The Centrality Of Man

Last week, Pope Francis reminded participants at an economic conference that man must always be at the center of the economy. Otherwise, we find ourselves guilty of an “anthropological reductionism.”

The Holy Father’s predecessor, Saint John Paul II, constantly challenged people to embrace a person-centered mentality. In his Centesimus Annus, he wrote:

Christian anthropology…is really a chapter of theology, and for this reason, the Church's social doctrine, by its concern for man and by its interest in him and in the way he conducts himself in the world, “belongs to the field ... of theology and particularly of moral theology.” The theological dimension is needed both for interpreting and solving present-day problems in human society. 

Social issues crop up at the economic and political level when we lose sight of the dignity of the human person, John Paul II warned us. Now Pope Francis is echoing his cry.

Saint John Paul II, please pray for us, that we might be free of the sin of reducing the human person to something less than what he is worth!

The Authentic Development Of Man

During his pontificate, Blessed John Paul II did much to promote and sustain the rich social tradition of the Church, which is always “directed towards an authentic development of man and society which would respect and promote all dimensions of the human person…” (Sollicitudo rei socialis, 1).

In 1987, the late Holy Father released Sollicitudo rei socialis (SRS), an encyclical reflecting on Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio. Here Blessed John Paul II contemplates the teaching of the past and renews it in light of contemporary challenges, proposing a vision of authentic human development.

One of the most important things about SRS is that it proposes a vision of development that goes beyond the material needs of those in poorer countries. According to the late Holy Father, there are cultural forms of poverty that are even more disturbing than economic forms:

These are illiteracy, the difficulty or impossibility of obtaining higher education, the inability to share in the building of one's own nation, the various forms of exploitation and of economic, social, political and even religious oppression of the individual and his or her rights, discrimination of every type, especially the exceptionally odious form based on difference of race. If some of these scourges are noted with regret in areas of the more developed North, they are undoubtedly more frequent, more lasting and more difficult to root out in the developing and less advanced countries (15).

Blessed John Paul II echoes Paul VI, noting that there is a difference between “having” and “being.” “To ‘have’ objects and goods does not in itself perfect the human subject, unless it contributes to the maturing and enrichment of that subject’s ‘being,’” or that person’s vocation (28).