by Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ and Director, CREDI
“Development cannot be limited to mere economic growth. In order to be authentic, it must be complete: integral, that is, it has to promote the good of every person and of all humanity” -– Pope Paul VI, 1967.
March 26 marked the 50th Anniversary of Blessed Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio (On the Development of Peoples) which was published in 1967, less than two years after the end of the Second Vatican Council.
On April 3–4, the Vatican hosted a two-day conference entitled ‘Prospects for service to integral human development: fifty years since Populorum Progressio’.
Cardinal Peter KA Turkson, prefect of the newly formed Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, introduced the conference and gave a theological presentation on anthropology.
Around 600 delegates, including members of the new Dicastery, attended the meeting from around the world. The aim of the Conference was “to study the theological, anthropological and pastoral perspectives of the encyclical, especially in relation to the labour of those who work in favour of promoting the person, and to formulate guidelines for the activity of the new Dicastery.”
The responsibilities of the Dicastery which unified four Departments (Justice and Peace, Cor Unum, Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, Health Care Workers), include issues relating to migration, poverty, victims of armed conflicts, slavery and torture, human trafficking, natural disasters, climate change, detainees, and unemployed. Pope Francis will personally oversee the section for refugees and migrants.
Blessed Paul VI is pictured in this undated photo. The pontiff’s 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio (The Progress of Peoples) focused on the problem of international development and the gap between the rich and poor. (CNS photo/Giancarlo Giuliani, Catholic Press Photo)
Catholic News Agency reports that on April 4, Pope Francis spoke to participants about what ‘integral human development’ looks like, saying that development must include the whole person, both physically and spiritually: “Development does not consist in having the regulation of more and more goods, for just a material well-being. Integrating body and soul also means that no development work can really achieve its purpose if it does not respect the place where God is present to us and speaks to our hearts.”
In Christ “God and man are not divided and separated. God became man to make of human life, both personal and social, a concrete path to salvation. So, the manifestation of God in Christ – including his acts of healing, liberation, and reconciliation that we are called to propose to the many injured by the roadside – shows the way and the mode of service that the Church intends to offer to the world. In this sense, the very concept of the person, born and matured in Christianity, helps to pursue a fully human development.”
Inter alia, participants discussed the questions: ‘Who is man?’; ‘What does that mean, today and in the near future, integral development, i.e. development of every person and of the whole man?’
Specifically, Pope Francis said, in the use of the word ‘integrate,’ we can find ‘a fundamental orientation for the new Dicastery,’ which was established on January 1 of this year.
“One major integration that has largely been lost,” he said, is that of community and the individual. Especially in the West, we have “exalted the individual until they become like an island, as if one can be happy alone,” he said. On the other hand, there are “ideological views and political powers that have crushed the person,” he said, taking away their personal liberty.
“But the self and the community are not in competition with each other,” he said. They should work together, because it is only within the context of authentic relationships that the “self is able to mature. This applies even more to the family, which is the first cell of society and where we learn to live together,” he said.
The Pope said another form of integration we can improve is the solidarity between those who have too much and those who have nothing. In considering social integration, we must remember that “everyone has a contribution to offer the whole of society; no one is excluded from making something for the good of all. This is both a right and a duty”.
He said another essential aspect for this improved development is integration of the different systems: the economy, finance, labour, culture, family life, and religion. “None of them can be free-standing and none of them can be excluded from a concept of integral human development,” he said. This is taking “into account that human life is like an orchestra that sounds good if the different instruments agree and follow a score shared by all. The Church never tires of offering this wisdom and her work to the world, in the awareness that integral development is the way of goodness that the human family is called to tread. I encourage you to pursue this action with patience and perseverance, trusting that the Lord is with us,” the Pope concluded.
