The Record Newspaper 09 May 1991

Page 1

PERTH, WA: May 9, 1991

Registered by Australia Post Publication No. WAR 0202

Number 2738

POST ADDRESS: PO Box 50, Northbridge, 6000 W.A. LOCATION: 26 John St, Northbridge (east off Fitzgerald St).

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New encyclical at a glance VATICAN CITY (CNS): Here is an at-a-glance look at Pope John Paul II's new encyclical, "Centesimus Annus" ("The Hundredth Year"). • Marks the 100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's encyclical "Rerum Novarum" (on capital and labour), which is considered the basis for contemporary Catholic social teachings. • Urges a re-reading of "Rerum Novarum" and a

fresh enthusiasm for the richness of the Church's social doctrine. • Explores the collapse of communism and asks the West to help rebuild Eastern Europe, although not along the model of an affluent or consumer society driven only by profit motives. • Says the free market appears to be the most efficient system for utilising resources but notes the

inadequacies of capitalism and the fact that many human needs are shut out of the market.

• Emphasises the rights of workers and the need for labour unions to protect them. • Calls for major new efforts to meet the needs of the Third World, including forgiveness of all or part of its foreign debt.

• Seeks alternatives to war and notes that "an insane arms race swallowed up the resources needed for the development of national economies and for assistance to the less developed nations". • Criticises abortion as a denial of the right to life and says birth control campaigns can be a form of chemical warfare against defenceless human beings.

Yesterday now and tomorrow 1891-1991

Pope Leo XII

VATICAN CITY (CNS): Pope John Paul II's latest encyclical highlights a century of changing problems and circumstances in the workplace, the marketplace and society at large. As a piece of social teaching, it is attuned to the reality of today's high-tech, interdependent world economy and the new strains it is placing on certain groups, especially in the Third World. encyclical, The "Centesimus Annus" ("The Hundredth Year"), is a comprehensive review of developments since Pope Leo XIII wrote his landmark social encyclical, "Rerum Novarum" (on capital and labour) in 1891. In several ways, however, the new document looks to the future as well as the past. • In place of Pope Leo's warnings about

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the rise of socialism and class struggle, the pope was able to write communism's obituary as a social and economic system, following its collapse in Eastern Europe and its decline in other parts of the world. What is urgently needed now, the pope argues, is reform of the free-market system on a global level, so that it responds more to human needs and less to the profit motive. • In the workplace, Pope Leo was especially concerned with exploitative conditions and fair-wage issues that — thanks largely to unions — have been resolved in much of the world. The pope, while affirming the role of trade unions, points out that new kinds of problems have arisen: The shift away from labourintensive means of production. The need for retraining workers

"obsolete" in industries. The failure of national entire economies to get off the ground. • Much of Pope Leo's attention was focused on individual workers — their working hours, their job protection and their ability to tuck some savings away. The new encyclical, like many of Pope John Paul's speeches in recent years, has more to do with the dynamics of the world economy and the international marketplace. It points out that today, ownership of land and resources is less important — at least in industrialised countries — than "the possession of knowhow, technology and skill". Work itself is more service-related, "a matter of doing something for someone else". Moreover, the "globalisation" of the economy has made

markets more interdependent, the pope says. In this changed situation, he notes, foreign debt can be a fatal handicap for nations trying to compete. All of this has special significance for the Third World, and here the pope makes detailed some diagnoses. Perhaps even more than the land and resource-based economies of the past, he argues. today's hightech marketplace is leaving the Third World out. Workers in poor countries are falling behind in knowledge and training. They are not so much exploited as "marginalised", and "economic development takes place over their head". This can make populations vulnerable to new abuses, such as coercive demographic control, the pope warns. Some poor countries have tried economic

isolationism, relying on their own resources, but the results have been stagnation and recession, the pope says. The chief problem the Third World faces, he concludes, is "gaining access to the international market". Obviously, this will not happen if the free market is driven solely by the search for profit. Here is where the pope makes his case for reforming the "human inadequacies" of capitalism. While recognising that the free market appears to be the most efficient system in using resources and responding to consumer demand, the pope notes that "there are many human needs which find no place on the market". In meeting the needs

of the Third World, the pope suggests sometimes deferring or cancelling foreign debt payment. He also foresees the establishment of international agencies to "oversee and direct" the world economy, with more weight given to Third World difficulties. The pope underscores these proposals with a warning: Worldwide poverty is "threatening to assume massive proportions in spite of t echnological and economic progress". The solution is not simply a matter of giving away surplus goods, but requires "a change of lifestyles, of models of production and consumption, and of the established structures of power which today governs societies", he says. The pope recognises that in some places

Pope John Paul II the "inhuman exploitation" described in "Rerum Novarum" continues to this day. Low wages, abuse of employees and unjust distribution of profits have not disappeared. But the new encyclical emphasises that the "humiliating subjection" of today's poor is not merely a lack of material goods. Increasingly it involves their struggle for training, technology and a share of the market. In this sense, the encyclical brings a wider focus to the gap between rich and poor decried by Pope Leo XIII. Today the gap is also one of opportunity, involving whole continents and peoples. The encyclical says they too deserve to share in "a society of free work, of enterprise and of participation".

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