of areas where
the pernicious effects of sin are evident, the economy has been included for
some time now. We have a clear proof of this at the present time. The conviction
that man is self-sufficient and can successfully eliminate the evil present in
history by his own action alone has led him to confuse happiness and salvation
with immanent forms of material prosperity and social action. Then, the
conviction that the economy must be autonomous, that it must be shielded from
“influences” of a moral character, has led man to abuse the economic process in
a thoroughly destructive way. In the long term, these convictions have led to
economic, social and political systems that trample upon personal and social
freedom, and are therefore unable to deliver the justice that they promise. As I
said in my Encyclical Letter
Spe Salvi, history is thereby deprived of
Christian hope[86], deprived of a powerful social resource at the
service of integral human development, sought in freedom and in justice. Hope
encourages reason and gives it the strength to direct the will[87]. It
is already present in faith, indeed it is called forth by faith. Charity in
truth feeds on hope and, at the same time, manifests it. As the absolutely
gratuitous gift of God, hope bursts into our lives as something not due to us,
something that transcends every law of justice. Gift by its nature goes beyond
merit, its rule is that of superabundance. It takes first place in our souls as
a sign of God's presence in us, a sign of what he expects from us. Truth — which
is itself gift, in the same way as charity — is greater than we are, as Saint
Augustine teaches[88]. Likewise the truth of ourselves, of our personal
conscience, is first of all given to us. In every cognitive process,
truth is not something that we produce, it is always found, or better, received.
Truth, like love, “is neither planned nor willed, but somehow imposes itself
upon human beings”[89].
Because it is a gift received by everyone, charity in truth is a force that
builds community, it brings all people together without imposing barriers or
limits. The human community that we build by ourselves can never, purely by its
own strength, be a fully fraternal community, nor can it overcome every division
and become a truly universal community. The unity of the human race, a fraternal
communion transcending every barrier, is called into being by the word of
God-who-is-Love. In addressing this key question, we must make it clear, on the
one hand, that the logic of gift does not exclude justice, nor does it merely
sit alongside it as a second element added from without; on the other hand,
economic, social and political development, if it is to be authentically human,
needs to make room for the principle of gratuitousness as an expression
of fraternity.
35. In a climate of mutual trust, the market is the economic
institution that permits encounter between persons, inasmuch as they are
economic subjects who make use of contracts to regulate their relations as they
exchange goods and services of equivalent value between them, in order to
satisfy their needs and desires. The market is subject to the principles of
so-called commutative justice, which regulates the relations of giving
and receiving between parties to a transaction. But the social doctrine of the
Church has unceasingly highlighted the importance of distributive justice
and social justice
for the market economy, not only because it belongs within a broader social
and political context, but also because of the wider network of relations within
which it operates. In fact, if the market is governed solely by the principle of
the equivalence in value of exchanged goods, it cannot produce the social
cohesion that it requires in order to function well. Without internal forms
of solidarity and mutual trust, the market cannot completely fulfil its proper
economic function. And today it is this trust which has ceased to exist, and
the loss of trust is a grave loss. It was timely when Paul VI in
Populorum Progressio insisted that the economic system itself would benefit from the
wide-ranging practice of justice, inasmuch as the first to gain from the
development of poor countries would be rich ones[90]. According to the
Pope, it was not just a matter of correcting dysfunctions through assistance.
The poor are not to be considered a “burden”[91], but a resource, even
from the purely economic point of view. It is nevertheless erroneous to hold
that the market economy has an inbuilt need for a quota of poverty and
underdevelopment in order to function at its best. It is in the interests of the
market to promote emancipation, but in order to do so effectively, it cannot
rely only on itself, because it is not able to produce by itself something that
lies outside its competence. It must draw its moral energies from other subjects
that are capable of generating them.
36. Economic activity cannot solve all social problems through the simple
application of commercial logic. This needs to be directed towards the
pursuit of the common good, for which the political community in particular
must also take responsibility. Therefore, it must be borne in mind that grave
imbalances are produced when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for
wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for
pursuing justice through redistribution.
The Church has always held that economic action is not to be regarded as
something opposed to society. In and of itself, the market is not, and must not
become, the place where the strong subdue the weak. Society does not have to
protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso
facto to entail the death of authentically human relations. Admittedly, the
market can be a negative force, not because it is so by nature, but because a
certain ideology can make it so. It must be remembered that the market does not
exist in the pure state. It is shaped by the cultural configurations which
define it and give it direction. Economy and finance, as instruments, can be
used badly when those at the helm are motivated by purely selfish ends.
Instruments that are good in themselves can thereby be transformed into harmful
ones. But it is man's darkened reason that produces these consequences, not the
instrument per se. Therefore it is not the instrument that must be called
to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and
social responsibility.
The Church's social doctrine holds that authentically human social
relationships of friendship, solidarity and reciprocity can also be conducted
within economic activity, and not only outside it or “after” it. The economic
sphere is neither ethically neutral, nor inherently inhuman and opposed to
society. It is part and parcel of human activity and precisely because it is
human, it must be structured and governed in an ethical manner.
The great challenge before us, accentuated by the problems of development in
this global era and made even more urgent by the economic and financial crisis,
is to demonstrate, in thinking and behaviour, not only that traditional
principles of social ethics like transparency, honesty and responsibility cannot
be ignored or attenuated, but also that in commercial relationships the
principle of gratuitousness and the logic of gift as an expression of
fraternity can and must find their place within normal economic activity.
This is a human demand at the present time, but it is also demanded by economic
logic. It is a demand both of charity and of truth.
37. The Church's social doctrine has always maintained that justice must
be applied to every phase of economic activity, because this is always
concerned with man and his needs. Locating resources, financing, production,
consumption and all the other phases in the economic cycle inevitably have moral
implications. Thus every economic decision has a moral consequence. The
social sciences and the direction taken by the contemporary economy point to the
same conclusion. Perhaps at one time it was conceivable that first the creation
of wealth could be entrusted to the economy, and then the task of distributing
it could be assigned to politics. Today that would be more difficult, given that
economic activity is no longer circumscribed within territorial limits, while
the authority of governments continues to be principally local. Hence the canons
of justice must be respected from the outset, as the economic process unfolds,
and not just afterwards or incidentally. Space also needs to be created within
the market for economic activity carried out by subjects who freely choose to
act according to principles other than those of pure profit, without sacrificing
the production of economic value in the process. The many economic entities that
draw their origin from religious and lay initiatives demonstrate that this is
concretely possible.
In the global era, the economy is influenced by competitive models tied to
cultures that differ greatly among themselves. The different forms of economic
enterprise to which they give rise find their main point of encounter in
commutative justice. Economic life undoubtedly requires contracts,
in order to regulate relations of exchange between goods of equivalent value.
But it also needs just laws and forms of redistribution governed
by politics, and what is more, it needs works redolent of the spirit of gift.
The economy in the global era seems to privilege the former logic, that of
contractual exchange, but directly or indirectly it also demonstrates its need
for the other two: political logic, and the logic of the unconditional gift.
38. My predecessor John Paul II drew attention to this question in
Centesimus Annus, when he spoke of the need for a system with three subjects:
the
market, the State and civil society[92]. He saw civil
society as the most natural setting for an economy of gratuitousness and
fraternity, but did not mean to deny it a place in the other two settings. Today
we can say that economic life must be understood as a multi-layered phenomenon:
in every one of these layers, to varying degrees and in ways specifically suited
to each, the aspect of fraternal reciprocity must be present. In the global era,
economic activity cannot prescind from gratuitousness, which fosters and
disseminates solidarity and responsibility for justice and the common good among
the different economic players. It is clearly a specific and profound form of
economic democracy. Solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility
on the part of everyone with regard to everyone[93], and it cannot
therefore be merely delegated to the State. While in the past it was possible to
argue that justice had to come first and gratuitousness could follow afterwards,
as a complement, today it is clear that without gratuitousness, there can be no
justice in the first place. What is needed, therefore, is a market that permits
the free operation, in conditions of equal opportunity, of enterprises in
pursuit of different institutional ends. Alongside profit-oriented private
enterprise and the various types of public enterprise, there must be room for
commercial entities based on mutualist principles and pursuing social ends to
take root and express themselves. It is from their reciprocal encounter in the
marketplace that one may expect hybrid forms of commercial behaviour to emerge,
and hence an attentiveness to ways of civilizing the economy. Charity in
truth, in this case, requires that shape and structure be given to those types
of economic initiative which, without rejecting profit, aim at a higher goal
than the mere logic of the exchange of equivalents, of profit as an end in
itself.
39. Paul VI in
Populorum Progressio called for the creation of a
model of market economy capable of including within its range all peoples and
not just the better off. He called for efforts to build a more human world
for all, a world in which “all will be able to give and receive, without one
group making progress at the expense of the other”[94]. In this way he
was applying on a global scale the insights and aspirations contained in
Rerum Novarum, written when, as a result of the Industrial Revolution, the
idea was first proposed — somewhat ahead of its time — that the civil order, for
its self-regulation, also needed intervention from the State for purposes of
redistribution. Not only is this vision threatened today by the way in which
markets and societies are opening up, but it is evidently insufficient to
satisfy the demands of a fully humane economy. What the Church's social doctrine
has always sustained, on the basis of its vision of man and society, is
corroborated today by the dynamics of globalization.
When both the logic of the market and the logic of the State come to an
agreement that each will continue to exercise a monopoly over its respective
area of influence, in the long term much is lost: solidarity in relations
between citizens, participation and adherence, actions of gratuitousness, all of
which stand in contrast with giving in order to acquire (the logic of
exchange) and giving through duty (the logic of public obligation,
imposed by State law). In order to defeat underdevelopment, action is required
not only on improving exchange-based transactions and implanting public welfare
structures, but above all on gradually increasing openness, in a world
context, to forms of economic activity marked by quotas of gratuitousness and
communion. The exclusively binary model of market-plus-State is corrosive of
society, while economic forms based on solidarity, which find their natural home
in civil society without being restricted to it, build up society. The market of
gratuitousness does not exist, and attitudes of gratuitousness cannot be
established by law. Yet both the market and politics need individuals who are
open to reciprocal gift.
40. Today's international economic scene, marked by grave deviations and
failures, requires a profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise.
