Excerpts From Pope’s Encyclical on Rivalry Between East and West

Here are excerpts from the official English text of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical “Sollicitudo Rei Socialis.” The original was written in Polish.

The social context in which we live today cannot be said to be completely identical to that of 20 years ago . . . . The first fact to note is that the hopes for development, at that time so lively, today appear very far from being realized. . . . One cannot deny that the present situation of the world, from the point of view of development, offers a rather negative impression. . . .

The first negative observation to make is the persistence and often the widening of the gap between the areas of the so-called developed North and the developing South. . . . In today’s world among other rights, the right of economic initiative is often suppressed. . . . This provokes a sense of frustration or desperation and predisposes people to opt out of national life, impelling many to emigrate, and also favoring a form of ‘psychological’ emigration. . . . It often happens that a nation is deprived of its subjectivity, that is to say the “sovereignty” which is its right. . . .

It must also be restated that no social group, for example, a political party, has the right to usurp the role of sole leader, since this brings about the destruction of the true subjectivity of society and of the individual citizens, as happens in every form of totalitarianism. . . .

The tension between the two blocs which began at the end of the Second World War has dominated the whole of the subsequent 40 years. Sometimes it has taken the form of ‘cold war,’ sometimes of ‘wars by proxy,’ through the manipulation of local conflicts, and sometimes it has kept people’s minds in suspense and anguish by the threat of an open and total war. . . .

Although at the present time this danger seems to have receded, yet without completely disappearing, and even though an initial agreement has been reached on the destruction of one type of nuclear weapon, the existence and opposition of the blocs continue to be a real and worrying fact which still colors the world picture. . . .

The tension between East and West is not in itself an opposition between two different levels of development but rather between two concepts of the development of individuals and peoples, both concepts being imperfect and in need of radical correction. . . .

This is one of the reasons why the church’s social doctrine adopts a critical attitude towards both liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism. For from the point of view of development the question naturally arises: In what way and to what extent are these two systems capable of changes and updatings such as to favor or promote a true and integral development of individuals and peoples in modern society? In fact, these changes and updatings are urgent and essential for the cause of a development common to all. . . .

. . . Each of the two blocs harbors in its own way a tendency towards imperialism, as it is usually called, or toward forms of neocolonialism. . . . It is this abnormal situation, the result of a war and of an unacceptably exaggerated concern for security, which deadens the impulse toward united cooperation by all for the common good of the human race, to the detriment especially of peaceful peoples who are impeded from their rightful access to the goods meant for all. . . . Seen in this way, the present division of the world is a direct obstacle to the real transformation of the conditions of underdevelopment in the developing and less advanced countries. . . .

When the West gives the impression of abandoning itself to forms of growing and selfish isolation, and the East in its turn seems to ignore for questionable reasons its duty to cooperate in the task of alleviating human misery, then we are up against not only a betrayal of humanity’s legitimate expectations--a betrayal that is a harbinger of unforeseeable consequences--but also a real desertion of a moral obligation. . . .

If arms production is a serious disorder in the present world with regard to true human needs and the employment of the means capable of satisfying those needs, the arms trade is equally to blame. . . . We are thus confronted with a strange phenomenon: While economic aid and development plans meet with the obstacle of insuperable ideological barriers, and with tariff and trade barriers, arms of whatever origin circulate with almost total freedom all over the world. . . .

To all this we add the tremendous and universally acknowledged danger represented by atomic weapons stockpiled on an incredible scale, the logical conclusion seems to be this: In today’s world, including the world of economics, the prevailing picture is one destined to lead us more quickly toward death rather than one of the concern for true development. . . .

Nor may we close our eyes to another painful wound in today’s world: the phenomenon of terrorism, understood as the intention to kill people and destroy property indiscriminately, and to create a climate of terror and insecurity, often including the taking of hostages. Even when some ideology or the desire to create a better society is adduced as the motivation for this inhuman behavior, acts of terrorism are never justifiable. . . .

. . . One of the greatest injustices in the contemporary world consists precisely in this: that the ones who possess much are relatively few and those who possess almost nothing are many. It is the injustice of the poor distribution of the goods and services originally intended for all. . . .

The stronger and richer nations must have a sense of moral responsibility for the other nations, so that a real international system may be established which will rest on the foundation of the equality of all peoples and on the necessary respect for their legitimate differences. . . . For world peace is inconceivable unless the world’s leaders come to recognize that interdependence in itself demands the abandonment of the politics of blocs, the sacrifice of all forms of economic, military or political imperialism, and the transformation of mutual distrust into collaboration. . . .

The church does not have technical solutions to offer for the problem of underdevelopment as such . . . for the church does not propose economic and political systems or programs. . . . The church’s social doctrine is not a ‘third way’ between liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism, nor even a possible alternative to other solutions less radically opposed to one another; rather, it constitutes a category of its own. . . . Therefore it belongs to the field, not of ideology, but of theology and particularly of moral theology. . . . It is necessary to state once more the characteristic principles of Christian social doctrine: The goods of this world are originally meant for all. The right to private property is valid and necessary, but it does not nullify the value of this principle. . . .

Development demands above all a spirit of initiative on the part of the countries that need it. Each of them must act in accordance with its own responsibilities, not expecting everything from the more favored countries. . . . The developing nations themselves should favor the self-affirmation of each citizen, through access to a wider culture and a free flow of information. Other nations need to reform certain unjust structures, and in particular their political institutions, in order to replace corrupt, dictatorial and authoritarian forms of government by democratic and participatory ones . . . .

Development which is merely economic is incapable of setting man free; on the contrary, it will end up by enslaving him further. Development that does not include the cultural, transcendent and religious dimensions of man and society, . . . is even less conducive to authentic liberation. . . .