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Fr. Lowry Addresses Vatican Social Justice Conference - March 2005
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The following article will appear in
the Manhasset Press - likely for the April 14 edition. If you would like
to know more, please see Father Lowry
The Reverend Dr. David Lowry, Rector of Christ Church, Manhasset, spoke at a conference at the Vatican that was held from March 15th through the 18th. The conference addressed the effects of the Church’s social doctrine set out at the Second Vatican Council, especially as seen in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes.
Father Lowry’s paper and talk dealt with the new opportunities that the Church has to help establish a more just and equitable world. He noted that modern Catholic social doctrine developed at the end of the 19th century when Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Rerum novarum. The encyclical was issued at a time when the Papacy had lost control over the Papal States and when Marxism and other forms of socialism appeared to threaten the Church. Periodic updates on Catholic social doctrine, often issued on the ten-year anniversaries of Rerum novarum, have tended to remain within the original scope of Leo XIII encyclical. By 1965, when the Second Vatican Council finished its work, forms of Marxism remained a concern, but many other issues, including the end of colonialism and the development of the ‘Third World,’ had become important as well. Although the Church noted these new challenges in relationship to economic and social justice, she remained conservative and insular in her social doctrine.
However, with the end of Communism as an economic and social force, Father Lowry suggested that the Church has an opportunity to re-think and re-energize her social doctrine. Therefore, Father Lowry expressed hope that the Church would issue a ‘new’ statement of social doctrine and implementation strategies that reflect a more globalized and interconnected world and the emergence of ‘transnational civil society.’ Further he commended the potential for the Church to enter into alliances with entities that have similar interests in improving the conditions under which the poor and the disenfranchised live. Father Lowry’s paper will be published later this year.
The
conference brought together scholars and church leaders from around the world.
Participants in the conference included Cardinal Renato Martino, President of
the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace; Cardinal Claudio Hummes,
Archbishop of Sao Paulo, Brazil; Callisto Madavo, Special Advisor to the
President of the World Bank; and Rubens Ricupero, former Director General of the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger,
Prefect of the
Vatican’s
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, celebrated Mass at the Altar of the
Chair at St. Peter’s and delivered a homily for the conference participants.
9 April
2005
