Love At Our Roots: How Freedom Became A Force For Change.

Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems

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Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive.

The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve. We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages — such as education, inheritance and class — that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances. Never mind structural unemployment: Never mind the impossible costs of housing: Never mind that your children no longer have a school playing field: In a world governed by competition, those who fall behind become defined and self-defined as losers.

We are all neoliberals now. The term neoliberalism was coined at a meeting in Paris in Among the delegates were two men who came to define the ideology, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. In The Road to Serfdom , published in , Hayek argued that government planning, by crushing individualism, would lead inexorably to totalitarian control.

It came to the attention of some very wealthy people, who saw in the philosophy an opportunity to free themselves from regulation and tax. When, in , Hayek founded the first organisation that would spread the doctrine of neoliberalism — the Mont Pelerin Society — it was supported financially by millionaires and their foundations. They also financed academic positions and departments, particularly at the universities of Chicago and Virginia. As it evolved, neoliberalism became more strident.

Something else happened during this transition: In , Friedman was happy to describe himself as a neoliberal. But soon after that, the term began to disappear. Stranger still, even as the ideology became crisper and the movement more coherent, the lost name was not replaced by any common alternative. At first, despite its lavish funding, neoliberalism remained at the margins. The postwar consensus was almost universal: But in the s, when Keynesian policies began to fall apart and economic crises struck on both sides of the Atlantic, neoliberal ideas began to enter the mainstream.

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After Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan took power, the rest of the package soon followed: Through the IMF, the World Bank, the Maastricht treaty and the World Trade Organisation, neoliberal policies were imposed — often without democratic consent — on much of the world. Most remarkable was its adoption among parties that once belonged to the left: Labour and the Democrats, for example.

The freedom that neoliberalism offers, which sounds so beguiling when expressed in general terms, turns out to mean freedom for the pike, not for the minnows. Freedom from trade unions and collective bargaining means the freedom to suppress wages. Freedom from regulation means the freedom to poison rivers , endanger workers, charge iniquitous rates of interest and design exotic financial instruments.

Freedom from tax means freedom from the distribution of wealth that lifts people out of poverty. As Naomi Klein documents in The Shock Doctrine , neoliberal theorists advocated the use of crises to impose unpopular policies while people were distracted: When parliaments have voted to restrict sales of cigarettes , protect water supplies from mining companies, freeze energy bills or prevent pharmaceutical firms from ripping off the state, corporations have sued, often successfully. Democracy is reduced to theatre.

Another paradox of neoliberalism is that universal competition relies upon universal quantification and comparison. Conforming himself to Christ the Redeemer, man perceives himself as a creature willed by God and eternally chosen by him, called to grace and glory in all the fullness of the mystery in which he has become a sharer in Jesus Christ [69].

Being conformed to Christ and contemplating his face [70] instil in Christians an irrepressible longing for a foretaste in this world, in the context of human relationships, of what will be a reality in the definitive world to come; thus Christians strive to give food, drink, clothing, shelter, care, a welcome and company to the Lord who knocks at the door cf. Heir to the hope of the righteous in Israel and first among the disciples of Jesus Christ is Mary, his Mother.

The God of the Covenant, whom the Virgin of Nazareth praises in song as her spirit rejoices, is the One who casts down the mighty from their thrones and raises up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty, scatters the proud and shows mercy to those who fear him cf. Mary is totally dependent upon God and completely directed towards him by the impetus of her faith. The Church, God's dwelling place with men and women. The Church, sharing in mankind's joys and hopes, in its anxieties and sadness, stands with every man and woman of every place and time, to bring them the good news of the Kingdom of God, which in Jesus Christ has come and continues to be present among them[73].

In the midst of mankind and in the world she is the sacrament of God's love and, therefore, of the most splendid hope, which inspires and sustains every authentic undertaking for and commitment to human liberation and advancement. As minister of salvation, the Church is not in the abstract nor in a merely spiritual dimension, but in the context of the history and of the world in which man lives[74]. Here mankind is met by God's love and by the vocation to cooperate in the divine plan.

Unique and unrepeatable in his individuality, every person is a being who is open to relationships with others in society. Life together in society, in the network of relationships linking individuals, families and intermediate groups by encounter, communication and exchange, ensures a higher quality of living. The common good that people seek and attain in the formation of social communities is the guarantee of their personal, familial and associative good[75]. These are the reasons for which society originates and takes shape, with its array of structures, that is to say its political, economic, juridical and cultural constructs.

