Understanding development from the encyclical Populorum Progressio

Abstract

The purpose of this document is to make a reading from the economy about the Populorum Progressio encyclical, emphasizing in its contribution to the understanding of the development and arguing about its influence in the most recent concept of a phenomenon such as poverty. It is concluded that in the encyclical Pablo VI make us understand that the integral development, as it is defined in this, needs, to be such not only individual attitudes coherent with ethics, but also political initiatives and deeply ethic structures. Besides, in the pope’s proposal it is observed a clear humanistic conception of the development in which the economical growth itself has no sense, unless its results serve to improve the well-being, the dignity and the human rights.