ENCYCLICAL LETTER 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
INTRODUCTION
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].
CHAPTER ONE
THE MESSAGE 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.
CHAPTER TWO
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 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.
CHAPTER THREE
FRATERNITY, ECONOMIC 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.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PEOPLE 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.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE COOPERATION 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.
CHAPTER SIX
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PEOPLES 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.
CONCLUSION
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.
[20] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei
Socialis, 3: loc. cit., 515.
[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.
[24] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus,
3: loc. cit., 794-796.
[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.
[33] Cf. ibid.; Id., Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 5,
54: loc. cit., 799, 859-860.
[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.
[55] Cf. Encyclical Letter, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 28:
loc. cit., 548-550.
[56] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 9:
loc. cit., 261-262.
[57] Cf. Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 20:
loc. cit., 536-537.
[58] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus,
22-29: loc. cit., 819-830.
[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.
[62] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus,
24: loc. cit., 821-822.
[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.
[72] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei
Socialis, 28: loc. cit., 548-550.
[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.
[77] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 59:
loc. cit., 864.
[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.
[91] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 28:
loc. cit., 827-828.
[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.
[99] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 24:
loc. cit., 637-638.
[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.
[123] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 36:
loc. cit., 838-840.
[124] Ibid., 38: loc. cit., 840-841; Benedict XVI, Message
for the 2007 World Day of Peace, 8: loc. cit., 779.
[125] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus,
41: loc. cit., 843-845.
[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.
[143] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 8:
loc. cit., 594-598.
[144] Jubilee of Workers, Greeting after Mass, 1 May 2000.
[145] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus,
36: loc. cit., 838-840.
[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.
[151] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens,
5: loc. cit., 586-589.
[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.
[158] Cf. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi, 35:
loc. cit., 1013-1014.
[159] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 42:
loc. cit., 278.
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