Faith, Development and Solidarity

Reflections on the Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis in Light of the Death of Pope John
Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI

José Alejandro Amorós, M.Div.

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 Faith, Development and Solidarity
Reflections on the Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis in Light of the Death of Pope John
Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI

José Alejandro Amorós, M.Div.

*The following is an updated and revised translation of an essay, originally in Spanish , that
appeared in Apuntes, the theology journal published by Perkins School of Theology at Southern
Methodist University under the Mexican American Program under the editorship of Dr. Justo L.
Gonzales. Year 10, No. 3 Fall 1990 (Translation by the author). It is reconsidered under the
relevance of the recent death of Pope John Paul II and the installation of his successor Pope
Benedict XVI, now in its first anniversary.

With the rapid changes taking place at the international level there is a present
need to reconsider the balance of powers and the effect that it may have on the many
countries still in underdevelopment.

What impact will those changes have in the relations between the United States
and Latin America?1 What impact will they have in the domestic and international
policies of the U.S., especially after the impact of the new waves of Latin migrants?
These are some of the questions already provoked by those changes, and as consequence
the theme of development will reemerge.

In the last three decades various approaches have attempted to try the subject of
development and apart from those of pure economic concern, four in the field of theology
and of Christian Ethics come to mind. Each one of them represent a treatment of the
theme from the perspective of a local, in other words, each on emerged from historic and
social concretions and of ways of doing theology. Political Theology, the Theology of
Liberation, Faith Development Theory and the social doctrine of the Catholic Church
have all tried in one way or another the theme of development.

Furthermore, within the frame of Catholic Social Doctrine the relatively still
recent encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Sociallis (Of the Church and the Social) of Pope John
Paul II will be pondered upon again. Written under the motif of the 20th anniversary of
the appearance of Populorom Progressio (On the Development of the Nations) it gathers
once again the problem of economic and social development in a world which becomes
smaller all the time and in greater danger of technical and environmental disasters.

That present world situation may be assigned to concrete historical events, but as
a pastoral call the encyclical tries to “emphasize, through a theological reflection of the
present world the need for a wider and more nuanced concept of development” (S.4.).

1
These changes not only include now the end of the Cold War but also the emergence of Islamic
fundamentalism, the emergence of new cyber technologies, the emergence and impact of mega Christian
churches, the impact of Latin immigration, the impact of a new European block, failures of neo-liberalism.

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 Of still recent publication, in terms of the Church clock, this encyclical has in
common with other approaches the relationship between “sin” and “structures of sin”,
and the breaking of human solidarity. Therefore, one must commence with the treatment
of the theme of development in Sollicitudo and its connection with the theme of
solidarity. The context for this treatment is, of course, the present state of the world, of
which “it is important to note” that it is a world “divided in blocks, sustained by rigid
ideologies, and in which instead of inter-independence and solidarity various forms of
imperialism maintain their hold” (S.36).2

It could be said that the encyclical approaches the theme of development at least
from four different mayor perceptions or applications. First, just as it is found in
Populorum Progressio; secondly, as an economic term; thirdly, as moral term; finally, as
political term. All these categories are considered in an attempt to arrive not only to a
“more nuanced concept of development” but principally to a practical reconsideration of
what is authentic development.

It can be written extensively about each one of these categories and the encyclical
touches directly and indirectly each one of them. Its mayor attempt is, however, to board
the question, why in twenty years since the appearance of Populorum Progressio have we
seen little world progress to put an end to the present state of affairs between rich and
poor nations? Some progress is palpable; more countries have obtained their political
independence while economically they remain subject to the same old relationships, or
tied to new forms of exploitation and dependence.

Sollicitudo finds in the term solidarity a unifying term which gathers various
angles of consideration in the problem of development that try to direct the question
toward practical solutions more than toward academic proposals. Instead of resting on
abstract terms, the encyclical asks why we are in the same place as twenty years ago,
perhaps in a worst situation, and what needs to change for something to occur in effect?