Old models are disappearing, but promising new ones are taking shape on the
horizon. Without doubt, one of the greatest risks for businesses is that they
are almost exclusively answerable to their investors, thereby limiting their
social value. Owing to their growth in scale and the need for more and more
capital, it is becoming increasingly rare for business enterprises to be in the
hands of a stable director who feels responsible in the long term, not just the
short term, for the life and the results of his company, and it is becoming
increasingly rare for businesses to depend on a single territory. Moreover, the
so-called outsourcing of production can weaken the company's sense of
responsibility towards the stakeholders — namely the workers, the suppliers, the
consumers, the natural environment and broader society — in favour of the
shareholders, who are not tied to a specific geographical area and who therefore
enjoy extraordinary mobility. Today's international capital market offers great
freedom of action. Yet there is also increasing awareness of the need for
greater social responsibility on the part of business. Even if the
ethical considerations that currently inform debate on the social responsibility
of the corporate world are not all acceptable from the perspective of the
Church's social doctrine, there is nevertheless a growing conviction that
business management cannot concern itself only with the interests of the
proprietors, but must also assume responsibility for all the other stakeholders
who contribute to the life of the business: the workers, the clients, the
suppliers of various elements of production, the community of reference. In
recent years a new cosmopolitan class of managers has emerged, who are
often answerable only to the shareholders generally consisting of anonymous
funds which de facto determine their remuneration. By contrast, though,
many far-sighted managers today are becoming increasingly aware of the profound
links between their enterprise and the territory or territories in which it
operates. Paul VI invited people to give serious attention to the damage that
can be caused to one's home country by the transfer abroad of capital purely for
personal advantage[95]. John Paul II taught that investment always
has moral, as well as economic significance[96]. All this — it
should be stressed — is still valid today, despite the fact that the capital
market has been significantly liberalized, and modern technological thinking can
suggest that investment is merely a technical act, not a human and ethical one.
There is no reason to deny that a certain amount of capital can do good, if
invested abroad rather than at home. Yet the requirements of justice must be
safeguarded, with due consideration for the way in which the capital was
generated and the harm to individuals that will result if it is not used where
it was produced[97]. What should be avoided is a speculative use of
financial resources that yields to the temptation of seeking only short-term
profit, without regard for the long-term sustainability of the enterprise, its
benefit to the real economy and attention to the advancement, in suitable and
appropriate ways, of further economic initiatives in countries in need of
development. It is true that the export of investments and skills can benefit
the populations of the receiving country. Labour and technical knowledge are a
universal good. Yet it is not right to export these things merely for the sake
of obtaining advantageous conditions, or worse, for purposes of exploitation,
without making a real contribution to local society by helping to bring about a
robust productive and social system, an essential factor for stable development.
41. In the context of this discussion, it is helpful to observe that
business enterprise involves a wide range of values, becoming wider
all the time. The continuing hegemony of the binary model of market-plus-State
has accustomed us to think only in terms of the private business leader of a
capitalistic bent on the one hand, and the State director on the other. In
reality, business has to be understood in an articulated way. There are a number
of reasons, of a meta-economic kind, for saying this. Business activity has a
human significance, prior to its professional one[98]. It is present in
all work, understood as a personal action, an “actus personae”[99],
which is why every worker should have the chance to make his contribution
knowing that in some way “he is working ‘for himself'”[100]. With good
reason, Paul VI taught that “everyone who works is a creator”[101]. It
is in response to the needs and the dignity of the worker, as well as the needs
of society, that there exist various types of business enterprise, over and
above the simple distinction between “private” and “public”. Each of them
requires and expresses a specific business capacity. In order to construct an
economy that will soon be in a position to serve the national and global common
good, it is appropriate to take account of this broader significance of business
activity. It favours cross-fertilization between different types of business
activity, with shifting of competences from the “non-profit” world to the
“profit” world and vice versa, from the public world to that of civil society,
from advanced economies to developing countries.
Political authority also involves a wide range of values,
which must not be overlooked in the process of constructing a new order of
economic productivity, socially responsible and human in scale. As well as
cultivating differentiated forms of business activity on the global plane, we
must also promote a dispersed political authority, effective on different levels.
The integrated economy of the present day does not make the role of States
redundant, but rather it commits governments to greater collaboration with one
another. Both wisdom and prudence suggest not being too precipitous in declaring
the demise of the State. In terms of the resolution of the current crisis, the
State's role seems destined to grow, as it regains many of its competences. In
some nations, moreover, the construction or reconstruction of the State remains
a key factor in their development. The focus of international aid, within
a solidarity-based plan to resolve today's economic problems, should rather be
on consolidating constitutional, juridical and administrative systems in
countries that do not yet fully enjoy these goods. Alongside economic aid, there
needs to be aid directed towards reinforcing the guarantees proper to the
State of law: a system of public order and effective imprisonment that
respects human rights, truly democratic institutions. The State does not need to
have identical characteristics everywhere: the support aimed at strengthening
weak constitutional systems can easily be accompanied by the development of
other political players, of a cultural, social, territorial or religious nature,
alongside the State. The articulation of political authority at the local,
national and international levels is one of the best ways of giving direction to
the process of economic globalization. It is also the way to ensure that it does
not actually undermine the foundations of democracy.
42. Sometimes globalization is viewed in fatalistic terms, as if the
dynamics involved were the product of anonymous impersonal forces or structures
independent of the human will[102]. In this regard it is useful to
remember that while globalization should certainly be understood as a
socio-economic process, this is not its only dimension. Underneath the more
visible process, humanity itself is becoming increasingly interconnected; it is
made up of individuals and peoples to whom this process should offer benefits
and development[103], as they assume their respective responsibilities,
singly and collectively. The breaking-down of borders is not simply a material
fact: it is also a cultural event both in its causes and its effects. If
globalization is viewed from a deterministic standpoint, the criteria with which
to evaluate and direct it are lost. As a human reality, it is the product of
diverse cultural tendencies, which need to be subjected to a process of
discernment. The truth of globalization as a process and its fundamental ethical
criterion are given by the unity of the human family and its development towards
what is good. Hence a sustained commitment is needed so as to promote a
person-based and community-oriented cultural process of world-wide integration
that is open to transcendence.
Despite some of its structural elements, which should neither be denied nor
exaggerated, “globalization, a priori, is neither good nor bad. It will
be what people make of it”[104]. We should not be its victims, but
rather its protagonists, acting in the light of reason, guided by charity and
truth. Blind opposition would be a mistaken and prejudiced attitude, incapable
of recognizing the positive aspects of the process, with the consequent risk of
missing the chance to take advantage of its many opportunities for development.
The processes of globalization, suitably understood and directed, open up the
unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a
world-wide scale; if badly directed, however, they can lead to an increase in
poverty and inequality, and could even trigger a global crisis. It is necessary
to correct the malfunctions, some of them serious, that cause new
divisions between peoples and within peoples, and also to ensure that the
redistribution of wealth does not come about through the redistribution or
increase of poverty: a real danger if the present situation were to be badly
managed. For a long time it was thought that poor peoples should remain at a
fixed stage of development, and should be content to receive assistance from the
philanthropy of developed peoples. Paul VI strongly opposed this mentality in
Populorum Progressio. Today the material resources available for rescuing
these peoples from poverty are potentially greater than before, but they have
ended up largely in the hands of people from developed countries, who have
benefited more from the liberalization that has occurred in the mobility of
capital and labour. The world-wide diffusion of forms of prosperity should not
therefore be held up by projects that are self-centred, protectionist or at the
service of private interests. Indeed the involvement of emerging or developing
countries allows us to manage the crisis better today. The transition inherent
in the process of globalization presents great difficulties and dangers that can
only be overcome if we are able to appropriate the underlying anthropological
and ethical spirit that drives globalization towards the humanizing goal of
solidarity. Unfortunately this spirit is often overwhelmed or suppressed by
ethical and cultural considerations of an individualistic and utilitarian
nature. Globalization is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon which must be
grasped in the diversity and unity of all its different dimensions, including
the theological dimension. In this way it will be possible to experience and to
steer the globalization of humanity in relational terms, in terms of
communion and the sharing of goods.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PEOPLE
RIGHTS AND DUTIES
THE ENVIRONMENT
RIGHTS AND DUTIES
THE ENVIRONMENT
43. “The reality of human solidarity, which is a benefit for us, also imposes
a duty”[105]. Many people today would claim that they owe nothing to
anyone, except to themselves. They are concerned only with their rights, and
they often have great difficulty in taking responsibility for their own and
other people's integral development. Hence it is important to call for a renewed
reflection on how rights presuppose duties, if they are not to become mere
licence[106]. Nowadays we are witnessing a grave inconsistency. On
the one hand, appeals are made to alleged rights, arbitrary and non-essential in
nature, accompanied by the demand that they be recognized and promoted by public
structures, while, on the other hand, elementary and basic rights remain
unacknowledged and are violated in much of the world[107]. A link has
often been noted between claims to a “right to excess”, and even to
transgression and vice, within affluent societies, and the lack of food,
drinkable water, basic instruction and elementary health care in areas of the
underdeveloped world and on the outskirts of large metropolitan centres. The
link consists in this: individual rights, when detached from a framework of
duties which grants them their full meaning, can run wild, leading to an
escalation of demands which is effectively unlimited and indiscriminate. An
overemphasis on rights leads to a disregard for duties. Duties set a limit on
rights because they point to the anthropological and ethical framework of which
rights are a part, in this way ensuring that they do not become licence. Duties
thereby reinforce rights and call for their defence and promotion as a task to
be undertaken in the service of the common good. Otherwise, if the only basis of
human rights is to be found in the deliberations of an assembly of citizens,
those rights can be changed at any time, and so the duty to respect and pursue
them fades from the common consciousness. Governments and international bodies
can then lose sight of the objectivity and “inviolability” of rights. When this
happens, the authentic development of peoples is endangered[108]. Such
a way of thinking and acting compromises the authority of international bodies,
especially in the eyes of those countries most in need of development. Indeed,
the latter demand that the international community take up the duty of helping
them to be “artisans of their own destiny”[109], that is, to take up
duties of their own. The sharing of reciprocal duties is a more powerful
incentive to action than the mere assertion of rights.
44. The notion of rights and duties in development must also take account of
the problems associated with population growth. This is a very important
aspect of authentic development, since it concerns the inalienable values of
life and the family[110]. To consider population increase as the
primary cause of underdevelopment is mistaken, even from an economic point of
view. Suffice it to consider, on the one hand, the significant reduction in
infant mortality and the rise in average life expectancy found in economically
developed countries, and on the other hand, the signs of crisis observable in
societies that are registering an alarming decline in their birth rate. Due
attention must obviously be given to responsible procreation, which among other
things has a positive contribution to make to integral human development. The
Church, in her concern for man's authentic development, urges him to have full
respect for human values in the exercise of his sexuality. It cannot be reduced
merely to pleasure or entertainment, nor can sex education be reduced to
technical instruction aimed solely at protecting the interested parties from
possible disease or the “risk” of procreation. This would be to impoverish and
disregard the deeper meaning of sexuality, a meaning which needs to be
acknowledged and responsibly appropriated not only by individuals but also by
the community. It is irresponsible to view sexuality merely as a source of
pleasure, and likewise to regulate it through strategies of mandatory birth
control. In either case materialistic ideas and policies are at work, and
individuals are ultimately subjected to various forms of violence. Against such
policies, there is a need to defend the primary competence of the family in the
area of sexuality[111], as opposed to the State and its restrictive
policies, and to ensure that parents are suitably prepared to undertake their
responsibilities.
