Secondly, Caritas in veritate and the sense of Integral Human Development:
The recognition that the development of the human person needs to be truly human, complete and whole was first made by St. Pope John XXIII (Mater et Magistra). With that recognition, he introduced into the Church’s social teaching the new concept of “integral human development” which did inspire the Fathers of Vatican Council II to speak about the “whole (integral) development” of the person and his “integral vocation”, to which culture must be subordinated (Gaudium et Spes).
After Vatican Council II and in the light of decolonization and the emergence of new national states in the developing world, St. Pope Paul VI defined the “integral human development” of people as not consisting merely in material and economic growth. For Paul VI, “integral human development” refers to the solidary development of people, which is rooted in transcendental humanism, because it places at its center the true meaning of human life and cultivates the social meaning of brotherhood between people. Thus overcoming mistrust and fear between people and nurturing the value of solidarity, integral human development engenders peace and becomes the “new name of peace.”
Thus between the Pope who opened Vatican Council II and the Pope who concluded it a new idea about the development of persons is born, which will be developed in the subsequent pontificates of St. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI to become the name of a Dicastery of the Roman Curia under Pope Francis, thus re-affirming human development as a central concern and mission of the Church (Sollicitudo rei socialis, 1).
Identifying “integral human development” with the realization of the dignity of people, St. Pope John Paul II taught that such development must be inclusive: “it should be obvious that development either becomes shared in common by every part of the world or it undergoes a process of regression even in zones marked by constant progress. This tells us a great deal about the nature of authentic development: either all the nations of the world participate, or it will not be true development.” (SRS, 17)
Forty years after Pope Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio and against the background of declarations against poverty and hunger, exploitation, issues of environment, globalization and planetary inter-dependence, new means of communication, increasing inability of politics and national governments to deal with global powers, the financial crisis etc., Pope Benedict XVI revisited the subject of “human development” in Populorum Progressio and its rooting in a transcendental humanism and the brotherhood of the human family. Pope Benedict’s “development” is always “human development”; therefore, “social issues” are essentially “anthropological issues” (CIV, 75). They concern “the truth about the human person.” Such truth about the human person is related to the truth of Christ, God’s love for man, which is the “principal driving force behind authentic human development,” and which opens the lives of people to gift and makes it possible for them to hope for a “development of the whole man and of all men.” In this sense Pope Benedict XVI calls human development, a “vocation”: a drive within a person to act for the common good and not only for personal interest. It is a drive for solidarity, as an expression of the nature of man as a “relational being,” rooted in the very life of God and lived out in fraternity. Otherwise, “development” does not achieve its aim. In this sense, globalization should not be experienced as mere closeness and neighborliness, fashioned by the elimination of distances of separation through modern means of communication. Globalization should make our inter-connectedness fraternal, making no room for exclusion and leaving no one on the periphery.
So globalization is not merely a social and an economic phenomenon, to serve the market and economy; it is a call for a new way of thinking about the human person as called to live a life of love and solidarity in service to others for their wellbeing, which is their development!
Herein lies a fundamental Christian directive and guiding principle for all development initiatives and activities which seek to be truly human and integral! Vatican News Department