As an expert in humanity[77], she is able to understand man in his vocation and aspirations, in his limits and misgivings, in his rights and duties, and to speak a word of life that reverberates in the historical and social circumstances of human existence. Enriching and permeating society with the Gospel. With her social teaching the Church seeks to proclaim the Gospel and make it present in the complex network of social relations.

It is not simply a matter of reaching out to man in society — man as the recipient of the proclamation of the Gospel — but of enriching and permeating society itself with the Gospel [78]. For the Church, therefore, tending to the needs of man means that she also involves society in her missionary and salvific work. The way people live together in society often determines the quality of life and therefore the conditions in which every man and woman understand themselves and make decisions concerning themselves and their vocation.

For this reason, the Church is not indifferent to what is decided, brought about or experienced in society; she is attentive to the moral quality — that is, the authentically human and humanizing aspects — of social life. Society — and with it, politics, the economy, labour, law, culture — is not simply a secular and worldly reality, and therefore outside or foreign to the message and economy of salvation. Society in fact, with all that is accomplished within it, concerns man. By means of her social doctrine, the Church takes on the task of proclaiming what the Lord has entrusted to her.

She makes the message of the freedom and redemption wrought by Christ, the Gospel of the Kingdom, present in human history. As the Gospel reverberates by means of the Church in the today of men and women[81], this social doctrine is a word that brings freedom. This means that it has the effectiveness of truth and grace that comes from the Spirit of God, who penetrates hearts, predisposing them to thoughts and designs of love, justice, freedom and peace. Evangelizing the social sector, then, means infusing into the human heart the power of meaning and freedom found in the Gospel, in order to promote a society befitting mankind because it befits Christ: With her social doctrine not only does the Church not stray from her mission but she is rigorously faithful to it.

The redemption wrought by Christ and entrusted to the saving mission of the Church is certainly of the supernatural order. This dimension is not a delimitation of salvation but rather an integral expression of it[82]. The supernatural is not to be understood as an entity or a place that begins where the natural ends, but as the raising of the natural to a higher plane.

In this way nothing of the created or the human order is foreign to or excluded from the supernatural or theological order of faith and grace, rather it is found within it, taken on and elevated by it. As this link was broken in the man Adam, so in the Man Christ it was reforged cf.

Redemption begins with the Incarnation, by which the Son of God takes on all that is human, except sin, according to the solidarity established by the wisdom of the Divine Creator, and embraces everything in his gift of redeeming Love. Man is touched by this Love in the fullness of his being: The whole man — not a detached soul or a being closed within its own individuality, but a person and a society of persons — is involved in the salvific economy of the Gospel.

As bearer of the Gospel's message of Incarnation and Redemption, the Church can follow no other path: This is especially true in times such as the present, marked by increasing interdependence and globalization of social issues. Social doctrine, evangelization and human promotion. The Church's social doctrine is an integral part of her evangelizing ministry. Nothing that concerns the community of men and women — situations and problems regarding justice, freedom, development, relations between peoples, peace — is foreign to evangelization, and evangelization would be incomplete if it did not take into account the mutual demands continually made by the Gospel and by the concrete, personal and social life of man[85].

Profound links exist between evangelization and human promotion: They also include links in the theological order, since one cannot disassociate the plan of creation from the plan of Redemption.

The latter plan touches the very concrete situations of injustice to be combated and of justice to be restored. They include links of the eminently evangelical order, which is that of charity: Understood in this way, this social doctrine is a distinctive way for the Church to carry out her ministry of the Word and her prophetic role[88].

This is not a marginal interest or activity, or one that is tacked on to the Church's mission, rather it is at the very heart of the Church's ministry of service: This is a ministry that stems not only from proclamation but also from witness. The Church does not assume responsibility for every aspect of life in society, but speaks with the competence that is hers, which is that of proclaiming Christ the Redeemer[91]: This means that the Church does not intervene in technical questions with her social doctrine, nor does she propose or establish systems or models of social organization[93].

This is not part of the mission entrusted to her by Christ. The Church's competence comes from the Gospel: This is her primary and sole purpose. There is no intention to usurp or invade the duties of others or to neglect her own; nor is there any thought of pursuing objectives that are foreign to her mission.