Morally responsible openness to life represents a rich social and economic
resource. Populous nations have been able to emerge from poverty thanks not
least to the size of their population and the talents of their people. On the
other hand, formerly prosperous nations are presently passing through a phase of
uncertainty and in some cases decline, precisely because of their falling birth
rates; this has become a crucial problem for highly affluent societies. The
decline in births, falling at times beneath the so-called “replacement level”,
also puts a strain on social welfare systems, increases their cost, eats into
savings and hence the financial resources needed for investment, reduces the
availability of qualified labourers, and narrows the “brain pool” upon which
nations can draw for their needs. Furthermore, smaller and at times miniscule
families run the risk of impoverishing social relations, and failing to ensure
effective forms of solidarity. These situations are symptomatic of scant
confidence in the future and moral weariness. It is thus becoming a social and
even economic necessity once more to hold up to future generations the beauty of
marriage and the family, and the fact that these institutions correspond to the
deepest needs and dignity of the person. In view of this, States are called to
enact policies promoting the centrality and the integrity of the family
founded on marriage between a man and a woman, the primary vital cell of
society[112], and to assume responsibility for its economic and fiscal
needs, while respecting its essentially relational character.
45. Striving to meet the deepest moral needs of the person also has important
and beneficial repercussions at the level of economics. The economy needs
ethics in order to function correctly — not any ethics whatsoever, but an
ethics which is people-centred. Today we hear much talk of ethics in the world
of economy, finance and business. Research centres and seminars in business
ethics are on the rise; the system of ethical certification is spreading
throughout the developed world as part of the movement of ideas associated with
the responsibilities of business towards society. Banks are proposing “ethical”
accounts and investment funds. “Ethical financing” is being developed,
especially through micro-credit and, more generally, micro-finance. These
processes are praiseworthy and deserve much support. Their positive effects are
also being felt in the less developed areas of the world. It would be advisable,
however, to develop a sound criterion of discernment, since the adjective
“ethical” can be abused. When the word is used generically, it can lend itself
to any number of interpretations, even to the point where it includes decisions
and choices contrary to justice and authentic human welfare.
Much in fact depends on the underlying system of morality. On this subject
the Church's social doctrine can make a specific contribution, since it is based
on man's creation “in the image of God” (Gen 1:27), a datum which gives
rise to the inviolable dignity of the human person and the transcendent value of
natural moral norms. When business ethics prescinds from these two pillars, it
inevitably risks losing its distinctive nature and it falls prey to forms of
exploitation; more specifically, it risks becoming subservient to existing
economic and financial systems rather than correcting their dysfunctional
aspects. Among other things, it risks being used to justify the financing of
projects that are in reality unethical. The word “ethical”, then, should not be
used to make ideological distinctions, as if to suggest that initiatives not
formally so designated would not be ethical. Efforts are needed — and it is
essential to say this — not only to create “ethical” sectors or segments of the
economy or the world of finance, but to ensure that the whole economy — the
whole of finance — is ethical, not merely by virtue of an external label, but by
its respect for requirements intrinsic to its very nature. The Church's social
teaching is quite clear on the subject, recalling that the economy, in all its
branches, constitutes a sector of human activity[113].
46. When we consider the issues involved in the relationship between
business and ethics, as well as the evolution currently taking place in
methods of production, it would appear that the traditionally valid distinction
between profit-based companies and non-profit organizations can no longer do
full justice to reality, or offer practical direction for the future. In recent
decades a broad intermediate area has emerged between the two types of
enterprise. It is made up of traditional companies which nonetheless subscribe
to social aid agreements in support of underdeveloped countries, charitable
foundations associated with individual companies, groups of companies oriented
towards social welfare, and the diversified world of the so-called “civil
economy” and the “economy of communion”. This is not merely a matter of a “third
sector”, but of a broad new composite reality embracing the private and public
spheres, one which does not exclude profit, but instead considers it a means for
achieving human and social ends. Whether such companies distribute dividends or
not, whether their juridical structure corresponds to one or other of the
established forms, becomes secondary in relation to their willingness to view
profit as a means of achieving the goal of a more humane market and society. It
is to be hoped that these new kinds of enterprise will succeed in finding a
suitable juridical and fiscal structure in every country. Without prejudice to
the importance and the economic and social benefits of the more traditional
forms of business, they steer the system towards a clearer and more complete
assumption of duties on the part of economic subjects. And not only that. The
very plurality of institutional forms of business gives rise to a market which
is not only more civilized but also more competitive.
47. The strengthening of different types of businesses, especially those
capable of viewing profit as a means for achieving the goal of a more humane
market and society, must also be pursued in those countries that are excluded or
marginalized from the influential circles of the global economy. In these
countries it is very important to move ahead with projects based on subsidiarity,
suitably planned and managed, aimed at affirming rights yet also providing for
the assumption of corresponding responsibilities. In development programmes,
the principle of the centrality of the human person, as the subject
primarily responsible for development, must be preserved. The principal concern
must be to improve the actual living conditions of the people in a given region,
thus enabling them to carry out those duties which their poverty does not
presently allow them to fulfil. Social concern must never be an abstract
attitude. Development programmes, if they are to be adapted to individual
situations, need to be flexible; and the people who benefit from them ought to
be directly involved in their planning and implementation. The criteria to be
applied should aspire towards incremental development in a context of solidarity
— with careful monitoring of results — inasmuch as there are no universally
valid solutions. Much depends on the way programmes are managed in practice.
“The peoples themselves have the prime responsibility to work for their own
development. But they will not bring this about in isolation”[114].
These words of Paul VI are all the more timely nowadays, as our world becomes
progressively more integrated. The dynamics of inclusion are hardly automatic.
Solutions need to be carefully designed to correspond to people's concrete lives,
based on a prudential evaluation of each situation. Alongside macro-projects,
there is a place for micro-projects, and above all there is need for the active
mobilization of all the subjects of civil society, both juridical and physical
persons.
International cooperation requires people who can be part of the
process of economic and human development through the solidarity of their
presence, supervision, training and respect. From this standpoint, international
organizations might question the actual effectiveness of their bureaucratic and
administrative machinery, which is often excessively costly. At times it happens
that those who receive aid become subordinate to the aid-givers, and the poor
serve to perpetuate expensive bureaucracies which consume an excessively high
percentage of funds intended for development. Hence it is to be hoped that all
international agencies and non-governmental organizations will commit themselves
to complete transparency, informing donors and the public of the percentage of
their income allocated to programmes of cooperation, the actual content of those
programmes and, finally, the detailed expenditure of the institution itself.
48. Today the subject of development is also closely related to the duties
arising from our relationship to the natural environment. The environment
is God's gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards
the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole. When
nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or
evolutionary determinism, our sense of responsibility wanes. In nature, the
believer recognizes the wonderful result of God's creative activity, which we
may use responsibly to satisfy our legitimate needs, material or otherwise,
while respecting the intrinsic balance of creation. If this vision is lost, we
end up either considering nature an untouchable taboo or, on the contrary,
abusing it. Neither attitude is consonant with the Christian vision of nature as
the fruit of God's creation.
Nature expresses a design of love and truth. It is prior to us, and it
has been given to us by God as the setting for our life. Nature speaks to us of
the Creator (cf. Rom 1:20) and his love for humanity. It is destined to
be “recapitulated” in Christ at the end of time (cf. Eph 1:9-10; Col 1:19-20).
Thus it too is a “vocation”[115]. Nature is at our disposal not as “a
heap of scattered refuse”[116], but as a gift of the Creator who has
given it an inbuilt order, enabling man to draw from it the principles needed in
order “to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). But it should also be stressed
that it is contrary to authentic development to view nature as something more
important than the human person. This position leads to attitudes of
neo-paganism or a new pantheism — human salvation cannot come from nature alone,
understood in a purely naturalistic sense. This having been said, it is also
necessary to reject the opposite position, which aims at total technical
dominion over nature, because the natural environment is more than raw material
to be manipulated at our pleasure; it is a wondrous work of the Creator
containing a “grammar” which sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use, not
its reckless exploitation. Today much harm is done to development precisely as a
result of these distorted notions. Reducing nature merely to a collection of
contingent data ends up doing violence to the environment and even encouraging
activity that fails to respect human nature itself. Our nature, constituted not
only by matter but also by spirit, and as such, endowed with transcendent
meaning and aspirations, is also normative for culture. Human beings interpret
and shape the natural environment through culture, which in turn is given
direction by the responsible use of freedom, in accordance with the dictates of
the moral law. Consequently, projects for integral human development cannot
ignore coming generations, but need to be marked by solidarity and
inter-generational justice, while taking into account a variety of contexts:
ecological, juridical, economic, political and cultural[117].
49. Questions linked to the care and preservation of the environment today
need to give due consideration to the energy problem. The fact that some
States, power groups and companies hoard non-renewable energy resources
represents a grave obstacle to development in poor countries. Those countries
lack the economic means either to gain access to existing sources of
non-renewable energy or to finance research into new alternatives. The
stockpiling of natural resources, which in many cases are found in the poor
countries themselves, gives rise to exploitation and frequent conflicts between
and within nations. These conflicts are often fought on the soil of those same
countries, with a heavy toll of death, destruction and further decay. The
international community has an urgent duty to find institutional means of
regulating the exploitation of non-renewable resources, involving poor countries
in the process, in order to plan together for the future.
On this front too, there is a pressing moral need for renewed solidarity,
especially in relationships between developing countries and those that are
highly industrialized[118]. The technologically advanced societies can
and must lower their domestic energy consumption, either through an evolution in
manufacturing methods or through greater ecological sensitivity among their
citizens. It should be added that at present it is possible to achieve improved
energy efficiency while at the same time encouraging research into alternative
forms of energy. What is also needed, though, is a worldwide redistribution of
energy resources, so that countries lacking those resources can have access to
them. The fate of those countries cannot be left in the hands of whoever is
first to claim the spoils, or whoever is able to prevail over the rest. Here we
are dealing with major issues; if they are to be faced adequately, then everyone
must responsibly recognize the impact they will have on future generations,
particularly on the many young people in the poorer nations, who “ask to assume
their active part in the construction of a better world”[119].
50. This responsibility is a global one, for it is concerned not just with
energy but with the whole of creation, which must not be bequeathed to future
generations depleted of its resources. Human beings legitimately exercise a
responsible stewardship over nature, in order to protect it, to enjoy its
fruits and to cultivate it in new ways, with the assistance of advanced
technologies, so that it can worthily accommodate and feed the world's
population. On this earth there is room for everyone: here the entire human
family must find the resources to live with dignity, through the help of nature
itself — God's gift to his children — and through hard work and creativity. At
the same time we must recognize our grave duty to hand the earth on to future
generations in such a condition that they too can worthily inhabit it and
continue to cultivate it. This means being committed to making joint decisions
“after pondering responsibly the road to be taken, decisions aimed at
strengthening that covenant between human beings and the environment,
which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom
we are journeying”[120]. Let us hope that the international community
and individual governments will succeed in countering harmful ways of treating
the environment. It is likewise incumbent upon the competent authorities to make
every effort to ensure that the economic and social costs of using up shared
environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by
those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations: the protection
of the environment, of resources and of the climate obliges all international
leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting
the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet[121].
One of the greatest challenges facing the economy is to achieve the most
efficient use — not abuse — of natural resources, based on a realization that
the notion of “efficiency” is not value-free.
