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).
