La doctrina social de la Iglesia

Poverty, inequalities, corruption, laws that trample on human dignity, suffering, violence, racism, discrimination... Is the Catholic Church present in the fight against these realities? Or does she usually arrive late at these fronts? Does society feel that the Church stands up to injustices?. On May 15, 1951, Pope Leo XIII published the encyclical Rerum novarum. It was the position of the Catholic Church before the brutal change that the Industrial Revolution was bringing about for society and especially for the working class, relegated to a merely instrumental category. This book explains how the so-called "social question" was born within the Church, that is, the awareness of the disorder produced by the encounter of material progress with the decline of ethical-social principles. Today the "social question" has gradually become an "anthropological question", not limited to forms of property and labor relations but encompassing everything human. For this reason, the Social Doctrine of the Church has also evolved, despite declaring itself aware of how much it still has to do. In this sense, there are still outstanding issues of special importance, such as making it clear that there is no justice without freedom, and no freedom without justice. For this reason, the author reflects in the texts that justice is not achieved if only reason is applied, that a fraternal reciprocity must be generated, and that requires having the religious dimension. The book also introduces another great issue: the confusion between the political community and the State. The author claims to reduce the latter to the character of an instrument of legitimate authority -which is what it was born for-, and reviews the doctrine on the origin of authority and forms of government giving priority to participation over representation.