Benedict XVI's encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) was released in mid 2009, following his earlier Deus Caritas Est.This encyclical deals with globalisation, a topic largely absent from John Paul II's Centisiumus Annus 1991 which celebrated the hundred years of papal social teaching since Leo XXIII's Rerum Novarum, writes Paul Oslington.
Caritas in Veritate represents a new direction in Catholic social teaching, signalled by taking Paul VI's 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio (On Human Development) as its starting point rather than the hundred-year tradition which he perhaps saw his predecessor John Paul II as crowning.
Centisiumus Annus, with its strikingly positive language about the market economy, was heralded by many as the Vatican finally seeing the light after for so long being lost in the mists of socialism. This is not entirely the case; as in my view the market language sits uneasily with the underlying philosophical framework of the document.
Benedict's philosophical background is rather different to that of John Paul II (see for instance Tracey Rowland's excellent account of his thought) and in my view he has a better chance of pulling off the serious engagement with economics that we still await from the encyclical tradition.
This is in part because of his Augustinianism and different perspective on natural law.
Traditional Catholic moral theology has always dealt far better with small scale interpersonal relationships than with large scale impersonal social systems like market economies.
Benedict's encyclical is an admirable engagement with economics - certainly at the upper end of church statements on economic matters.
There is a respect for technical expertise of economists, and a reticence lacking in many church statements to pronounce on complex matters of economic theory and empirical evidence.
SIC: CTHNAUS