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For two intense days, Nov. 6 and 7, the Villanova University community and visiting experts considered the thorny issue of globalization in light of Catholic Church social teaching. Under the sponsorship of the Office of Mission Effectiveness, which also organized the conference, scholars examined topics that touch or are touched by globalization. These topics included the unintended consequences of globalization, its moral and political implications; the labor movement, a social economist’s perspective on globalization and justice; the effect of globalization on the world’s women and children; the need for a new business paradigm to address globalization: multinational corporate responsibility and civil society; the theological/scriptural foundations of Catholic social teaching; and more.

Speakers included the Albino Berrara, O.P., Providence College, author of Modern Catholic Social Documents and Political Economy; Michael Crosby, O.F.M., author of Thy Will be Done: Our Father as Subversive Activity, and The Spirituality of Matthew’s Challenge for First World Christians; Jeff Faux, Distinguished Fellow, Economic Policy Institute, and author of Reclaiming Prosperity: A Blueprint for Progressive Economic Reform. James K. Galbraith, holder of the Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations, University of Texas, Austin; and economist Amata Miller, I.H.M. Among Villanovans participating were Dr. Kishor Thanawala, professor of economics; Jonathan Doh, director of the Center for Responsible Leadership and Government; and Dr. Michele Pistone, professor, Villanova University School of Law.
On Thursday evening, the Most Reverend Celestino Migliore, apostolic nuncio and permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, spoke on the 25 year pontificate of Pope John Paul II and his views on globalization.

“The very concept of the social thought of the Church is a globalized and globalizing one,” Archbishop Migliore stated.

The archbishop went on to cite many of the statements and opinions expressed by the pope during the last quarter of a century. On the topic of development, Pope John Paul affirmed in his 1987 encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialism, that the Church does not have technical solutions to offer for the problem of underdevelopment, does not promise economic and political systems or express a preference for any of these. Instead, the archbishop said, “the Church evaluates, assesses and judges them from the perspective of their respect and promotion of the human dignity the lies at the center.”

The archbishop cited the way that building on the writings of such predecessors as Popes Leo XIII and John XXIII, Pope John Paul has affirmed and reaffirmed that the Church’s social thought emanates from the encounter between the Gospel and the daily life of society. “The Pope’s very source of social thought is indissolubly connected to the Christian identity, to reference to the Trinity, to Jesus Christ as the Second Person of the Trinity,” Archbishop Migliore told his audience. “His globalized and globalizing dimension lies in its expression, in its articulation, in its wording which uses human wisdom and sciences, largely shares by human persons and societies.”

Pope John Paul spent 30 years as a priest before he was elected bishop of Rome. As a bishop in communist Poland, he struggled against national leaders who sought a collective society in their country and all over the world, with individual rights sidelined. They believed that class struggle was the vehicle to achieve this. Catholic social teaching diametrically opposes such as philosophy. For example, twelve years ago, under the pope’s aegis, the Holy See recognized (prematurely, in the opinion of some Europeans) the autonomy of Slovenia and Croatia from the Yugoslavian federation. The pope believed that these republics needed to be given the chance to regain their proper cultural, social, religious and political identities.

In 1983, visiting Poland, the pope supported the new Solidarity movement led by Lech Walesa. “From his gestures as well as from his message we can gather that he [the pope] did not intend to give a mere, even if vital impetus, to the political, social and humanitarian uprising in Poland,” Archbishop Migliore said. “He saw a glimpse of the germination of a cultural revolution, capable of allowing the maturation of a new societal organization, valid not only for Poland but for the entire world.”

In his 1991 encyclical Centesimus annus, published on the hundredth anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s landmark encyclical Rerum Novarum, the pope wrote that the fall of communism did not mean that its opposite number, capitalism, had won and proven to be a good and efficient system. However, according to the archbishop, the pope expressed hope that capitalism would be reformed and he even proposed a new universal social contract with solidarity at its core. But, of course, this has not happened yet.

The pope realizes that globalization is neither good nor bad. It will be what people make of it. However, it needs to be governed in his view and to that end, the pope has proposed two criteria: first, that which he calls “the inalienable value of the human person;” second, the defense of liberty and of diversity of cultures.

The archbishop concluded by pointing out that the pope’s gestures are as important as his words: his timely trips throughout the world; his visits to mosques as well as to Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall, his World Youth Day encounters with millions of young people.

“With his prophetic gestures, the pope has gone beyond . . . the contingent reasons that required prudence, the limits imposed by traditions, of reciprocal diffidence, of habits and praxes that seemed immutable,” Archbishop Migliore said. “The process of globalization demands all these advances or leaps. The Church of Pope John Paul II is a pilgrim Church, in movement, that announces the Gospel and is not afraid to face globalization.”