One contribution that emerges in the theological panorama of the last thirty years
is that of “Political Theology”. There are points of convergence between the basic
presuppositions of that reflection and Sollicitudo. The first, and the strongest, is the
emphasis en the “de-privatization of the faith, and religion or the religious conscience, as
necessary task if religion is to have any pertinence in the world of today. Thus, Political
Theology attempts to bring a corrective reflection to theological tendencies concentrating
on private and “other-worldly salvation, transforming itself into “an attempt to formulate
the eschatological message in our present society”.3 This is a critical task that attempts to
correlate hermeneutically “theory and practice, and the understanding of faith and social

2
This concept of inter-dependence could be problematic if not explained since, for example, for the
Theology of Liberation it could be interpreted in connection with dependence. This is the case because
inter-dependence in such case is defined as the dependence of rich nations for natural resources and labor
of the underdeveloped world for their way of life, and the dependence of poor nations on the markets and
technology which aid in their own exploitation.
3
Johannes B. Metz, “The Church’s Social Function in Light of a ‘Political Theology’”, in Concilium, Vol.
36, 5/1968, p.2

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life”. 4 In other words, “it emphasizes that the salvation proclaimed by Jesus occupies
itself permanently with the world, not in the natural and cosmological sense, but in the
social and political sense…this social world and its historic processes”.5

In the same article, Johannes B. Metz refers to Populorum Progressio as an

example of what happens when the Church observes the world just as it is. In that
instance in particular, the “institutional” church no only makes critical assessment from
the perspective of the faith but it “was forced to take note, and assimilate various sources
of information that simply did not emerge from theological reflections in the
ecclesiastical sense”.6 In this critical task the Church came in contact with disciplines
that normally would be considered outside the area of competence of the Church. On
doing this the Church begins to recognize, as Metz has predicted, that “the function of
social critic of the Church always revolves toward a critique of religion and of the Church
itself”.7

In Sollicitudo this experience is expressed not only in a humble call to the Church
to examine its priorities but more importantly yet, in recognizing the moral competence
of the Church in social criticism, and in the recognition of the moral obligation of the
human being to commitment supported by the idea that in the human vocation of labor,
“it is always the human being who is the protagonist of development” (S, 30, 31). In this
respect, it is the expression which correlates “understanding of the faith and social life” in
terms that considers part of the plan of salvation as “our own history, marked by our
personal and collective effort to uplift the situation and overcome the obstacles that
continuously show in our way”(S, 31).

Other parallels can be established between some of the principal positions in

Political Theology and Sollicitudo, but there are space limits. It should suffice to say for
now, that the mayor parallel that can be made is in the historical aspects in the
developments in theology and the social doctrine of the last twenty years. But as
“Political Theology does not demand a new theological discipline with a separate sector
of theological themes, thus likewise the social doctrine of the Church “is not a ‘third way’
between liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism”(S, 41).8 Historical developments in
the world require of both a commitment with justice, each according to its field of
competence and effective contributions, in dialogue with other ecclesial and secular
disciplines.

In regards to the last, and referring to the field of competence of each one, there
may some points that may still need clarification and delineation. Something in which at
least these two sources of reflection find definitive agreement, is the necessity to preserve
some sense of freedom from ideological entrapments with the goal of remaining truly
effective. Both accept the role of social critic of the Church but with different emphases.

4
Ibid., p. 7.
5
Ibid., p. 8.
6
Ibid., p. 8.
7
Ibid., p. 15.
8
Ibid., p. 9.

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 A recommendation from a political theologian for Political Theology is the
following:

“The socio-critical attitude of the Church must not consist of a definitive

social order as a norm for our pluralistic society. It can only consist in the Church
applying to this society, and operating in society, its critical and liberating
function. The Church, as social institution in particular, can only formulate its
universal claim with respect to society with any ideology at all, if it is to present
this claim as effective critique. This basic critical attitude implies two important
points. First, it will demonstrate that the Church as socio-critical institution, it
won’t turn into a political ideology. No political party can gather into its political
activity the total reach of the social criticism of the Church, which covers the
totality of history under the eschatological provision of God. Otherwise, it would
astray toward romanticism or totalitarianism. Secondly, it is precisely this critical
function of the Church which creates the basic possibility of cooperation with
other institutions and non-Christian groups. The base for such cooperation cannot
rest primarily on a positive determination of the social process, nor in a definitive
notion of the substance of that free society of the humanity of the future.”9

Sollicitudo, on the other hand, declares that given the fact that the Social Doctrine
of the Church is not a “third way” then,

