Category: WM Special

With globalization, the image of the world has changed. Information technology has brought people closer and started dynamics which have made the world of economy run wild. Globalization is an economic tsunami that is sweeping the planet. It can’t be stopped but, certainly, there must be many steps people can take to slow it down and make it more equitable to wealth distribution, living salaries, social security. Unfortunately, those steps are not yet clear. There seems to be no authority capable of harnessing globalization and putting it at the service of people, and not only capital profit.

The Social Doctrine of the Church doesn’t mean giving technical solutions that rightly belong to the legitimate autonomy of the economic, social and political sciences. It is an application of the principles of the Gospel to social problems. It has something essential to say about the concept of the human being, family, work, solidarity, destination of goods, development and peace.

The 19th-century Industrial Revolution caused the social question which is the exploitation of the urban masses. Karl Marx and the Communist movement were the first to acknowledge the impact of the social question. The Church was awakened to that harsh reality and responded with an original interpretation of the Gospel message, applied to the marketplace. The Church’s Social Doctrine grew slowly and developed from the experience of the people in the field and the teaching of the popes. When the Christian Democrat political parties took the power in Western Europe after World War II, they implemented the Christian vision, giving origin to the welfare state. Never in history have the state and the private bodies cooperated with such a success to produce an affluent and egalitarian society. Fifty years later, globalization has completely changed the scenario and has jeopardized the conquests of the Social Doctrine of the Church. The future is again confused, threatening and challenging.