51. The way humanity treats the environment influences the way it treats
itself, and vice versa. This invites contemporary society to a serious
review of its life-style, which, in many parts of the world, is prone to
hedonism and consumerism, regardless of their harmful consequences[122].
What is needed is an effective shift in mentality which can lead to the adoption
of new life-styles “in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and
communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which
determine consumer choices, savings and investments”[123]. Every
violation of solidarity and civic friendship harms the environment, just as
environmental deterioration in turn upsets relations in society. Nature,
especially in our time, is so integrated into the dynamics of society and
culture that by now it hardly constitutes an independent variable.
Desertification and the decline in productivity in some agricultural areas are
also the result of impoverishment and underdevelopment among their inhabitants.
When incentives are offered for their economic and cultural development, nature
itself is protected. Moreover, how many natural resources are squandered by
wars! Peace in and among peoples would also provide greater protection for
nature. The hoarding of resources, especially water, can generate serious
conflicts among the peoples involved. Peaceful agreement about the use of
resources can protect nature and, at the same time, the well-being of the
societies concerned.
The Church has a responsibility towards creation and she must assert
this responsibility in the public sphere. In so doing, she must defend not only
earth, water and air as gifts of creation that belong to everyone. She must
above all protect mankind from self-destruction. There is need for what might be
called a human ecology, correctly understood. The deterioration of nature is in
fact closely connected to the culture that shapes human coexistence: when
“human ecology”[124] is respected within society, environmental
ecology also benefits. Just as human virtues are interrelated, such that the
weakening of one places others at risk, so the ecological system is based on
respect for a plan that affects both the health of society and its good
relationship with nature.
In order to protect nature, it is not enough to intervene with economic
incentives or deterrents; not even an apposite education is sufficient. These
are important steps, but the decisive issue is the overall moral tenor of
society. If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a
natural death, if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, if
human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up
losing the concept of human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental
ecology. It is contradictory to insist that future generations respect the
natural environment when our educational systems and laws do not help them to
respect themselves. The book of nature is one and indivisible: it takes in not
only the environment but also life, sexuality, marriage, the family, social
relations: in a word, integral human development. Our duties towards the
environment are linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in
himself and in relation to others. It would be wrong to uphold one set of duties
while trampling on the other. Herein lies a grave contradiction in our mentality
and practice today: one which demeans the person, disrupts the environment and
damages society.
52. Truth, and the love which it reveals, cannot be produced: they can only
be received as a gift. Their ultimate source is not, and cannot be, mankind, but
only God, who is himself Truth and Love. This principle is extremely important
for society and for development, since neither can be a purely human product;
the vocation to development on the part of individuals and peoples is not based
simply on human choice, but is an intrinsic part of a plan that is prior to us
and constitutes for all of us a duty to be freely accepted. That which is prior
to us and constitutes us — subsistent Love and Truth — shows us what goodness
is, and in what our true happiness consists. It shows us the road to true
development.
THE COOPERATION
OF THE HUMAN FAMILY
OF THE HUMAN FAMILY
53. One of the deepest forms of poverty a person can experience is isolation.
If we look closely at other kinds of poverty, including material forms, we see
that they are born from isolation, from not being loved or from difficulties in
being able to love. Poverty is often produced by a rejection of God's love, by
man's basic and tragic tendency to close in on himself, thinking himself to be
self-sufficient or merely an insignificant and ephemeral fact, a “stranger” in a
random universe. Man is alienated when he is alone, when he is detached from
reality, when he stops thinking and believing in a foundation[125]. All
of humanity is alienated when too much trust is placed in merely human projects,
ideologies and false utopias[126]. Today humanity appears much more
interactive than in the past: this shared sense of being close to one another
must be transformed into true communion. The development of peoples depends,
above all, on a recognition that the human race is a single family working
together in true communion, not simply a group of subjects who happen to live
side by side[127].
Pope Paul VI noted that “the world is in trouble because of the lack of
thinking”[128]. He was making an observation, but also expressing a
wish: a new trajectory of thinking is needed in order to arrive at a better
understanding of the implications of our being one family; interaction among the
peoples of the world calls us to embark upon this new trajectory, so that
integration can signify solidarity[129] rather than marginalization.
Thinking of this kind requires a deeper critical evaluation of the category
of relation. This is a task that cannot be undertaken by the social sciences
alone, insofar as the contribution of disciplines such as metaphysics and
theology is needed if man's transcendent dignity is to be properly understood.
As a spiritual being, the human creature is defined through interpersonal
relations. The more authentically he or she lives these relations, the more his
or her own personal identity matures. It is not by isolation that man
establishes his worth, but by placing himself in relation with others and with
God. Hence these relations take on fundamental importance. The same holds true
for peoples as well. A metaphysical understanding of the relations between
persons is therefore of great benefit for their development. In this regard,
reason finds inspiration and direction in Christian revelation, according to
which the human community does not absorb the individual, annihilating his
autonomy, as happens in the various forms of totalitarianism, but rather values
him all the more because the relation between individual and community is a
relation between one totality and another[130]. Just as a family does
not submerge the identities of its individual members, just as the Church
rejoices in each “new creation” (Gal 6:15; 2 Cor 5:17)
incorporated by Baptism into her living Body, so too the unity of the human
family does not submerge the identities of individuals, peoples and cultures,
but makes them more transparent to each other and links them more closely in
their legitimate diversity.
54. The theme of development can be identified with the inclusion-in-relation
of all individuals and peoples within the one community of the human family,
built in solidarity on the basis of the fundamental values of justice and peace.
This perspective is illuminated in a striking way by the relationship between
the Persons of the Trinity within the one divine Substance. The Trinity is
absolute unity insofar as the three divine Persons are pure relationality. The
reciprocal transparency among the divine Persons is total and the bond between
each of them complete, since they constitute a unique and absolute unity. God
desires to incorporate us into this reality of communion as well: “that they may
be one even as we are one” (Jn 17:22). The Church is a sign and
instrument of this unity[131]. Relationships between human beings
throughout history cannot but be enriched by reference to this divine model. In
particular, in the light of the revealed mystery of the Trinity, we
understand that true openness does not mean loss of individual identity but
profound interpenetration. This also emerges from the common human experiences
of love and truth. Just as the sacramental love of spouses unites them
spiritually in “one flesh” (Gen 2:24; Mt 19:5; Eph 5:31)
and makes out of the two a real and relational unity, so in an analogous way
truth unites spirits and causes them to think in unison, attracting them as a
unity to itself.
55. The Christian revelation of the unity of the human race presupposes a
metaphysical interpretation of the “humanum” in which relationality is an
essential element. Other cultures and religions teach brotherhood and peace
and are therefore of enormous importance to integral human development. Some
religious and cultural attitudes, however, do not fully embrace the principle of
love and truth and therefore end up retarding or even obstructing authentic
human development. There are certain religious cultures in the world today that
do not oblige men and women to live in communion but rather cut them off from
one other in a search for individual well-being, limited to the gratification of
psychological desires. Furthermore, a certain proliferation of different
religious “paths”, attracting small groups or even single individuals, together
with religious syncretism, can give rise to separation and disengagement. One
possible negative effect of the process of globalization is the tendency to
favour this kind of syncretism[132] by encouraging forms of “religion”
that, instead of bringing people together, alienate them from one another and
distance them from reality. At the same time, some religious and cultural
traditions persist which ossify society in rigid social groupings, in magical
beliefs that fail to respect the dignity of the person, and in attitudes of
subjugation to occult powers. In these contexts, love and truth have difficulty
asserting themselves, and authentic development is impeded.
For this reason, while it may be true that development needs the religions
and cultures of different peoples, it is equally true that adequate discernment
is needed. Religious freedom does not mean religious indifferentism, nor does it
imply that all religions are equal[133]. Discernment is needed
regarding the contribution of cultures and religions, especially on the part of
those who wield political power, if the social community is to be built up in a
spirit of respect for the common good. Such discernment has to be based on the
criterion of charity and truth. Since the development of persons and peoples is
at stake, this discernment will have to take account of the need for
emancipation and inclusivity, in the context of a truly universal human
community. “The whole man and all men” is also the criterion for evaluating
cultures and religions. Christianity, the religion of the “God who has a human
face”[134], contains this very criterion within itself.
56. The Christian religion and other religions can offer their contribution
to development only if God has a place in the public realm, specifically
in regard to its cultural, social, economic, and particularly its political
dimensions. The Church's social doctrine came into being in order to claim
“citizenship status” for the Christian religion[135]. Denying the right
to profess one's religion in public and the right to bring the truths of faith
to bear upon public life has negative consequences for true development. The
exclusion of religion from the public square — and, at the other extreme,
religious fundamentalism — hinders an encounter between persons and their
collaboration for the progress of humanity. Public life is sapped of its
motivation and politics takes on a domineering and aggressive character. Human
rights risk being ignored either because they are robbed of their transcendent
foundation or because personal freedom is not acknowledged. Secularism and
fundamentalism exclude the possibility of fruitful dialogue and effective
cooperation between reason and religious faith. Reason always stands in need
of being purified by faith: this also holds true for political reason, which
must not consider itself omnipotent. For its part, religion always needs to
be purified by reason in order to show its authentically human face. Any
breach in this dialogue comes only at an enormous price to human development.
57. Fruitful dialogue between faith and reason cannot but render the work of
charity more effective within society, and it constitutes the most appropriate
framework for promoting fraternal collaboration between believers and
non-believers in their shared commitment to working for justice and the
peace of the human family. In the Pastoral Constitution
Gaudium et Spes,
the Council fathers asserted that “believers and unbelievers agree almost
unanimously that all things on earth should be ordered towards man as to their
centre and summit”[136]. For believers, the world derives neither from
blind chance nor from strict necessity, but from God's plan. This is what gives
rise to the duty of believers to unite their efforts with those of all men and
women of good will, with the followers of other religions and with
non-believers, so that this world of ours may effectively correspond to the
divine plan: living as a family under the Creator's watchful eye. A particular
manifestation of charity and a guiding criterion for fraternal cooperation
between believers and non-believers is undoubtedly the principle of
subsidiarity[137], an expression of inalienable human freedom.
Subsidiarity is first and foremost a form of assistance to the human person via
the autonomy of intermediate bodies. Such assistance is offered when individuals
or groups are unable to accomplish something on their own, and it is always
designed to achieve their emancipation, because it fosters freedom and
participation through assumption of responsibility. Subsidiarity respects
personal dignity by recognizing in the person a subject who is always capable of
giving something to others. By considering reciprocity as the heart of what it
is to be a human being, subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any
form of all-encompassing welfare state. It is able to take account both of the
manifold articulation of plans — and therefore of the plurality of subjects — as
well as the coordination of those plans. Hence the principle of subsidiarity is
particularly well-suited to managing globalization and directing it towards
authentic human development. In order not to produce a dangerous universal power
of a tyrannical nature, the governance of globalization must be marked by
subsidiarity, articulated into several layers and involving different levels
that can work together. Globalization certainly requires authority, insofar as
it poses the problem of a global common good that needs to be pursued. This
authority, however, must be organized in a subsidiary and stratified way[138],
if it is not to infringe upon freedom and if it is to yield effective results in
practice.