“…it rather constitutes a category in itself. Nor is it an ideology, but rather it

consists on the results of a careful reflection of the complex realities of human
existence, in society and the international order, in light of the faith and tradition
of the Church. Its principal goal is to interpret those realities, determining its
conformity with, or divergence from, the lines of the teachings of the Gospel
about the human being and its vocation which is at the same time terrestrial and
transcendent; its goal is, then, to guide Christian conduct. Therefore, it belongs to
the field not of ideology but of theology, and of moral theology in particular. The
teaching and promotion of its Social Doctrine is part of the evangelical mission of
the Church. The condemnation of evil and injustices is also part of the ministry of
evangelization in the social field, which an aspect of the prophetic role of the
Church. But it must be made clear that proclamation is always more important
the condemnation, and that the latter cannot ignore the former, which gives it true
solidity and strength of mayor motivation”(S, 41).

At the beginning of this work we mentioned that the mayor thrust in Sollicitudo is
an examination of the notion of development in the context of the last twenty years and
from the perspective of the experience of the Church in the formulation of its social
doctrine. But while Political Theology and Sollicitudo — and in the same manner
Populorum Progressio — cover those twenty years, the emphasis was placed in the
frameworks of those contributions for their social criticism. The connection between
development and solidarity and between faith and action remains to be explored, perhaps

9
Ibid., p. 17-18.

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in more concrete forms. We will do so observing another contribution that emerges in the
last [twenty] years, the Theory of Faith Development.

Since Sollicitudo speaks from a perspective of faith, we consider its urgent call as
an invitation to a universalizing faith, a call through faith to the creation of a world
environment where faith may be seen in action in the praxis of human solidarity. The
Theory of Faith Development, for its part, invites to consider the reality of that possibility
from its basic and structural understanding of human faith, which among other things,
“forms a way of looking at our daily life in relation to complete images of what we could
call the ultimate environment”.10

As Political Theology would criticize adverse reactions to the Enlightenment,

which help create individualist and apolitical positions, Sollicitudo establishes that today
we can no longer sustain opinions that consider human development as an automatic
phenomenon that occurs without the factors of will and human community. A careful
examination of “the contemporary world leads us to note, in first place, that development
is not a direct process, as if it were automatic and without its own limits, so that, given
certain conditions, the human race would be capable of progressing rapidly toward an
indefinite perfection of humanity”(S, 27).

The Theory of Faith Development would be in accord with this critique since in
its understanding of development, first of all, “the theory of stages is not a theology”— or
in other words, it is not an ideology, it does not serve a party program.11 Its main purpose
is to “clarify a developmental perspective on the human enterprise of committing trust
and fidelity and of imagining and relating ourselves to others and to the universe.”12 In
its dialogue with psycho-social theorists, the Theory of Faith Development has developed
an ample understanding of the relation between being and environment, context and
content, which provides for a caveat against purely mechanistic interpretations of human
development. Thus, it can be said that, at least in intentions and purpose, the Theory of
Faith Development and Sollicitudo share a concern with an “authentic development of the
human being and society that will respect and promote all dimensions of the human
being”, and the acknowledgement that, in part, one of the problems in the balance
between the economic regions of the world could be precisely “the result of a very
narrow idea of development, that is, one principally economic”(S, 15).

Whether as political term or social term, both are writings emphasize the need for
an understanding of human development that will take into account the various aspects of
reality that compose human experience, and that in terms of “modern underdevelopment
it is not only economic but also cultural, political and simply human”(S, 15).

10
James W. Fowler, Stages of Faith (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981) p. 4.
11
Ibid., p. 293
12
Ibid., p. 292. Here some could object that the theory of stages is in deed a theology of development. We
recognize that this aspect must be discussed but such discussion cannot be elaborated upon due to space
limitations.

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 What about faith? This other term is something else. Not only it is found in
common in both writings, but it is in both a necessary datum. First, because the encyclical
is directed specifically to people of faith, while the Theory of Faith Development treats
de theme of faith as a human characteristic. And secondly, (I would place more emphasis
on this since it is a given), faith is what both writings want to awaken. The invitation is
toward a universalizing faith. In fact, the message that we can obtain from both is that
only with a sense of a universalizing faith can a true sense of human development be
achieved in the world, and only an authentic human development can direct human
beings toward a true universalizing faith.

This sense of universalizing faith is founded in both instances in human realities.

