The Big Picture: Princples of Catholic Social Teaching

Modern Catholic Social Teaching (CST) has its roots in Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum (On New Things), which addressed the “labor question” of industrial economies.   Two world wars later, and after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Pope (Saint) John XXIII expanded the scope of CST in his 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris, addressed to “all people of good will,” on social questions pertaining to uneven development in the global political economy and the danger of nuclear conflict.   In 1967, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council’s pastoral document on the Catholic Church in the modern world, Pope (Saint) Paul VI added the question of global finance in his encyclical Populorum Progressio (On the Progress of the Peoples), which said that “development is the new name for peace.”  In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI addressed the global financial question in light of the previous year’s infamous market failure. Pope Francis added the current climate question into CST in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si (On Care of Our Common Home).   In current CST, the “financial question” and the “climate question” pertain to the issue of “human ecology.”  These events, and the recent teachings of the Catholic Church’s magisterium, are the ground for the 2022 document, Mensuram Bonam, which will be the topic of the lecture on March 21, 2023.