The Encyclicals of John Paul II by Spinello Richard A.;

Author:Spinello, Richard A.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Social Concerns

John Paul II traveled almost 800,000 miles during his twenty-seven-year Pontificate. His first trip was not to Poland, as many people had expected, but to Mexico. After a short stay in Santo Domingo, he arrived in Mexico City on January 26, 1979. It was a typical winter’s day in Mexico—warm, clear, and still. Wildly enthusiastic crowds lined the streets of the Pope’s motorcade as he made his way from the airport to the cathedral. The Mexican people found the Pope to be refreshingly spontaneous during his papal addresses over the next few days. His buoyant optimism and pastoral sensibility captivated one audience after another.[11]

After his short stay in the capital John Paul II traveled to Puebla for a speech at the Latin American Bishops’ Conference. With this speech John Paul II inserted himself into the contentious debate simmering in the Church over liberation theology. Liberation theologies, popular in Latin America at the time, interpreted the Gospel through Marxist categories, as they sought to persuade people to identify themselves according to their economic status. Liberation theologians proposed reading the Gospel from a “class point of view,” in which Jesus is seen as the political liberator. Liberation is regarded in a secular sense, as liberation from economic servitude. Liberation theologians also put emphasis on sinful institutional structures that induce people to perpetrate injustices against the poor. According to Jon Sobrino, sin must be defined in terms of an unjust social structure “which deals death.” Thus, sinners include oligarchies, multinational corporations, various armed forces, and “virtually every government.”[12]

In the Puebla speech the Pope spoke about the excesses of liberation theology. He reminded the bishops that Jesus “rejects recourse to violence . . . [and] opens his message of conversion to everybody,” including the rich.[13] He went on to declare that “this idea of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive man from Nazareth, does not tally with the Church’s catechesis.”[14]

John Paul II addressed these same concerns in his second social encyclical, issued in 1987 and titled Sollicitudo Rei Socialis. Sollicitudo’s appearance marked the twentieth anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio, an encyclical with “enduring relevance” (SRS 2). In the opening sections John Paul II enunciates the encyclical’s dual objective: to pay respect to this historic document of Paul VI and “to reaffirm the continuity of the social doctrine as well as its constant renewal” (SRS 3).

In Chapter II (§ 5–10) the Pope praises Populorum Progressio for its originality on three main points: its emphasis on the ethical and cultural character of the problems associated with economic development (SRS 8); the encyclical’s focus on “the duty of solidarity,” which takes into account the interdependence between all nations (SRS 9); and the encyclical’s concise prescription for world harmony summarized in its concluding paragraph: “Development is the new name for peace” (SRS 10). Sollicitudo will contribute to the Church’s reflections on development, a concept with “permanent and contemporary value” (SRS 10).

Part III (§ 11–26) reviews whether has there been any genuine

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