ROME, OCT. 8, 2003 (Zenit.org).- The “global” view of the human being presented by the Church’s social doctrine makes it an indispensable tool to understand the phenomenon of globalization, a Vatican official said.
Bishop Gianpaolo Crepaldi, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, expressed this conviction at the official opening of the academic year of the Salesian University.
According to the bishop, the social doctrine is helpful in understanding globalization because the latter demands “an ethical and anthropological view” that is not found in the social sciences. The Church’s social doctrine does offer such a view, he said.
“The social doctrine of the Church, which is based on the evangelical message, has a unifying drive for the whole of mankind,” the bishop said Monday.
“On one hand, globalization is increasingly integrated in the social doctrine of the Church,” and “on the other, the social doctrine is increasingly globalized,” he stated.
This is because Christian anthropology is an all-inclusive anthropology, he added.
“It looks at the whole of man and all people; it doesn’t neglect any aspect of human life,” he said. “The social doctrine of the Church seeks to know and love man in the fullness of his vocation. In this connection, the globalism produced by globalization is a ‘vocation’ of the social doctrine.”
Bishop Crepaldi concluded by urging professors and students of the Salesian University to address with “intellectual courage and cultural charity the philosophical challenges posed to man and the Church today by globalization.”
