“Now that a further twenty years have passed,” Benedict XVI wrote, “I express my conviction that Populorum Progressio deserves to be considered 'the Rerum Novarum of the present age,' shedding light upon humanity's journey towards unity.”
Summing up society's current situation, Benedict described offering love in truth as a “great challenge for the Church in a world that is becoming progressively and pervasively globalized.”
“The risk for our time,” he alerted, “is that the de facto interdependence of people and nations is not matched by ethical interaction of consciences and minds that would give rise to truly human development.”
When Pope Paul VI promulgated his message on integral social development, he was conveying two important truths: “the Church in all her being and acting...is engaged in promoting integral human development” and that “authentic human development concerns the whole of the person in every single dimension.”
In other words, Pope Benedict explained, “Without the perspective of eternal life, human progress in this world is denied breathing-space.”
As he proposed the notion of development in “human and Christian terms,” Pope Paul VI unflinchingly put forth Christian charity as the principal force at the service of development, the Pope recalled. “Motivated by the wish to make Christ's love fully visible to contemporary men and women, Paul VI addressed important ethical questions robustly, without yielding to the cultural weaknesses of his time.”
Even in the 1960s, the German Pontiff noted that Paul VI was already warning against the “technocratic ideology so prevalent today.” Entrusting the “entire process of development to technology alone” was identified as a “great danger” because “it would lack direction,” he had said.
“Technology, viewed in itself, is ambivalent,” the Benedict wrote, saying that while “some today would be inclined to entrust the entire process of development to technology, on the other hand we are witnessing an upsurge of ideologies that deny "in toto" the very value of development, viewing it as radically anti-human and merely a source of degradation.”
“This leads to a rejection, not only of the distorted and unjust way in which progress is sometimes directed, but also of scientific discoveries themselves, which, if well used, could serve as an opportunity of growth for all.”
The Holy Father brought his section on Paul VI's teachings to a close by reflecting on what a world without development means.
“The idea of a world without development indicates a lack of trust in man and in God. It is therefore a serious mistake to undervalue human capacity to exercise control over the deviations of development or to overlook the fact that man is constitutionally oriented towards 'being more.' Idealizing technical progress, or contemplating the utopia of a return to humanity's original natural state, are two contrasting ways of detaching progress from its moral evaluation and hence from our responsibility.”
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To read Pope Benedict XVI's full encyclical, please visit: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/document.php?n=944