This mission serves to give an overall shape to the Church's right and at the same time her duty to develop a social doctrine of her own and to influence society and societal structures with it by means of the responsibility and tasks to which it gives rise. The Church has the right to be a teacher for mankind, a teacher of the truth of faith: The word of the Gospel, in fact, is not only to be heard but is also to be observed and put into practice cf.

Consistency in behaviour shows what one truly believes and is not limited only to things strictly church-related or spiritual but involves men and women in the entirety of their life experience and in the context of all their responsibilities. However worldly these responsibilities may be, their subject remains man, that is, the human being whom God calls, by means of the Church, to participate in his gift of salvation.

Men and women must respond to the gift of salvation not with a partial, abstract or merely verbal acceptance, but with the whole of their lives — in every relationship that defines life — so as not to neglect anything, leaving it in a profane and worldly realm where it is irrelevant or foreign to salvation. For this reason the Church's social doctrine is not a privilege for her, nor a digression, a convenience or interference: This right of the Church is at the same time a duty, because she cannot forsake this responsibility without denying herself and her fidelity to Christ: The warning that St.

Paul addresses to himself rings in the Church's conscience as a call to walk all paths of evangelization, not only those that lead to individual consciences but also those that wind their way into public institutions: Because of the public relevance of the Gospel and faith, because of the corrupting effects of injustice, that is, of sin, the Church cannot remain indifferent to social matters [98]: Knowledge illuminated by faith.

The Church's social doctrine was not initially thought of as an organic system but was formed over the course of time, through the numerous interventions of the Magisterium on social issues. The fact that it came about in this manner makes it understandable that certain changes may have taken place with regard to its nature, method and epistemological structure.

With significant allusions already being made in Laborem Exercens [], a decisive clarification in this regard was made in the Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis: It cannot be defined according to socio-economic parameters. It is not an ideological or pragmatic system intended to define and generate economic, political and social relationships, but is a category unto itself.

In fact, this social doctrine reflects three levels of theological-moral teaching: These three levels implicitly define also the proper method and specific epistemological structure of the social doctrine of the Church. The Church's social doctrine finds its essential foundation in biblical revelation and in the tradition of the Church. From this source, which comes from above, it draws inspiration and light to understand, judge and guide human experience and history.

Before anything else and above everything else is God's plan for the created world and, in particular, for the life and destiny of men and women, called to Trinitarian communion. Faith, which receives the divine word and puts it into practice, effectively interacts with reason. The understanding of faith, especially faith leading to practical action, is structured by reason and makes use of every contribution that reason has to offer. Faith and reason represent the two cognitive paths of the Church's social doctrine: Revelation and human nature.

This understanding of faith includes reason, by means of which — insofar as possible — it unravels and comprehends revealed truth and integrates it with the truth of human nature, found in the divine plan expressed in creation[]. This is the integral truth of the human person as a spiritual and corporeal being, in relationship with God, with other human beings and with other creatures[].

Being centred on the mystery of Christ, moreover, does not weaken or exclude the role of reason and hence does not deprive the Church's social doctrine of rationality or, therefore, of universal applicability. Since the mystery of Christ illuminates the mystery of man, it gives fullness of meaning to human dignity and to the ethical requirements which defend it.

The Church's social doctrine is knowledge enlightened by faith, which, as such, is the expression of a greater capacity for knowledge. It explains to all people the truths that it affirms and the duties that it demands; it can be accepted and shared by all. In friendly dialogue with all branches of knowledge. The Church's social doctrine avails itself of contributions from all branches of knowledge, whatever their source, and has an important interdisciplinary dimension. The social doctrine makes use of the significant contributions of philosophy as well as the descriptive contributions of the human sciences.

Above all, the contribution of philosophy is essential. This contribution has already been seen in the appeal to human nature as a source and to reason as the cognitive path of faith itself. By means of reason, the Church's social doctrine espouses philosophy in its own internal logic, in other words, in the argumentation that is proper to it. Affirming that the Church's social doctrine is part of theology rather than philosophy does not imply a disowning or underestimation of the role or contribution of philosophy.

