Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.3935/rsp.v1i1.614
Social Teaching of the Church and Social Policy
Marijan Valković
; Katolički bogoslovni fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu
Abstract
In the first part of the paper the author describes the social component being an integral part of the Christian religion, existing as both a practice and a study. Already in the Bible, the relationship between religion and social activity (the care for the poor, for windows, organs, foreigners, for the sick, etc.) was given a lot of significance and it has in various ways been the same throughout the history of the Church. The preaching on social duties of the believers has been given in the form of inducement, sermons, discussions on various social issues, and later on in the form of theological treatises. Together with the development of modern industrial civilization and the existence of social sciences, it has come to a development of the social teaching of the Church. The encyclical letter “Rerum novarum” by the Pope Lav XIII of 1891 is usually taken as the beginning of the social teaching within the Catholic Church. During the last hundred years, the body of the Catholic social teaching has been developed. The paper discusses its nature and methodology. In the second part, the author describes the main features of the Catholic social teaching. The starting point is the personalistic humanism in the Christian perspectives, from which we derive some important social principles: solidarity and subsidiarity, welfare, justice, participation and “preferential option for the poor”. The author’s conclusion is that the social teaching of the Church represents a safe starting point and the framework for a good social policy.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
29693
URI
Publication date:
1.1.1994.
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