Fr. JC Maximilian

Since this encyclical is commemorating the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Populorum Progressio, this chapter basically summarizes the main points of that encyclical. Pope Benedict XVI discusses how while, Populorum Progressio was certainly a fruit of the Second Vatican Council, it would be wrong to see it as a “break” from the Church’s social teaching prior to the Council. In fact, he clearly disagrees with the whole attitude that the Council marked a radical change in the Church. Rather he sees it as flowing from the “Tradition of the apostolic faith,” to address the issues of our times. “The Church’s social doctrine illuminates with an unchanging light the new problems that are constantly emerging” (#12; picking up a theme from John Paul II’s encyclical, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #3).

From the vision of the Council, Pope Paul VI set out to convey two important truths. First, the whole Church, in all her being and action (whether she is proclaiming, celebrating, or performing acts of charity), is engaged in promoting integral human development. However, the Church needs a climate of freedom in order to bring all this energy to the advancement of humanity and the promotion of universal fraternity. Unfortunately the Church’s freedom is often impeded; whether through persecution or even simply reducing her public presence to just her charitable activities.

The second truth that Pope Paul VI conveyed is that “authentic human development concerns the whole of the person in every single dimension” (#11). This includes the spiritual/religious dimension which gives us the perspective of eternal life. We must recognize that Man does not develop through his own powers, nor can development be simply handed to him. Even the institutions that we create are not enough, because integral human development is primarily a vocation. As such, it involves the free assumption of responsibilities in solidarity with everyone else. It requires the recognition that human development NEEDS God, because we cannot bring about our own salvation. Without this recognition, any attempt of development dehumanizes the human person.

The Holy Father then demonstrates how these themes are also picked up, and developed in different ways, in other writings of Paul VI. Importantly, Paul VI recognized that all these social questions had really become worldwide. He also saw that technology, while bringing the possibility of much good in promoting human development, had serious limitations; it should be viewed as an ambivalent tool, at the service of the human striving for truth and meaning, but incapable of providing that truth and meaning in itself.

Even Man himself cannot, on his own, supply the ultimate meaning of his existence. That is only possible through the transcendent call, vocation, from the Mystery. The Mystery provides Man with responsible freedom, with is presupposed in integral human development. In addition to freedom, integral human develop also requires a respect for its truth. It is a call to seek the “more.” The essential quality of ‘authentic’ development is that it must be ‘integral.’ In other words it “has to promote the good of every man and of the whole man” (Populorum Progressio #14).

Lastly, the view of development as vocation brings charity into the central place of that development. “As society becomes ever more globalized, it makes us neighbors, 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” (#19).