For the Theory of Faith Development it is in the reality that all human beings are beings
of faith, and for Sollicitudo, in the reality that the means necessary for reaching a
complete human development have been destined to all (S, 42). “Peoples and individuals
aspire to be free: Their search for total development point to their desire to overcome the
many obstacles that prevent the enjoyment of a ‘more human life’”(S, 46). Faith as a
human datum is not the problem, in other words its validity or not, but it is important in
what constitutes a human being fully developed — while the specificity of Christian is
another matter. For the Theory of Faith Development, in last analysis, what constitutes
complete development is our “loyalty to being”.13 But for Sollicitudo the present image
is one where there are many “who really have no success in ‘being’ because, through a
reversal in a hierarchy of values have being incapacitated by a cult of “having”; and there
are others — the many who have little or nothing — who do not arrive at a realization of
their basic human vocation because they are found deprived of essential goods”(S, 28).

In terms of the specificity of the Christian faith from where both writings begin,
let’s say for now that in both instances there are no efforts to prove its validity. Both
simply understand that the Christian faith when unimpeded and on the contrary is assisted
by the community and tradition, “leads toward a universalizing faith”.14 This
universalizing faith cannot but find expression, or be better translated, than in the term
solidarity. Both writings call us inevitably to the necessity not only of becoming aware
that we share the same nature but also that, in the case of the Christian faith, there are
more than plenty of reasons to share in the responsibility to provide for the necessary
conditions for a total development.

Even today human development, in global terms, as history in continuation that

began in the creation, is a “history that finds itself constantly in danger of temptation
toward idolatry”(S, 30). What then can Sollicitudo and the Theory of Faith Development
say about this situation? What, as to how authentic, is human development achieved
without a movement toward a universalizing faith and vice versa? Is this a subject for
discussion after all, or just a point of encounter? While the Theory of Faith Development
emphasizes providing “formally some normative criteria to determine how adequate,
responsible and free of idolatrous distortions our modes of appropriating and living our
particular traditions of faith are”, in terms of “I-others-world related to transcendence,”

13
Fowler, Op.Cit., p. 244.
14
Fowler, Op.Cit., p. 295.

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Sollicitudo specifies that “faith in Christ, the redeemer, while it illuminates [from the
interior] interiorly the nature of development, it also guides us in the task of
collaboration”(S, 31.)15 A collaboration, that understood as solidarity it is not other than
the task of submitting all goods in “response to the human vocation, which it is fully
realized in Christ”…”the transcendent reality of the human being, a reality observed as
shared from the beginning by a couple…and is therefore fundamentally social”(S, 29.)

Sollicitudo emphasizes once again, that “to be genuine, development must be

reached within a framework of solidarity and liberty”, and that “the moral character of
development” is made clearer when “the most rigorous respect is given to all demands
derived from the order of truth and the well-being proper of all human persons”(S, 33).

The way, specifically Christian, that leads “toward an universalizing faith” in the
Theory of Faith Development is such that faith is then only properly understood in
solidarity and as solidarity, and not as a group of propositions. The moral demand
imposed upon this task — individual and collective — of development comes from the
fact that “if faith is relational, a pledging of trust and fidelity to another”, then the ‘truth’
of faith takes on a different quality. “Truth is lived; it is a pattern of being in relation to
others and to God”.16 “In other words”, Sollicitudo would say, “true development must
be based on the love of God and neighbor and must promote relations between
individuals and society”…”the Christian to whom is taught to see that the human being is
the image of God, called to share in the truth and good which is God himself, does not
understand a commitment to development and its application that excludes esteem and
respect for the unique dignity of that image”(S, 33).

The “interchangeability” of the term “development” between these two writings

only makes sense when human solidarity is thus understood as the praxis of a
universalizing faith, and vice versa. A reflection on the term “development” calls us to
contemplate what is common in all, in Sollicitudo as much as in the Theory of Faith
Development. It is a call to provide for an understanding of the need to allow all a just
opportunity to develop plentifully as human beings, as a vocation that calls us to relations
of alliance with the transcendent and our neighbor — “when the neighbor is understood
radically to be all being”…in recognition that all “human beings are genetically
potentiated—that is to say, are gifted at birth—with readiness to develop in faith”.17

In view of all discussed until now, and having in mind the beginnings of new
century, a new pontificate and all recent historical changes and phenomena, it appears
necessary the commencement of a new reflection on the impact that a new and fresh
integral concept of development could have in the future of human and international
relations. Part of the task that faces the Christian community, specifically, and
communities of faith at large, is that of contributing to such reflection through the

15
Ibid., pp. 293, 297.
16
Ibid., p. 295.
17
Ibid., p. 303. In addition, we should look at recent publishes studies such as “The God Gene”, which
mentions, although from a non-religious view perhaps, the existence of a gene that impulses humans
toward the transcendent, by Dean H. Hamer, 2004.

