The Encyclical & Personalism

As we await the release of Pope Benedict’s third encyclical—said to be on the social teaching about economics—this hint from Inside the Vatican indicates that Pope Benedict will be relying on thinking from two Catholic philosophers of the last century, Jacques Maritain and Emmanuel Mounier.

Maritain’s works played a role in my conversion to Catholicism, and I came to appreciate Mounier—who also influenced Dorothy Day—by reading his book A Personalist Manifesto, whose first sentence is: “We shall apply the term personalist to any doctrine or any civilization that affirms the primacy of the human person over material necessities and over the whole complex of implements man needs for the development of his person.” (1938, p. 1)

An excerpt from the Inside the Vatican article.

“I was told today that one of the Pope's advisors on the upcoming encyclical is Father Mario Toso, a professor of Social Philosophy at the Pontifical Salesian University, and from 2003 to 2007 the Rector Magnificus of the university. This role has not been officially confirmed, but it makes sense: Toso is one of the leading social philosophers in Italy, and he is a Salesian, a member of the order of Don Bosco... and the Salesians are now in the ascendant in Rome, with the leading Salesian in the Curia being the highest official after the Pope, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State.

“Father Toso has studied the political personalism of Jacques Maritain and Emmanuel Mounier, and researched the democratic populism of the great Italian priest, Fr. Luigi Sturzo.

“Toso is among the few Catholic thinkers who in his studies has reflected on the nature of the welfare state. He has proposed a new social consensus based on the common search for the genuine good of mankind. As a Consultor of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, he has taken part in studies on non-violence and problems of land distribution.”