58. The principle of subsidiarity must remain closely linked to the
principle of solidarity and vice versa, since the former without the latter
gives way to social privatism, while the latter without the former gives way to
paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need. This general
rule must also be taken broadly into consideration when addressing issues
concerning international development aid. Such aid, whatever the donors'
intentions, can sometimes lock people into a state of dependence and even foster
situations of localized oppression and exploitation in the receiving country.
Economic aid, in order to be true to its purpose, must not pursue secondary
objectives. It must be distributed with the involvement not only of the
governments of receiving countries, but also local economic agents and the
bearers of culture within civil society, including local Churches. Aid
programmes must increasingly acquire the characteristics of participation and
completion from the grass roots. Indeed, the most valuable resources in
countries receiving development aid are human resources: herein lies the real
capital that needs to accumulate in order to guarantee a truly autonomous future
for the poorest countries. It should also be remembered that, in the economic
sphere, the principal form of assistance needed by developing countries is that
of allowing and encouraging the gradual penetration of their products into
international markets, thus making it possible for these countries to
participate fully in international economic life. Too often in the past, aid has
served to create only fringe markets for the products of these donor countries.
This was often due to a lack of genuine demand for the products in question: it
is therefore necessary to help such countries improve their products and adapt
them more effectively to existing demand. Furthermore, there are those who fear
the effects of competition through the importation of products — normally
agricultural products — from economically poor countries. Nevertheless, it
should be remembered that for such countries, the possibility of marketing their
products is very often what guarantees their survival in both the short and long
term. Just and equitable international trade in agricultural goods can be
beneficial to everyone, both to suppliers and to customers. For this reason, not
only is commercial orientation needed for production of this kind, but also the
establishment of international trade regulations to support it and stronger
financing for development in order to increase the productivity of these
economies.
59. Cooperation for development must not be concerned exclusively with
the economic dimension: it offers a wonderful opportunity for encounter
between cultures and peoples. If the parties to cooperation on the side of
economically developed countries — as occasionally happens — fail to take
account of their own or others' cultural identity, or the human values that
shape it, they cannot enter into meaningful dialogue with the citizens of poor
countries. If the latter, in their turn, are uncritically and indiscriminately
open to every cultural proposal, they will not be in a position to assume
responsibility for their own authentic development[139].
Technologically advanced societies must not confuse their own technological
development with a presumed cultural superiority, but must rather rediscover
within themselves the oft-forgotten virtues which made it possible for them to
flourish throughout their history. Evolving societies must remain faithful to
all that is truly human in their traditions, avoiding the temptation to overlay
them automatically with the mechanisms of a globalized technological
civilization. In all cultures there are examples of ethical convergence, some
isolated, some interrelated, as an expression of the one human nature, willed by
the Creator; the tradition of ethical wisdom knows this as the natural law[140].
This universal moral law provides a sound basis for all cultural, religious and
political dialogue, and it ensures that the multi-faceted pluralism of cultural
diversity does not detach itself from the common quest for truth, goodness and
God. Thus adherence to the law etched on human hearts is the precondition for
all constructive social cooperation. Every culture has burdens from which it
must be freed and shadows from which it must emerge. The Christian faith, by
becoming incarnate in cultures and at the same time transcending them, can help
them grow in universal brotherhood and solidarity, for the advancement of global
and community development.
60. In the search for solutions to the current economic crisis,
development aid for poor countries must be considered a valid means of creating
wealth for all. What aid programme is there that can hold out such
significant growth prospects — even from the point of view of the world economy
— as the support of populations that are still in the initial or early phases of
economic development? From this perspective, more economically developed nations
should do all they can to allocate larger portions of their gross domestic
product to development aid, thus respecting the obligations that the
international community has undertaken in this regard. One way of doing so is by
reviewing their internal social assistance and welfare policies, applying the
principle of subsidiarity and creating better integrated welfare systems, with
the active participation of private individuals and civil society. In this way,
it is actually possible to improve social services and welfare programmes, and
at the same time to save resources — by eliminating waste and rejecting
fraudulent claims — which could then be allocated to international solidarity. A
more devolved and organic system of social solidarity, less bureaucratic but no
less coordinated, would make it possible to harness much dormant energy, for the
benefit of solidarity between peoples.
One possible approach to development aid would be to apply effectively what
is known as fiscal subsidiarity, allowing citizens to decide how to allocate a
portion of the taxes they pay to the State. Provided it does not degenerate into
the promotion of special interests, this can help to stimulate forms of welfare
solidarity from below, with obvious benefits in the area of solidarity for
development as well.
61. Greater solidarity at the international level is seen especially in the
ongoing promotion — even in the midst of economic crisis — of greater access
to education, which is at the same time an essential precondition for
effective international cooperation. The term “education” refers not only to
classroom teaching and vocational training — both of which are important factors
in development — but to the complete formation of the person. In this regard,
there is a problem that should be highlighted: in order to educate, it is
necessary to know the nature of the human person, to know who he or she is. The
increasing prominence of a relativistic understanding of that nature presents
serious problems for education, especially moral education, jeopardizing its
universal extension. Yielding to this kind of relativism makes everyone poorer
and has a negative impact on the effectiveness of aid to the most needy
populations, who lack not only economic and technical means, but also
educational methods and resources to assist people in realizing their full human
potential.
An illustration of the significance of this problem is offered by the
phenomenon of international tourism[141], which can be a major
factor in economic development and cultural growth, but can also become an
occasion for exploitation and moral degradation. The current situation offers
unique opportunities for the economic aspects of development — that is to say
the flow of money and the emergence of a significant amount of local enterprise
— to be combined with the cultural aspects, chief among which is education. In
many cases this is what happens, but in other cases international tourism has a
negative educational impact both for the tourist and the local populace. The
latter are often exposed to immoral or even perverted forms of conduct, as in
the case of so-called sex tourism, to which many human beings are sacrificed
even at a tender age. It is sad to note that this activity often takes place
with the support of local governments, with silence from those in the tourists'
countries of origin, and with the complicity of many of the tour operators. Even
in less extreme cases, international tourism often follows a consumerist and
hedonistic pattern, as a form of escapism planned in a manner typical of the
countries of origin, and therefore not conducive to authentic encounter between
persons and cultures. We need, therefore, to develop a different type of tourism
that has the ability to promote genuine mutual understanding, without taking
away from the element of rest and healthy recreation. Tourism of this type needs
to increase, partly through closer coordination with the experience gained from
international cooperation and enterprise for development.
62. Another aspect of integral human development that is worthy of attention
is the phenomenon of migration. This is a striking phenomenon because of
the sheer numbers of people involved, the social, economic, political, cultural
and religious problems it raises, and the dramatic challenges it poses to
nations and the international community. We can say that we are facing a social
phenomenon of epoch-making proportions that requires bold, forward-looking
policies of international cooperation if it is to be handled effectively. Such
policies should set out from close collaboration between the migrants' countries
of origin and their countries of destination; it should be accompanied by
adequate international norms able to coordinate different legislative systems
with a view to safeguarding the needs and rights of individual migrants and
their families, and at the same time, those of the host countries. No country
can be expected to address today's problems of migration by itself. We are all
witnesses of the burden of suffering, the dislocation and the aspirations that
accompany the flow of migrants. The phenomenon, as everyone knows, is difficult
to manage; but there is no doubt that foreign workers, despite any difficulties
concerning integration, make a significant contribution to the economic
development of the host country through their labour, besides that which they
make to their country of origin through the money they send home. Obviously,
these labourers cannot be considered as a commodity or a mere workforce. They
must not, therefore, be treated like any other factor of production. Every
migrant is a human person who, as such, possesses fundamental, inalienable
rights that must be respected by everyone and in every circumstance[142].
63. No consideration of the problems associated with development could fail
to highlight the direct link between poverty and unemployment. In many
cases, poverty results from a violation of the dignity of human work,
either because work opportunities are limited (through unemployment or
underemployment), or “because a low value is put on work and the rights that
flow from it, especially the right to a just wage and to the personal security
of the worker and his or her family”[143]. For this reason, on 1 May
2000 on the occasion of the Jubilee of Workers, my venerable predecessor Pope
John Paul II issued an appeal for “a global coalition in favour of ‘decent
work”'[144], supporting the strategy of the International Labour
Organization. In this way, he gave a strong moral impetus to this objective,
seeing it as an aspiration of families in every country of the world. What is
meant by the word “decent” in regard to work? It means work that expresses the
essential dignity of every man and woman in the context of their particular
society: 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 labour; work that
permits the workers to organize themselves freely, and to make their voices
heard; work that leaves enough room for rediscovering one's roots at a personal,
familial and spiritual level; work that guarantees those who have retired a
decent standard of living.
64. While reflecting on the theme of work, it is appropriate to recall how
important it is that labour unions — which have always been encouraged
and supported by the Church — should be open to the new perspectives that are
emerging in the world of work. Looking to wider concerns than the specific
category of labour for which they were formed, union organizations are called to
address some of the new questions arising in our society: I am thinking, for
example, of the complex of issues that social scientists describe in terms of a
conflict between worker and consumer. Without necessarily endorsing the thesis
that the central focus on the worker has given way to a central focus on the
consumer, this would still appear to constitute new ground for unions to explore
creatively. The global context in which work takes place also demands that
national labour unions, which tend to limit themselves to defending the
interests of their registered members, should turn their attention to those
outside their membership, and in particular to workers in developing countries
where social rights are often violated. The protection of these workers, partly
achieved through appropriate initiatives aimed at their countries of origin,
will enable trade unions to demonstrate the authentic ethical and cultural
motivations that made it possible for them, in a different social and labour
context, to play a decisive role in development. The Church's traditional
teaching makes a valid distinction between the respective roles and functions of
trade unions and politics. This distinction allows unions to identify civil
society as the proper setting for their necessary activity of defending and
promoting labour, especially on behalf of exploited and unrepresented workers,
whose woeful condition is often ignored by the distracted eye of society.
65. Finance, therefore — through the renewed structures and operating
methods that have to be designed after its misuse, which wreaked such havoc on
the real economy — now needs to go back to being an instrument directed
towards improved wealth creation and development. Insofar as they are
instruments, the entire economy and finance, not just certain sectors, must be
used in an ethical way so as to create suitable conditions for human development
and for the development of peoples. It is certainly useful, and in some
circumstances imperative, to launch financial initiatives in which the
humanitarian dimension predominates. However, this must not obscure the fact
that the entire financial system has to be aimed at sustaining true development.
Above all, the intention to do good must not be considered incompatible with the
effective capacity to produce goods. Financiers must rediscover the genuinely
ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated
instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers. Right intention,
transparency, and the search for positive results are mutually compatible and
must never be detached from one another. If love is wise, it can find ways of
working in accordance with provident and just expediency, as is illustrated in a
significant way by much of the experience of credit unions.
