Compendium of social doctrine of the Church ready by April

Rome, Italy, Feb 22, 2004 / 22:00 pm

The President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Renato Martino, announced the long-awaited “Catechism of Social Doctrine” will be published at the end of April.

The Cardinal said the document will bring together material from historial papal encyclicals on social issues, including Rerum Novarum, by Pope Leo XIII, Sollicitudo rei socialis and Centesimus Annus, both by Pope John Paul II.

The new compendium will replace the previous “Social Agenda: A Collection of Magisterial Texts” and has been long-awaited since the end of 2000.  The project was postponed by the untimely death of the former President of the Justice and Peace diacastery, Cardinal Francois Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan.

The “Social Catechism” is a response to the request made by Pope John Paul II in the Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in America, which was presented in 1999 in the Basilica of Guadalupe.  In that document the Holy Father underscored the usefulness of “an authorized compendium or synthesis, including a ‘catechism,’ which would show the relation between Catholic social teaching and the new evangelization.”