In fact, philosophy is a suitable and indispensable instrument for arriving at a correct understanding of the basic concepts of the Church's social doctrine , concepts such as the person, society, freedom, conscience, ethics, law, justice, the common good, solidarity, subsidiarity, the State. This understanding is such that it inspires harmonious living in society. It is philosophy once more that shows the reasonableness and acceptability of shining the light of the Gospel on society, and that inspires in every mind and conscience openness and assent to the truth. A significant contribution to the Church's social doctrine comes also from human sciences and the social sciences[].

In view of that particular part of the truth that it may reveal, no branch of knowledge is excluded. The Church recognizes and receives everything that contributes to the understanding of man in the ever broader, more fluid and more complex net work of his social relationships. She is aware of the fact that a profound understanding of man does not come from theology alone, without the contributions of many branches of knowledge to which theology itself refers.

This attentive and constant openness to other branches of knowledge makes the Church's social doctrine reliable, concrete and relevant. Thanks to the sciences, the Church can gain a more precise understanding of man in society, speak to the men and women of her own day in a more convincing manner and more effectively fulfil her task of incarnating in the conscience and social responsibility of our time, the word of God and the faith from which social doctrine flows[]. An expression of the Church's ministry of teaching. The social doctrine belongs to the Church because the Church is the subject that formulates it, disseminates it and teaches it.

It is not a prerogative of a certain component of the ecclesial body but of the entire community; it is the expression of the way that the Church understands society and of her position regarding social structures and changes.

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The whole of the Church community — priests, religious and laity — participates in the formulation of this social doctrine, each according to the different tasks, charisms and ministries found within her. The Church's social doctrine is not only the thought or work of qualified persons, but is the thought of the Church, insofar as it is the work of the Magisterium, which teaches with the authority that Christ conferred on the Apostles and their successors: In the Church's social doctrine the Magisterium is at work in all its various components and expressions.

Of primary importance is the universal Magisterium of the Pope and the Council: This doctrine in turn is integrated into the Magisterium of the Bishops who, in the concrete and particular situations of the many different local circumstances, give precise definition to this teaching, translating it and putting it into practice[]. The social teaching of the Bishops offers valid contributions and impetus to the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff.

In this way, there is a circulating at work that in fact expresses the collegiality of the Church's Pastors united to the Pope in the Church's social teaching. The doctrinal body that emerges includes and integrates in this fashion the universal teaching of the Popes and the particular teaching of the Bishops. Insofar as it is part of the Church's moral teaching, the Church's social doctrine has the same dignity and authority as her moral teaching. It is authentic Magisterium , which obligates the faithful to adhere to it[].

The doctrinal weight of the different teachings and the assent required are determined by the nature of the particular teachings, by their level of independence from contingent and variable elements, and by the frequency with which they are invoked[]. For a society reconciled in justice and love. The object of the Church's social doctrine is essentially the same that constitutes the reason for its existence: By means of her social doctrine, the Church shows her concern for human life in society, aware that the quality of social life — that is, of the relationships of justice and love that form the fabric of society — depends in a decisive manner on the protection and promotion of the human person, for whom every community comes into existence.

In fact, at play in society are the dignity and rights of the person, and peace in the relationships between persons and between communities of persons. These are goods that the social community must pursue and guarantee. In this perspective, the Church's social doctrine has the task of proclamation , but also of denunciation. In the first place it is the proclamation of what the Church possesses as proper to herself: This is done not only on the level of principles but also in practice.

The Church's social doctrine, in fact, offers not only meaning, value and criteria of judgment, but also the norms and directives of action that arise from these[]. With her social doctrine the Church does not attempt to structure or organize society, but to appeal to, guide and form consciences. This social doctrine also entails a duty to denounce , when sin is present: By denunciation, the Church's social doctrine becomes judge and defender of unrecognized and violated rights, especially those of the poor, the least and the weak[].

The more these rights are ignored or trampled, the greater becomes the extent of violence and injustice, involving entire categories of people and large geographical areas of the world, thus giving rise to social questions , that is, to abuses and imbalances that lead to social upheaval. A large part of the Church's social teaching is solicited and determined by important social questions, to which social justice is the proper answer. The intent of the Church's social doctrine is of the religious and moral order []. A message for the sons and daughters of the Church and for humanity.

The first recipient of the Church's social doctrine is the Church community in its entire membership, because everyone has social responsibilities that must be fulfilled. The conscience is called by this social teaching to recognize and fulfil the obligations of justice and charity in society. This doctrine is a light of moral truth that inspires appropriate responses according to the vocation and ministry of each Christian.