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initiation of a dialogue around solidarity and the defense and promotion of human rights
in our context. One may suggest that devotion and absolute respect, totally and
unquestionably, for human rights is the beginning of all conversation about authentic
solidarity. True human development cannot occur apart from an authentic human
solidarity, and this cannot occur without a faith that calls us forward.18

ADDENDUM IN PROGRESSIO

The paper originally ends as above with note 18. As previously mentioned the intention
of reconsidering this paper in its English version is to continue to expand, reflect and
bring up to date what challenges are presented today to a new pontificate in the Roman
Catholic Church in light of the challenge itself that the encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis
presented. But it is a challenge and set of circumstances not the exclusivity of one
particular church but of all the worldwide Christian community, especially that of the
industrialized “First World”, an ecumenical challenge.

Now as then I see a need for a concept of integral development of the human being and of
the human community.

In the context of the US and secularized Western industrial nations, “right to privacy”
issues, as in the abortion and euthanasia debates, create friction against notions such as
the inalienable right to life, where the context for claims about human rights appears to
become expedient, ideological, extemporaneous and full of contemporaneous limitations.
As discoveries and progress in medicine expand knowledge on the beginning of life,
arguments on the limitations and definition of life based on right to privacy may become
reactionary and retrograde in due time.

In nations, and whole regions, where even basic human survival are still the main issue
and where life is still revered from conception to the moment of death, simmering
resentment and a clash of values of values are being expressed as rejection of Western
values while at the same time recognizing a need for the incorporation of advances in
medicine and the technologies of information. But any association of Christian values
with Western consumer society values may result in the wholesale rejection of much
needed input from Western knowledge and technology in developing nations, as well as a
rejection of Christian input itself.

18
Regarding the term “development”, see the following: Magnus Bolstrom and Bjorn Hettne,
“Development Theory in Transition”, The Dependency Debate and Beyond: Third World
Responses(London: Zed Books Ltd., 1985); Denis Goulet, “Ethics in Development Work”, SEDOS
Bulletin, Vol. 22, No. 3, 15th March, (1990); James W. Fowler, Stages of Faith (San Francisco: Harper &
Row, 1981); Dykstra, Parks, et. al. Faith Development and Fowler, (Alabama: Religious Education Press,
1986); José Míguez Bonino, Toward a Christian Political Ethics, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983);
Sollicitudo Rei Sociallis (on Social Concern) Papal Encyclical of H.H. John Paul II, 1987-88.

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Speculation prior to and after the election of Pope Benedict XVI revolved around some of
the points in the agenda for the new pontificate. Most spoken about was the role of the
Church in non-Western societies, the still present gap between rich and poor nations and
the role of globalization.

Although the term “development” was charged with various connotations and was the
subject of debate and rejection during the debates and the era of liberation theology, the
reality of underdevelopment and the theme of development are still with us. And the
writings of the past and present Pope should be reexamined in the context of
globalization, globalism, “mundialismo” (world-ism), and all their consequences, good
and bad of uprooting communities, environmental and political changes, the emergence
of worldwide Islamists movements, new political trends in Latin America, the fracture of
the family in industrialized nations and a demographic decline, the backlash of centuries
of imperialisms and colonialism, and a needed fresh look at the culture of poverty.

We need to reconsider and update the debate between “dependentistas” and “cepalistas”
and what views was the episcopate and theologians in Latin America incorporating or
depending on for their analysis during the last part of the 20th Century, in the case of that
region in particular. Was Pope John Paul II ahead of the debate by seeing the limitations
of structuralism, Latin American Marxists, and others?

The conclusion of this paper is a work in progress as it seeks to further the reflection and
to exhort for an interdisciplinary approach to the problem of development and the
consideration of an integral concept of human development beyond that of the point of
view of economics, an approach for people of faith but also for all persons of good will.

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