Both the regulation of the financial sector, so as to safeguard weaker
parties and discourage scandalous speculation, and experimentation with new
forms of finance, designed to support development projects, are positive
experiences that should be further explored and encouraged, highlighting the
responsibility of the investor. Furthermore, the experience of
micro-finance, which has its roots in the thinking and activity of the civil
humanists — I am thinking especially of the birth of pawnbroking — should be
strengthened and fine-tuned. This is all the more necessary in these days when
financial difficulties can become severe for many of the more vulnerable sectors
of the population, who should be protected from the risk of usury and from
despair. The weakest members of society should be helped to defend themselves
against usury, just as poor peoples should be helped to derive real benefit from
micro-credit, in order to discourage the exploitation that is possible in these
two areas. Since rich countries are also experiencing new forms of poverty,
micro-finance can give practical assistance by launching new initiatives and
opening up new sectors for the benefit of the weaker elements in society, even
at a time of general economic downturn.
66. Global interconnectedness has led to the emergence of a new political
power, that of consumers and their associations. This is a phenomenon
that needs to be further explored, as it contains positive elements to be
encouraged as well as excesses to be avoided. It is good for people to realize
that purchasing is always a moral — and not simply economic — act. Hence the
consumer has a specific social responsibility, which goes hand-in- hand with
the social responsibility of the enterprise. 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. In addition, it can be helpful to promote new ways of marketing
products from deprived areas of the world, so as to guarantee their producers a
decent return. However, certain conditions need to be met: the market should be
genuinely transparent; the producers, as well as increasing their profit
margins, should also receive improved formation in professional skills and
technology; and finally, trade of this kind must not become hostage to partisan
ideologies. A more incisive role for consumers, as long as they themselves are
not manipulated by associations that do not truly represent them, is a desirable
element for building economic democracy.
67. In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is
a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of
the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions
and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can
acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of
implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect[146]
and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This
seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order
which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the
development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to
revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present
crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and
timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the
environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a
true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII
indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law,
to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek
to establish the common good[147], and to make a commitment to
securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity
in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally
recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all,
regard for justice, and respect for rights[148]. Obviously it would
have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all
parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international
forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various
sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power
among the strongest nations. The integral development of peoples and
international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of
international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of
globalization[149]. They also require the construction of a social
order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between
moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and
civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PEOPLES
AND TECHNOLOGY
AND TECHNOLOGY
68. The development of peoples is intimately linked to the development of
individuals. The human person by nature is actively involved in his own
development. The development in question is not simply the result of natural
mechanisms, since as everybody knows, we are all capable of making free and
responsible choices. Nor is it merely at the mercy of our caprice, since we all
know that we are a gift, not something self-generated. Our freedom is profoundly
shaped by our being, and by its limits. No one shapes his own conscience
arbitrarily, but we all build our own “I” on the basis of a “self” which is
given to us. Not only are other persons outside our control, but each one of us
is outside his or her own control. A person's development is compromised, if
he claims to be solely responsible for producing what he becomes. By
analogy, the development of peoples goes awry if humanity thinks it can
re-create itself through the “wonders” of technology, just as economic
development is exposed as a destructive sham if it relies on the “wonders” of
finance in order to sustain unnatural and consumerist growth. In the face of
such Promethean presumption, we must fortify our love for a freedom that is not
merely arbitrary, but is rendered truly human by acknowledgment of the good that
underlies it. To this end, man needs to look inside himself in order to
recognize the fundamental norms of the natural moral law which God has written
on our hearts.
69. The challenge of development today is closely linked to technological
progress, with its astounding applications in the field of biology.
Technology — it is worth emphasizing — is a profoundly human reality, linked to
the autonomy and freedom of man. In technology we express and confirm the
hegemony of the spirit over matter. “The human spirit, ‘increasingly free of its
bondage to creatures, can be more easily drawn to the worship and contemplation
of the Creator'”[150]. Technology enables us to exercise dominion over
matter, to reduce risks, to save labour, to improve our conditions of life. It
touches the heart of the vocation of human labour: in technology, seen as the
product of his genius, man recognizes himself and forges his own humanity.
Technology is the objective side of human action[151] whose origin and
raison d'etre is found in the subjective element: the worker himself. For
this reason, technology is never merely technology. It reveals man and his
aspirations towards development, it expresses the inner tension that impels him
gradually to overcome material limitations. Technology, in this sense, is a
response to God's command to till and to keep the land (cf. Gen 2:15)
that he has entrusted to humanity, and it must serve to reinforce the covenant
between human beings and the environment, a covenant that should mirror God's
creative love.
70. Technological development can give rise to the idea that technology is
self-sufficient when too much attention is given to the “how” questions,
and not enough to the many “why” questions underlying human activity. For
this reason technology can appear ambivalent. Produced through human creativity
as a tool of personal freedom, technology can be understood as a manifestation
of absolute freedom, the freedom that seeks to prescind from the limits inherent
in things. The process of globalization could replace ideologies with
technology[152], allowing the latter to become an ideological power
that threatens to confine us within an a priori that holds us back from
encountering being and truth. Were that to happen, we would all know, evaluate
and make decisions about our life situations from within a technocratic cultural
perspective to which we would belong structurally, without ever being able to
discover a meaning that is not of our own making. The “technical” worldview that
follows from this vision is now so dominant that truth has come to be seen as
coinciding with the possible. But when the sole criterion of truth is efficiency
and utility, development is automatically denied. True development does not
consist primarily in “doing”. The key to development is a mind capable of
thinking in technological terms and grasping the fully human meaning of human
activities, within the context of the holistic meaning of the individual's
being. Even when we work through satellites or through remote electronic
impulses, our actions always remain human, an expression of our responsible
freedom. Technology is highly attractive because it draws us out of our physical
limitations and broadens our horizon. But human freedom is authentic only
when it responds to the fascination of technology with decisions that are the
fruit of moral responsibility. Hence the pressing need for formation in an
ethically responsible use of technology. Moving beyond the fascination that
technology exerts, we must reappropriate the true meaning of freedom, which is
not an intoxication with total autonomy, but a response to the call of being,
beginning with our own personal being.
71. This deviation from solid humanistic principles that a technical mindset
can produce is seen today in certain technological applications in the fields of
development and peace. Often the development of peoples is considered a matter
of financial engineering, the freeing up of markets, the removal of tariffs,
investment in production, and institutional reforms — in other words, a purely
technical matter. All these factors are of great importance, but we have to ask
why technical choices made thus far have yielded rather mixed results. We need
to think hard about the cause. Development will never be fully guaranteed
through automatic or impersonal forces, whether they derive from the market or
from international politics. Development is impossible without upright men
and women, without financiers and politicians whose consciences are finely
attuned to the requirements of the common good. Both professional competence
and moral consistency are necessary. When technology is allowed to take over,
the result is confusion between ends and means, such that the sole criterion for
action in business is thought to be the maximization of profit, in politics the
consolidation of power, and in science the findings of research. Often,
underneath the intricacies of economic, financial and political
interconnections, there remain misunderstandings, hardships and injustice. The
flow of technological know-how increases, but it is those in possession of it
who benefit, while the situation on the ground for the peoples who live in its
shadow remains unchanged: for them there is little chance of emancipation.
72. Even peace can run the risk of being considered a technical product,
merely the outcome of agreements between governments or of initiatives aimed at
ensuring effective economic aid. It is true that peace-building requires
the constant interplay of diplomatic contacts, economic, technological and
cultural exchanges, agreements on common projects, as well as joint strategies
to curb the threat of military conflict and to root out the underlying causes of
terrorism. Nevertheless, if such efforts are to have lasting effects, they must
be based on values rooted in the truth of human life. That is, the voice of the
peoples affected must be heard and their situation must be taken into
consideration, if their expectations are to be correctly interpreted. One must
align oneself, so to speak, with the unsung efforts of so many individuals
deeply committed to bringing peoples together and to facilitating development on
the basis of love and mutual understanding. Among them are members of the
Christian faithful, involved in the great task of upholding the fully human
dimension of development and peace.
73. Linked to technological development is the increasingly pervasive
presence of the means of social communications. It is almost impossible
today to imagine the life of the human family without them. For better or for
worse, they are so integral a part of life today that it seems quite absurd to
maintain that they are neutral — and hence unaffected by any moral
considerations concerning people. Often such views, stressing the strictly
technical nature of the media, effectively support their subordination to
economic interests intent on dominating the market and, not least, to attempts
to impose cultural models that serve ideological and political agendas. Given
the media's fundamental importance in engineering changes in attitude towards
reality and the human person, we must reflect carefully on their influence,
especially in regard to the ethical-cultural dimension of globalization and the
development of peoples in solidarity. Mirroring what is required for an ethical
approach to globalization and development, so too the meaning and purpose of
the media must be sought within an anthropological perspective. This means
that they can have a civilizing effect not only when, thanks to
technological development, they increase the possibilities of communicating
information, but above all when they are geared towards a vision of the person
and the common good that reflects truly universal values. Just because social
communications increase the possibilities of interconnection and the
dissemination of ideas, it does not follow that they promote freedom or
internationalize development and democracy for all. To achieve goals of this
kind, they need to focus on promoting the dignity of persons and peoples, they
need to be clearly inspired by charity and placed at the service of truth, of
the good, and of natural and supernatural fraternity. In fact, human freedom is
intrinsically linked with these higher values. The media can make an important
contribution towards the growth in communion of the human family and the
ethos of society when they are used to promote universal participation in
the common search for what is just.
74. A particularly crucial battleground in today's cultural struggle between
the supremacy of technology and human moral responsibility is the field of
bioethics, where the very possibility of integral human development is
radically called into question. In this most delicate and critical area, the
fundamental question asserts itself force-fully: is man the product of his own
labours or does he depend on God? Scientific discoveries in this field and the
possibilities of technological intervention seem so advanced as to force a
choice between two types of reasoning: reason open to transcendence or reason
closed within immanence. We are presented with a clear either/ or. Yet
the rationality of a self-centred use of technology proves to be irrational
because it implies a decisive rejection of meaning and value. It is no
coincidence that closing the door to transcendence brings one up short against a
difficulty: how could being emerge from nothing, how could intelligence be born
from chance?[153] Faced with these dramatic questions, reason and faith
can come to each other's assistance. Only together will they save man.
Entranced by an exclusive reliance on technology, reason without faith is doomed
to flounder in an illusion of its own omnipotence. Faith without reason risks
being cut off from everyday life[154].
75. Paul VI had already recognized and drawn attention to the global
dimension of the social question[155]. Following his lead, we need to
affirm today that the social question has become a radically anthropological
question, in the sense that it concerns not just how life is conceived but
also how it is manipulated, as bio-technology places it increasingly under man's
control. In vitro fertilization, embryo research, the possibility of
manufacturing clones and human hybrids: all this is now emerging and being
promoted in today's highly disillusioned culture, which believes it has mastered
every mystery, because the origin of life is now within our grasp. Here we see
the clearest expression of technology's supremacy. In this type of culture, the
conscience is simply invited to take note of technological possibilities. Yet we
must not underestimate the disturbing scenarios that threaten our future, or the
powerful new instruments that the “culture of death” has at its disposal. To the
tragic and widespread scourge of abortion we may well have to add in the future
— indeed it is already surreptiously present — the systematic eugenic
programming of births. At the other end of the spectrum, a pro-euthanasia
mindset is making inroads as an equally damaging assertion of control over life
that under certain circumstances is deemed no longer worth living. Underlying
these scenarios are cultural viewpoints that deny human dignity. These practices
in turn foster a materialistic and mechanistic understanding of human life. Who
could measure the negative effects of this kind of mentality for development?