In the tasks of evangelization, that is to say, of teaching, catechesis and formation that the Church's social doctrine inspires, it is addressed to every Christian, each according to the competence, charisms, office and mission of proclamation that is proper to each one[].

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This social doctrine implies as well responsibilities regarding the building, organization and functioning of society, that is to say, political, economic and administrative obligations — obligations of a secular nature — which belong to the lay faithful, not to priests or religious[]. These responsibilities belong to the laity in a distinctive manner, by reason of the secular condition of their state of life, and of the secular nature of their vocation[]. By fulfilling these responsibilities, the lay faithful put the Church's social teaching into action and thus fulfil the Church's secular mission[].

Besides being destined primarily and specifically to the sons and daughters of the Church, her social doctrine also has a universal destination. The light of the Gospel that the Church's social doctrine shines on society illuminates all men and women, and every conscience and mind is in a position to grasp the human depths of meaning and values expressed in it and the potential of humanity and humanization contained in its norms of action. It is to all people — in the name of mankind, of human dignity which is one and unique, and of humanity's care and promotion of society — to everyone in the name of the one God, Creator and ultimate end of man, that the Church's social doctrine is addressed[].

This social doctrine is a teaching explicitly addressed to all people of good will [], and in fact is heard by members of other Churches and Ecclesial Communities, by followers of other religious traditions and by people who belong to no religious group. Guided by the perennial light of the Gospel and ever attentive to evolution of society, the Church's social doctrine is characterized by continuity and renewal []. It shows above all the continuity of a teaching that refers to the universal values drawn from Revelation and human nature.

This is the foundational and permanent nucleus of the Church's social doctrine, by which it moves through history without being conditioned by history or running the risk of fading away. On the other hand, in its constant turning to history and in engaging the events taking place, the Church's social doctrine shows a capacity for continuous renewal. Standing firm in its principles does not make it a rigid teaching system, but a Magisterium capable of opening itself to new things , without having its nature altered by them[].

Faith does not presume to confine changeable social and political realities within a closed framework[]. Rather, the contrary is true: Mother and Teacher, the Church does not close herself off nor retreat within herself but is always open, reaching out to and turned towards man, whose destiny of salvation is her reason for being. She is in the midst of men and women as the living icon of the Good Shepherd, who goes in search of and finds man where he is, in the existential and historical circumstances of his life.

It is there that the Church becomes for man a point of contact with the Gospel, with the message of liberation and reconciliation, of justice and peace. The beginning of a new path. The Church's concern for social matters certainly did not begin with that document, for the Church has never failed to show interest in society. Nonetheless, the Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum marks the beginning of a new path. Grafting itself onto a tradition hundreds of years old, it signals a new beginning and a singular development of the Church's teaching in the area of social matters[].

In her continuous attention to men and women living in society, the Church has accumulated a rich doctrinal heritage.

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This has its roots in Sacred Scripture, especially the Gospels and the apostolic writings, and takes on shape and body beginning from the Fathers of the Church and the great Doctors of the Middle Ages, constituting a doctrine in which, even without explicit and direct Magisterial pronouncements, the Church gradually came to recognize her competence. In the nineteenth century, events of an economic nature produced a dramatic social, political and cultural impact. Events connected with the Industrial Revolution profoundly changed centuries-old societal structures, raising serious problems of justice and posing the first great social question — the labour question — prompted by the conflict between capital and labour.

In this context, the Church felt the need to become involved and intervene in a new way: A new discernment of the situation was needed, a discernment capable of finding appropriate solutions to unfamiliar and unexplored problems. From Rerum Novarum to our own day. This Encyclical examines the condition of salaried workers, which was particularly distressing for industrial labourers who languished in inhumane misery. The labour question is dealt with according to its true dimensions. It is explored in all its social and political expressions so that a proper evaluation may be made in the light of the doctrinal principles founded on Revelation and on natural law and morality.

Rerum Novarum became the document inspiring Christian activity in the social sphere and the point of reference for this activity []. The Encyclical's central theme is the just ordering of society, in view of which there is the obligation to identify criteria of judgment that will help to evaluate existing socio-political systems and to suggest lines of action for their appropriate transformation. The principles affirmed by Pope Leo XIII would be taken up again and studied more deeply in successive social encyclicals.

