Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) – There is close connection between the epochal challenges of globalisation and the Church’s social teaching. In fact the Social Doctrine of the Church, rooted in the message of the Gospel, possesses a power which unites the entire human race: “on the one hand, globalisation is ever more accepted in the above mentioned doctrine and on the other the same doctrine becomes ever more globalised” said Bishop Gianpaolo Crepaldi, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice ad Peace in his prolusion to open the academic year 2003-2004 of the pontifical Salesian university, on 6 October at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome.
Underlining the unchanging validity of the Church’s teaching and growing interest in it with regard to globalisation, the Bishop said that Social Sciences alone are not able to give unanimous and reliable interpretations of the macro-phenomenon in question and that to obtain in this regard adequate awareness and understanding it is necessary to have the ethical and anthropological vision found in the Social Doctrine of the Church. Besides, precisely the epochal phenomenon of globalisation has led to more in depth study and verification of the fundamental principles of Catholic social teaching.
Concluding his prolusion on the aspects of globalisation in relation to the Church, especially those connected with the cultural dimension, Bishop Crepaldi expressed the wish that the Pontifical Salesian University, cultural expression of Don Bosco’s love for the youth of the world and constitutionally oriented to focus on the global breadth of today’s problems, may assume an important role in facing with intellectual courage and cultural charity the challenges of thought which globalisation today puts to man and to the Church. SL (Fides Service 7/10/2003 EM lines 22 Words: 288)