How can we be surprised by the indifference shown towards situations of human
degradation, when such indifference extends even to our attitude towards what is
and is not human? What is astonishing is the arbitrary and selective
determination of what to put forward today as worthy of respect. Insignificant
matters are considered shocking, yet unprecedented injustices seem to be widely
tolerated. While the poor of the world continue knocking on the doors of the
rich, the world of affluence runs the risk of no longer hearing those knocks, on
account of a conscience that can no longer distinguish what is human. God
reveals man to himself; reason and faith work hand in hand to demonstrate to us
what is good, provided we want to see it; the natural law, in which creative
Reason shines forth, reveals our greatness, but also our wretchedness insofar as
we fail to recognize the call to moral truth.
76. One aspect of the contemporary technological mindset is the tendency to
consider the problems and emotions of the interior life from a purely
psychological point of view, even to the point of neurological reductionism. In
this way man's interiority is emptied of its meaning and gradually our awareness
of the human soul's ontological depths, as probed by the saints, is lost. The
question of development is closely bound up with our understanding of the human
soul, insofar as we often reduce the self to the psyche and confuse the
soul's health with emotional well-being. These over-simplifications stem from a
profound failure to understand the spiritual life, and they obscure the fact
that the development of individuals and peoples depends partly on the resolution
of problems of a spiritual nature. Development must include not just material
growth but also spiritual growth, since the human person is a “unity of body
and soul”[156], born of God's creative love and destined for eternal
life. The human being develops when he grows in the spirit, when his soul comes
to know itself and the truths that God has implanted deep within, when he enters
into dialogue with himself and his Creator. When he is far away from God, man is
unsettled and ill at ease. Social and psychological alienation and the many
neuroses that afflict affluent societies are attributable in part to spiritual
factors. A prosperous society, highly developed in material terms but weighing
heavily on the soul, is not of itself conducive to authentic development. The
new forms of slavery to drugs and the lack of hope into which so many people
fall can be explained not only in sociological and psychological terms but also
in essentially spiritual terms. The emptiness in which the soul feels abandoned,
despite the availability of countless therapies for body and psyche, leads to
suffering. There cannot be holistic development and universal common good
unless people's spiritual and moral welfare is taken into account,
considered in their totality as body and soul.
77. The supremacy of technology tends to prevent people from recognizing
anything that cannot be explained in terms of matter alone. Yet everyone
experiences the many immaterial and spiritual dimensions of life. Knowing is not
simply a material act, since the object that is known always conceals something
beyond the empirical datum. All our knowledge, even the most simple, is always a
minor miracle, since it can never be fully explained by the material instruments
that we apply to it. In every truth there is something more than we would have
expected, in the love that we receive there is always an element that surprises
us. We should never cease to marvel at these things. In all knowledge and in
every act of love the human soul experiences something “over and above”, which
seems very much like a gift that we receive, or a height to which we are raised.
The development of individuals and peoples is likewise located on a height, if
we consider the spiritual dimension that must be present if such
development is to be authentic. It requires new eyes and a new heart, capable of
rising above a materialistic vision of human events, capable of glimpsing
in development the “beyond” that technology cannot give. By following this path,
it is possible to pursue the integral human development that takes its direction
from the driving force of charity in truth.
78. Without God man neither knows which way to go, nor even understands who
he is. In the face of the enormous problems surrounding the development of
peoples, which almost make us yield to discouragement, we find solace in the
sayings of our Lord Jesus Christ, who teaches us: “Apart from me you can do
nothing” (Jn 15:5) and then encourages us: “I am with you always, to the
close of the age” (Mt 28:20). As we contemplate the vast amount of work
to be done, we are sustained by our faith that God is present alongside those
who come together in his name to work for justice. Paul VI recalled in
Populorum Progressio that man cannot bring about his own progress unaided,
because by himself he cannot establish an authentic humanism. Only if we are
aware of our calling, as individuals and as a community, to be part of God's
family as his sons and daughters, will we be able to generate a new vision and
muster new energy in the service of a truly integral humanism. The greatest
service to development, then, is a Christian humanism[157] that
enkindles charity and takes its lead from truth, accepting both as a lasting
gift from God. Openness to God makes us open towards our brothers and sisters
and towards an understanding of life as a joyful task to be accomplished in a
spirit of solidarity. On the other hand, ideological rejection of God and an
atheism of indifference, oblivious to the Creator and at risk of becoming
equally oblivious to human values, constitute some of the chief obstacles to
development today. A humanism which excludes God is an inhuman humanism.
Only a humanism open to the Absolute can guide us in the promotion and building
of forms of social and civic life — structures, institutions, culture and
ethos — without exposing us to the risk of becoming ensnared by the fashions
of the moment. Awareness of God's undying love sustains us in our laborious and
stimulating work for justice and the development of peoples, amid successes and
failures, in the ceaseless pursuit of a just ordering of human affairs. God's
love calls us to move beyond the limited and the ephemeral, it gives us the
courage to continue seeking and working for the benefit of all, even if this
cannot be achieved immediately and if what we are able to achieve, alongside
political authorities and those working in the field of economics, is always
less than we might wish[158]. God gives us the strength to fight and to
suffer for love of the common good, because he is our All, our greatest hope.
79. Development needs Christians with their arms raised towards God in
prayer, Christians moved by the knowledge that truth-filled love, caritas in
veritate, from which authentic development proceeds, is not produced by us,
but given to us. For this reason, even in the most difficult and complex times,
besides recognizing what is happening, we must above all else turn to God's
love. Development requires attention to the spiritual life, a serious
consideration of the experiences of trust in God, spiritual fellowship in
Christ, reliance upon God's providence and mercy, love and forgiveness,
self-denial, acceptance of others, justice and peace. All this is essential if
“hearts of stone” are to be transformed into “hearts of flesh” (Ezek
36:26), rendering life on earth “divine” and thus more worthy of humanity. All
this is of man, because man is the subject of his own existence; and at
the same time it is of God, because God is at the beginning and end of
all that is good, all that leads to salvation: “the world or life or death or
the present or the future, all are yours; and you are Christ's; and Christ is
God's” (1 Cor 3:22-23). Christians long for the entire human family to
call upon God as “Our Father!” In union with the only-begotten Son, may all
people learn to pray to the Father and to ask him, in the words that Jesus
himself taught us, for the grace to glorify him by living according to his will,
to receive the daily bread that we need, to be understanding and generous
towards our debtors, not to be tempted beyond our limits, and to be delivered
from evil (cf. Mt 6:9-13).
At the conclusion of the Pauline Year, I gladly express this hope in
the Apostle's own words, taken from the Letter to the Romans: “Let love
be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with
brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honour” (Rom 12:9-10).
May the Virgin Mary — proclaimed Mater Ecclesiae by Paul VI and honoured
by Christians as Speculum Iustitiae and Regina Pacis — protect us
and obtain for us, through her heavenly intercession, the strength, hope and joy
necessary to continue to dedicate ourselves with generosity to the task of
bringing about the “development of the whole man and of all men”[159].
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter's, on 29 June, the Solemnity of the Holy
Apostles Peter and Paul, in the year 2009, the fifth of my Pontificate.
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI
[1] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio (26
March 1967), 22: AAS 59 (1967), 268; Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World
Gaudium et Spes,
69.
[2] Address for the Day of Development (23 August 1968):
AAS 60 (1968), 626-627.
[3] Cf. John Paul II,
Message for the 2002 World Day of Peace:
AAS 94 (2002), 132-140.
[4] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on
the Church in the Modern World
Gaudium et Spes, 26.
[5] Cf. John XXIII, Encyclical Letter
Pacem in Terris (11
April 1963): AAS 55 (1963), 268-270.
[6] Cf. no. 16: loc. cit., 265.
[7] Cf. ibid., 82: loc. cit., 297.
[8] Ibid., 42: loc. cit., 278.
[9] Ibid., 20: loc. cit., 267.
[10] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on
the Church in the Modern World
Gaudium et Spes, 36; Paul VI, Apostolic
Letter
Octogesima Adveniens (14 May 1971), 4: AAS 63 (1971),
403-404; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Centesimus Annus (1 May 1991),
43: AAS 83 (1991), 847.
[11] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 13:
loc. cit., 263-264.
[12] Cf. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace,
Compendium of
the Social Doctrine of the Church, 76.
[13] Cf. Benedict XVI,
Address at the Inauguration of the Fifth
General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean (Aparecida,
13 May 2007).
[14] Cf. nos. 3-5: loc. cit., 258-260.
[15] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis
(30 December 1987), 6-7: AAS 80 (1988), 517-519.
[16] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 14:
loc. cit., 264.
[17] Cf. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter
Deus Caritas Est
(25 December 2005), 18: AAS 98 (2006), 232.
[18] Ibid., 6: loc cit., 222.
[19] Cf. Benedict XVI,
Christmas Address to the Roman Curia,
22 December 2005.
[21] Cf. ibid., 1: loc. cit., 513-514.
[22] Cf. ibid., 3: loc. cit., 515.
[23] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Laborem Exercens (14
September 1981), 3: AAS 73 (1981), 583-584.
[25] Cf. Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 3: loc.
cit., 258.
[26] Cf. ibid., 34: loc. cit., 274.
[27] Cf. nos. 8-9: AAS 60 (1968), 485-487; Benedict XVI,
Address to the participants at the International Congress promoted by the
Pontifical Lateran University on the fortieth anniversary of Paul VI's
Encyclical “Humanae Vitae”, 10 May 2008.
[28] Cf. Encyclical Letter
Evangelium Vitae (25 March 1995),
93: AAS 87 (1995), 507-508.
[29] Ibid., 101: loc. cit., 516-518.
[30] No. 29: AAS 68 (1976), 25.
[31] Ibid., 31: loc. cit., 26.
[32] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis,
41: loc. cit., 570-572.
[34] No. 15: loc. cit., 265.
[35] Cf. ibid., 2: loc. cit., 258; Leo XIII, Encyclical
Letter
Rerum Novarum (15 May 1891): Leonis XIII P.M. Acta, XI,
Romae 1892, 97-144; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis,
8: loc. cit., 519-520; Id., Encyclical Letter
Centesimus Annus, 5:
loc. cit., 799.
[36] Cf. Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 2, 13:
loc. cit., 258, 263-264.
[37] Ibid., 42: loc. cit., 278.
[38] Ibid., 11: loc. cit., 262; cf. John Paul II,
Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 25: loc. cit., 822-824.
[39] Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 15: loc. cit.,
265.
[40] Ibid., 3: loc. cit., 258.
[41] Ibid., 6: loc. cit., 260.
[42] Ibid., 14: loc. cit., 264.
[43] Ibid.; cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Centesimus
Annus, 53-62: loc. cit., 859-867; Id., Encyclical Letter
Redemptor
Hominis (4 March 1979), 13-14: AAS 71 (1979), 282-286.
