John Paul II’s vision of the social economy from an urban perspective

Abstract

Pope John Paul II has been a prolific writer on social economic issues. In particular, three encyclicals, Laborem Exercens, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis and Centesimus Annus directly address that topic. While John Paul, as leader of a global church, tends to address these issues from a global perspective, much of what he writes can be applied to the local, urban level of analysis. This essay applies many of John Paul’s premises to the urban poverty problem, including: the preferential option for the poor; the principle of the common use of goods; solidarity; and subsidiarity. It concludes that all of these principles can be used to analyze the problem of urban poverty, especially its spatial elements, and their application suggests a major re‐thinking of the relationship between suburbs and inner cities.

Citation

Zech, C.E. (1998), "John Paul II’s vision of the social economy from an urban perspective", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 25 No. 11/12, pp. 1755-1763. https://doi.org/10.1108/03068299810233411