A new Catholic social manifesto?
The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the ChurchBRUCE DUNCAN CSsR
REFLECTING POPE JOHN PAUL II’s passionate engagement with the great social issues of our day, The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church will stand as a key resource for some years. Yet it is not an easy document to assess, since it encompasses such a wide field of topics and issues. Because of the limitations of space, this review will outline the scope of the Compendium, skipping much of the detail about specific areas, and raise some questions and criticisms.
Disturbed that the social teaching of the Church was not well known, John Paul II directed in 1996 that the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace prepare a summary for the Great Jubilee of the Church’s views on contemporary social issues. It was first termed a ‘catechism’, stressing in a quite unprecedented way the importance of this synthesis, but the title was changed to Compendium, allowing more room for flexibility in interpretation since the social context was in constant flux. The text was vetted carefully by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith headed by Cardinal Ratzinger, indicating that Benedict XVI is likely to endorse its views strongly. It was a major undertaking and did not appear until late in 2004, with the Vatican edition which runs to 525 pages.