[44] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 12:
loc. cit., 262-263.
[45] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World
Gaudium et Spes, 22.
[46] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 13:
loc. cit., 263-264.
[47] Cf. Benedict XVI,
Address to the Participants in the Fourth
National Congress of the Church in Italy, Verona, 19 October 2006.
[48] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 16:
loc. cit., 265.
[49] Ibid.
[50] Benedict XVI,
Address to young people at Barangaroo,
Sydney, 17 July 2008.
[51] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 20:
loc. cit., 267.
[52] Ibid., 66: loc. cit., 289-290.
[53] Ibid., 21: loc. cit., 267-268.
[54] Cf. nos. 3, 29, 32: loc. cit., 258, 272, 273.
[56] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 9:
loc. cit., 261-262.
[57] Cf. Encyclical Letter
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 20:
loc. cit., 536-537.
[59] Cf. nos. 23, 33: loc. cit., 268-269, 273-274.
[60] Cf. loc. cit., 135.
[61] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World
Gaudium et Spes, 63.
[63] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Veritatis Splendor (6
August 1993), 33, 46,
51: AAS 85 (1993), 1160, 1169-1171, 1174-1175; Id.,
Address to the Assembly of the United Nations, 5 October 1995, 3.
[64] Cf. Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 47: loc.
cit., 280-281; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis,
42:
loc. cit., 572-574.
[65] Cf. Benedict XVI,
Message for the 2007 World Food Day:
AAS 99 (2007), 933-935.
[66] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Evangelium Vitae, 18,
59,
63-64: loc. cit., 419-421, 467-468, 472-475.
[67] Cf. Benedict XVI,
Message for the 2007 World Day of Peace,
5.
[68] Cf. John Paul II,
Message for the 2002 World Day of Peace,
4-7, 12-15: AAS 94 (2002), 134-136, 138-140; Id.,
Message for the 2004
World Day of Peace, 8: AAS 96 (2004), 119; Id.,
Message for the
2005 World Day of Peace, 4: AAS 97 (2005), 177-178; Benedict XVI,
Message for the 2006 World Day of Peace, 9-10: AAS 98 (2006), 60-61;
Id.,
Message for the 2007 World Day of Peace, 5, 14: loc. cit.,
778, 782-783.
[69] Cf. John Paul II,
Message for the 2002 World Day of Peace, 6: loc. cit., 135; Benedict XVI,
Message for the 2006 World Day of Peace, 9-10: loc. cit., 60-61.
[70] Cf. Benedict XVI,
Homily at Mass, Islinger Feld,
Regensburg,
12 September 2006.
[71] Cf. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter
Deus Caritas Est, 1:
loc. cit., 217-218.
[73] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 19:
loc. cit., 266-267.
[74] Ibid., 39: loc. cit., 276-277.
[75] Ibid., 75: loc. cit., 293-294.
[76] Cf. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter
Deus Caritas Est, 28:
loc. cit., 238-240.
[78] Cf. Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 40, 85:
loc. cit., 277, 298-299.
[79] Ibid., 13: loc. cit., 263-264.
[80] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Fides et Ratio
(14
September 1998), 85: AAS 91 (1999), 72-73.
[81] Cf. ibid., 83: loc. cit., 70-71.
[82] Benedict XVI,
Address at the University of Regensburg, 12
September 2006.
[83] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 33:
loc. cit., 273-274.
[84] Cf. John Paul II,
Message for the 2000 World Day of Peace,
15: AAS 92 (2000), 366.
[85]
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 407; cf. John Paul II,
Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 25: loc. cit., 822-824.
[86] Cf. no. 17: AAS 99 (2007), 1000.
[87] Cf. ibid., 23: loc. cit., 1004-1005.
[88] Saint Augustine expounds this teaching in detail in his dialogue
on free will (De libero arbitrio, II, 3, 8ff.). He indicates the
existence within the human soul of an “internal sense”. This sense consists in
an act that is fulfilled outside the normal functions of reason, an act that is
not the result of reflection, but is almost instinctive, through which reason,
realizing its transient and fallible nature, admits the existence of something
eternal, higher than itself, something absolutely true and certain. The name
that Saint Augustine gives to this interior truth is at times the name of God (Confessions
X, 24, 35; XII, 25, 35; De libero arbitrio II, 3, 8), more often that
of Christ (De magistro 11:38; Confessions VII, 18, 24; XI, 2, 4).
[89] Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter
Deus Caritas Est, 3:
loc. cit.,
219.
[90] Cf. no. 49: loc. cit., 281.
[92] Cf. no. 35: loc. cit., 836-838.
[93] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis,
38: loc. cit., 565-566.
[94] No. 44: loc. cit., 279.
[95] Cf. ibid., 24: loc. cit., 269.
[96] Cf. Encyclical Letter
Centesimus Annus, 36: loc. cit.,
838-840.
[97] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 24:
loc. cit., 269.
[98] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Centesimus Annus, 32:
loc. cit., 832-833; Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio,
25: loc. cit., 269-270.
[100] Ibid., 15: loc. cit., 616-618.
[101] Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 27: loc. cit.,
271.
[102] Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on
Christian Freedom and Liberation
Libertatis Conscientia (22 March 1987),
74: AAS 79 (1987), 587.
[103] Cf. John Paul II, Interview published in the Catholic daily
newspaper La Croix, 20 August 1997.
[104] John Paul II,
Address to the Pontifical Academy of Social
Sciences, 27 April 2001.
[105] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 17:
loc. cit., 265-266.
[106] Cf. John Paul II,
Message for the 2003 World Day of Peace,
5: AAS 95 (2003), 343.
[107] Cf. ibid.
[108] Cf. Benedict XVI,
Message for the 2007 World Day of Peace,
13: loc. cit., 781-782.
[109] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 65:
loc. cit., 289.
[110] Cf. ibid., 36-37: loc. cit., 275-276.
[111] Cf. ibid., 37: loc. cit., 275-276.
[112] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the Apostolate
of Lay People
Apostolicam Actuositatem, 11.
[113] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 14:
loc. cit., 264; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Centesimus Annus, 32:
loc. cit., 832-833.
[114] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 77:
loc. cit., 295.
[115] John Paul II,
Message for the 1990 World Day of Peace,
6: AAS 82 (1990), 150.
[116] Heraclitus of Ephesus (Ephesus, c. 535 B.C. - c. 475 B.C.),
Fragment 22B124, in H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker,
Weidmann, Berlin, 1952, 6(th) ed.
[117] Pontifical Council for Justice And Peace,
Compendium of the
Social Doctrine of the Church, 451-487.
[118] Cf. John Paul II,
Message for the 1990 World Day of Peace,
10: loc. cit., 152-153.
[119] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 65:
loc. cit., 289.
[120] Benedict XVI,
Message for the 2008 World Day of Peace,
7: AAS 100 (2008), 41.
[121] Cf. Benedict XVI,
Address to the General Assembly of the
United Nations Organization, New York, 18 April 2008.
[122] Cf. John Paul II,
Message for the 1990 World Day of Peace,
13: loc. cit., 154-155.
[124] Ibid., 38: loc. cit., 840-841; Benedict XVI,
Message for the 2007 World Day of Peace, 8: loc. cit., 779.
[126] Cf. ibid.
[127] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Evangelium Vitae,
20: loc. cit., 422-424.
[128] Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 85: loc. cit.,
298-299.
[129] Cf. John Paul II,
Message for the 1998 World Day of Peace,
3: AAS 90 (1998), 150;
Address to the Members of the Vatican
Foundation “Centesimus Annus – Pro Pontifice”, 9 May 1998, 2;
Address to
the Civil Authorities and Diplomatic Corps of Austria, 20 June 1998, 8;
Message to the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, 5 May 2000, 6.
[130] According to Saint Thomas “ratio partis contrariatur rationi
personae”, In III Sent., d. 5, q. 3, a. 2; also “Homo non ordinatur ad
communitatem politicam secundum se totum et secundum omnia sua”, Summa
Theologiae I-II, q. 21, a. 4, ad 3.
[131] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on
the Church
Lumen Gentium, 1.
[132] Cf. John Paul II,
Address to the Sixth Public Session of the
Pontifical Academies of Theology and of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 8 November
2001, 3.
[133] Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on
the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church
Dominus
Iesus (6 August 2000), 22: AAS 92 (2000), 763-764; Id.,
Doctrinal Note on some questions regarding the participation of Catholics in
political life (24 November 2002), 8: AAS 96 (2004), 369-370.
[134] Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter
Spe Salvi, 31: loc.
cit., 1010;
Address to the Participants in the Fourth National Congress
of the Church in Italy, Verona, 19 October 2006.
[135] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Centesimus Annus, 5:
loc. cit., 798-800; Benedict XVI,
Address to the Participants in the Fourth National Congress
of the Church in Italy, Verona, 19 October 2006.
[136] No. 12.
[137] Cf. Pius XI, Encyclical Letter
Quadragesimo Anno (15 May
1931): AAS 23 (1931), 203; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Centesimus
Annus, 48: loc. cit., 852-854;
Catechism of the Catholic Church,
1883.
[138] Cf. John XXIII, Encyclical Letter
Pacem in Terris,
loc. cit., 274.
[139] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 10,
41: loc. cit., 262, 277-278.
[140] Cf. Benedict XVI, Address to Members of the International
Theological Commission, 5 October 2007;
Address to the Participants in
the International Congress on Natural Moral Law, 12 February 2007.
[141] Cf. Benedict XVI,
Address to the Bishops of Thailand on
their “Ad Limina” Visit, 16 May 2008.
[142] Cf. Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and
Itinerant People, Instruction
Erga Migrantes Caritas Christi (3 May
2004): AAS 96 (2004), 762-822.
[144] Jubilee of Workers,
Greeting after Mass, 1 May 2000.
[146] Cf. Benedict XVI,
Address to the Members of the General
Assembly of the United Nations Organization, New York, 18 April 2008.
[147] Cf. John XXIII, Encyclical Letter
Pacem in Terris, loc. cit.,
293; Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace,
Compendium of the Social
Doctrine of the Church, 441.
[148] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on
the Church in the Modern World,
Gaudium et Spes, 82.
[149] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter
Sollicitudo Rei
Socialis, 43: loc. cit., 574-575.
[150] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 41:
loc. cit., 277-278; cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World
Gaudium et Spes, 57.
[152] Cf. Paul VI, Apostolic Letter
Octogesima Adveniens, 29:
loc. cit., 420.
[153] Cf. Benedict XVI,
Address to the Participants in the Fourth
National Congress of the Church in Italy, Verona, 19 October 2006; Id.,
Homily at Mass, Islinger Feld, Regensburg, 12 September 2006.
[154] Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on
certain bioethical questions
Dignitas Personae (8 September 2008): AAS
100 (2008), 858-887.
[155] Cf. Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 3: loc.
cit., 258.
[156] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World
Gaudium et Spes, 14.
[157] Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 42:
loc. cit., 278.
[159] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter
Populorum Progressio, 42:
loc. cit., 278.
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