The whole of the Church's social doctrine can be seen as an updating, a deeper analysis and an expansion of the original nucleus of principles presented in Rerum Novarum. At the beginning of the s, following the grave economic crisis of , Pope Pius XI published the Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno [], commemorating the fortieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum. The Pope reread the past in the light of the economic and social situation in which the expansion of the influence of financial groups, both nationally and internationally, was added to the effects of industrialization.

It was the post-war period, during which totalitarian regimes were being imposed in Europe even as the class struggle was becoming more bitter. The Encyclical warns about the failure to respect the freedom to form associations and stresses the principles of solidarity and cooperation in order to overcome social contradictions. The relationships between capital and labour must be characterized by cooperation[]. Quadragesimo Anno confirms the principle that salaries should be proportional not only to the needs of the worker but also to those of the worker's family.

The State, in its relations with the private sector, should apply the principle of subsidiarity , a principle that will become a permanent element of the Church's social doctrine. The Encyclical rejects liberalism, understood as unlimited competition between economic forces, and reconfirms the value of private property, recalling its social function. Pope Pius XI did not fail to raise his voice against the totalitarian regimes that were being imposed in Europe during his pontificate.

Already on 29 June he had protested against the abuse of power by the totalitarian fascist regime in Italy with the Encyclical Non Abbiamo Bisogno []. The text of Mit Brennender Sorge was read from the pulpit of every Catholic Church in Germany, after having been distributed in the greatest of secrecy. The Encyclical came out after years of abuse and violence, and it had been expressly requested from Pope Pius XI by the German Bishops after the Reich had implemented ever more coercive and repressive measures in , particularly with regard to young people, who were required to enrol as members of the Hitler Youth Movement.

The Pope spoke directly to priests, religious and lay faithful, giving them encouragement and calling them to resistance until such time that a true peace between Church and State would be restored. In the Christmas Radio Messages of Pope Pius XII[], together with other important interventions in social matters, Magisterial reflection on a new social order guided by morality and law, and focusing on justice and peace, become deeper.

His pontificate covered the terrible years of the Second World War and the difficult years of reconstruction. He published no social encyclicals but in many different contexts he constantly showed his concern for the international order, which had been badly shaken. One of the characteristics of Pope Pius XII's interventions is the importance he gave to the relationship between morality and law.

He insisted on the notion of natural law as the soul of the system to be established on both the national and the international levels. Another important aspect of Pope Pius XII's teaching was his attention to the professional and business classes, called to work together in a special way for the attainment of the common good. The s bring promising prospects: The social question is becoming universal and involves all countries: Inequalities that in the past were experienced within nations are now becoming international and make the dramatic situation of the Third World ever more evident.

The key words in the Encyclical are community and socialization []: In this way economic growth will not be limited to satisfying men's needs, but it will also promote their dignity. Moreover, Pacem in Terris contains one of the first in-depth reflections on rights on the part of the Church; it is the Encyclical of peace and human dignity. It continues and completes the discussion presented in Mater et Magistra , and, continuing in the direction indicated by Pope Leo XIII, it emphasizes the importance of the cooperation of all men and women.

On the tenth anniversary of Pacem in Terris , Cardinal Maurice Roy, the President of the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace, sent Pope Paul VI a letter together with a document with a series of reflections on the different possibilities afforded by the teaching contained in Pope John XXIII's Encyclical for shedding light on the new problems connected with the promotion of peace[].

The Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes [] of the Second Vatican Council is a significant response of the Church to the expectations of the contemporary world. Gaudium et Spes presents in a systematic manner the themes of culture, of economic and social life, of marriage and the family, of the political community, of peace and the community of peoples, in the light of a Christian anthropological outlook and of the Church's mission. For the first time, the Magisterium of the Church, at its highest level, speaks at great length about the different temporal aspects of Christian life: Another very important document of the Second Vatican Council in the corpus of the Church's social doctrine is the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae [], in which the right to religious freedom is clearly proclaimed.

The document presents the theme in two chapters. The first, of a general character, affirms that religious freedom is based on the dignity of the human person and that it must be sanctioned as a civil right in the legal order of society. The second chapter deals with the theme in the light of Revelation and clarifies its pastoral implications, pointing out that it is a right that concerns not only people as individuals but also the different communities of people.

