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Document Details :

Title: Development as a Path to a Just World
Subtitle: Fifty Years of Populorum progressio - A Critical Retrospective
Author(s): VERSTRAETEN, Johan
Journal: Louvain Studies
Volume: 40    Issue: 4   Date: 2017   
Pages: 396-409
DOI: 10.2143/LS.40.4.3265654

Abstract :
Populorum progressio is an ‘historical’ encyclical in the fullest sense of the word: it reflects not only the real commitment of the Catholic Church to the first development decade of the United Nations, as well as the ground breaking work of Louis-Joseph Lebret, but it also made history. Beyond the intention of Pope Paul VI the encyclical contributed to a shift from the paradigm of development to the paradigm of liberation, which was endorsed by the vast majority of bishops during the general synod on justice of 1971. The article articulates how this transformation met increasing resistance during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Their reinterpretation of Populorum progressio is situated in the broader context of a subordination of justice to charity.

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