Caritas in Veritate and Integral Human Development

A Critical Appraisal

Abstract

At last it is out, some four years after it was first signaled. The long
awaited third encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate
(CV) is the first Social Encyclical of the Pope, issued on June 29,
2009, feast of SS Peter and Paul. Commemorating Pope Paul VI’s
famous encyclical Populorum Progressio ( PP - On the Development
of Peoples, 1967), CV focuses exclusively, as the sub-title of the
encyclical puts it, on the integral development in today’s context
of globalization. CV is addressed, as in the case of PP, to the
Bishops, Priests and Deacons, Men and Women Religious, the Lay
Faithful, and All People of Good Will, manifesting that the Pope
wants it to be a document of universal significance.