In particular, it presents the outlines of an integral development of man and of a development in solidarity with all humanity: This same Pontiff started the tradition of writing annual Messages that deal with the theme chosen for each World Day of Peace. These Messages expand and enrich the corpus of the Church's social doctrine. At the beginning of the s, in a climate of turbulence and strong ideological controversy, Pope Paul VI returns to the social teaching of Pope Leo XIII and updates it, on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum , with his Apostolic Letter Octogesima Adveniens [].

The Pope reflects on post-industrial society with all of its complex problems, noting the inadequacy of ideologies in responding to these challenges: Ninety years after Rerum Novarum , Pope John Paul II devoted the Encyclical Laborem Exercens [] to work , the fundamental good of the human person, the primary element of economic activity and the key to the entire social question.

Laborem Exercens outlines a spirituality and ethic of work in the context of a profound theological and philosophical reflection. Work must not be understood only in the objective and material sense, but one must keep in mind its subjective dimension, insofar as it is always an expression of the person. Besides being a decisive paradigm for social life, work has all the dignity of being a context in which the person's natural and supernatural vocation must find fulfilment.

With the Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis [], Pope John Paul II commemorates the twentieth anniversary of Populorum Progressio and deals once more with the theme of development along two fundamental lines: On the hundredth anniversary of Rerum Novarum , Pope John Paul II promulgates his third social encyclical, Centesimus Annus [], whence emerges the doctrinal continuity of a hundred years of the Church's social Magisterium. Taking up anew one of the fundamental principles of the Christian view of social and political organization, which had been the central theme of the previous Encyclical, the Pope writes: Pope John Paul II demonstrates how the Church's social teaching moves along the axis of reciprocity between God and man: The documents referred to here constitute the milestones of the path travelled by the Church's social doctrine from the time of Pope Leo XIII to our own day.

In the formulation and teaching of this social doctrine, the Church has been, and continues to be, prompted not by theoretical motivation but by pastoral concerns. The Church sees in men and women, in every person, the living image of God himself. This image finds, and must always find anew, an ever deeper and fuller unfolding of itself in the mystery of Christ, the Perfect Image of God, the One who reveals God to man and man to himself. It is to these men and women, who have received an incomparable and inalienable dignity from God himself, that the Church speaks, rendering to them the highest and most singular service, constantly reminding them of their lofty vocation so that they may always be mindful of it and worthy of it.

All of social life is an expression of its unmistakable protagonist: The Church has many times and in many ways been the authoritative advocate of this understanding, recognizing and affirming the centrality of the human person in every sector and expression of society: The origin of social life is therefore found in the human person, and society cannot refuse to recognize its active and responsible subject; every expression of society must be directed towards the human person.

Men and women, in the concrete circumstances of history, represent the heart and soul of Catholic social thought []. The whole of the Church's social doctrine, in fact, develops from the principle that affirms the inviolable dignity of the human person []. In her manifold expressions of this knowledge, the Church has striven above all to defend human dignity in the face of every attempt to redimension or distort its image; moreover she has often denounced the many violations of human dignity.

History attests that it is from the fabric of social relationships that there arise some of the best possibilities for ennobling the human person, but it is also there that lie in wait the most loathsome rejections of human dignity. Creatures in the image of God. The fundamental message of Sacred Scripture proclaims that the human person is a creature of God cf. God places the human creature at the centre and summit of the created order. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons.

The likeness with God shows that the essence and existence of man are constitutively related to God in the most profound manner. The whole of man's life is a quest and a search for God. This relationship with God can be ignored or even forgotten or dismissed, but it can never be eliminated. The relationship between God and man is reflected in the relational and social dimension of human nature.

In this regard the fact that God created human beings as man and woman cf. Only the appearance of the woman, a being who is flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones cf. In a relationship of mutual communion, man and woman fulfil themselves in a profound way, rediscovering themselves as persons through the sincere gift of themselves[]. Their covenant of union is presented in Sacred Scripture as an image of the Covenant of God with man cf. Hos ; Is 54; Eph 5: Indeed, the human couple can participate in God's act of creation: Man and woman are in relationship with others above all as those to whom the lives of others have been entrusted [].

My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live. When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Life is not easy, life is not difficult.

Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there.

Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all. A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so.

It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother. So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them.

But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.

Something you dream about and sing about. Maybe it's not a place on the map at all, but just a story full of people you meet and places you visit, full of books and films you've been to.

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