Unit VI: The Social Vision of John Paul II

OVERVIEW 

In this unit we consider one of the key social encyclicals of Pope John Paul II (1978-2004). Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1988) is a reflection on the 20th anniversary of Populorum Progressio. Also included in the assigned readings for this week is an essay treating ethical aspects in humanitarian aid. It raises interesting and important questions about how wealthy nations should take up the challenge of addressing the emergency or on-going needs of impoverished nations, a challenge that arises forcefully in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis.

Sollicitudo Rei Socialis takes up themes that by now are familiar:

1. the dignity of the human person as the foundation for society and the norm for justice in social institutions;
2. integral development as the religious and moral response to global poverty;
3. the universal destination of the earth’s goods.
4. the right to meaningful employment.

In this encyclical, we see development of Catholic social teaching on several fronts:

• an extension from national cooperation through international to transnational;
• continued emphasis on underdevelopment, but now with additional concern for “overdevelopment”;
• strengthening of the language of a “social mortgage” on private property;
• concern for the ecological consequences of economic development.

In this unit, we will concentrate on two issues: 1) The challenge of solidarity and, 2) The preferential option for the poor.

The challenge of solidarity

Sollicitudo Rei Socialis identifies “attitudes of sin” as the fundamental moral obstacle to international development (#38). What is needed, the pope argues, is solidarity: “men and women in various parts of the world feel[ing] personally affected by the injustices and violations of human rights committed in distant countries . ..”(#38). Solidarity is not “a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all (#39). “Solidarity” helps us to see the “other” –whether a person, people or nation-- not just as some kind of instrument, with a work capacity and physical strength to be exploited at low cost and then discarded when no longer useful, but as our “neighbor,” a “helper” to be made a sharer, on par with ourselves, in the banquet of life to which all are equally invited by God (#39). Solidarity requires a willingness to share on the part of the influential; an active claiming of rights on the part of the weaker. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis reflects the prevailing geo-political grid of the time: a divide, principally of ideology, on East-West lines.

Preferential option for the poor

Sollicitudo Rei Socialis underscores the necessity of judging social and economic systems from the standpoint of the most marginalized. The option for the poor is an extension of the Christian virtue of charity, a manifestation of a concrete love of neighbor. The growing numbers of people existing in extreme poverty around the world must be a priority in all development plans. Addressing poverty must include forms of “social poverty,” the deprivation of rights to the full development of intellectual and religious freedom, as well as strictly “material” or “economic” poverty (in David Hollenbach’s terms, our obligations to the poor include liberty and bread). Reading the signs of the times reveals a growing housing crisis (#17); growing un- and under-employment (#18), and "crushing global debt, forcing debtor nations to export capital, aggravating underdevelopment” (#19). Global poverty is not just a “natural fact” but the product of systemic patterns and choices: “Side-by-side with the miseries of underdevelopment is inadmissible superdevelopment which involves consumerism and waste” (#28). For Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, the widespread occurrence of poverty and “underdevelopment” cannot be understood apart from the excesses of capitalism and competition between powerful nations for dominance – as such, it is a problem that will only be corrected through a moral revolution with systemic consequences.

There are various interpretations of “preferential option” in the documents of Catholic social teaching. Pope John Paul tends to interpret the principle conservatively, to mean roughly that decisions about the generation, use and distribution of goods must embrace the needs of the least well-off. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis argues for a “social mortgage” on private property—any individual’s right to acquire material goods is legitimately limited by the rights of others to the minimum conditions for a dignified human life—although SRS does not go so far as to suggest that the rich have an obligation to relinquish surplus goods. In the liberation theologies that have developed out of Latin America since the early 1970’s, “preferential option for the poor” is interpreted more radically, to mean that the needs of the poor have the single most urgent claim on the social conscience of the Church and the Christian and, in some cases, that the least well-off have the right and duty to claim an equitable share of the earth’s goods.

In “You Save My Life Today But For What Tomorrow,” Mary Anderson discusses some of the concrete problems involved in exercising solidarity with or option for the poor. Humanitarian aid efforts can create dangerous long-term dependencies (and thus are criticized along the same lines as US Welfare programs) and can exacerbate conflicts by merely better equipping warring parties. To be effective without falling into these traps, she argues, humanitarian aid must minimize inequalities between giver and receiver and both identify and build on local capacities.

Here are some questions for reflection:

1. The East-West ideological divide discussed in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis no longer is in force. If you were to write this encyclical today, what would you identify as the most significant moral and geopolitical obstacles to global solidarity?
2. How do you understand the “preferential option for the poor”? In your view, what does it require of those of us in positions of economic privilege? What are its limits?
3. Anderson’s article identifies some common problems in translating the rhetoric of solidarity/preferential option for the poor into action. Are her suggestions for overcoming those problems sound? Why or why not? 

References

See Peter H. Henriot, Edward P. DeBerri and Michael J. Schultheis, Catholic Social Teaching: Our Best Kept Secret, (Washington, D.C.: Center of Concern, 1985), for a summary of Populorum Progressio and Sollicitudo Rei Socialis.