Economic Soul/9 - Since Vatican II, a social and economic philosophy that sees inequality as a problem to be eliminated and not a fact of nature
by Luigino Bruni
published in Avvenire on March 8, 2026
Pietro Pavan, one of the most influential theologians in the social teaching of John XXIII, “conciliar expert” and member of the commission charged with preparing the Preface and some chapters of the constitution Gaudium et Spes of the Second Vatican Council, wrote in 1950: "In existing economies, a huge and painful process of readjustment is underway. Many signs seem to indicate that we are moving towards the establishment of a more humane social economic order, almost in response to an ever more vivid yearning of peoples for greater justice" (L'uomo nel mondo economico). The Council grasped this vivid yearning of the peoples and thus experienced a great resurrection in the attitude of the Catholic Church towards modernity and its questions. We find this spirit already in the Preface to Gaudium et Spes, one of the most beautiful and powerful texts in the history of the Church: “The joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the people of today, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, are also the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Nothing genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts.” From this it follows that “the Christian community feels truly and deeply united with the human race and its history” (1). A wonderful page, full of prophecy, open and pure air. We have truly and finally entered another world, another era, and this can also be seen in the recipients to whom the Council documents are addressed: “The Second Vatican Council does not hesitate to address its message no longer only to the children of the Church and to all those who invoke the name of Christ, but to all men... The world it has in mind is therefore that of men, that is, the entire human family” (2). Dialogue with the new world has finally begun: “The Council could not give a more eloquent demonstration of solidarity, respect, and love for the entire human family, within which it is inserted, than by establishing a dialogue with it on various problems... It is a matter of saving man, it is a matter of building human society” (3). A new era of sincere cooperation is announced: “Therefore, the Holy Council offers humanity the sincere cooperation of the Church, in order to establish that universal brotherhood which corresponds to this vocation” (4). The world, after wars, dictatorships, and concentration camps, has changed, and the Church has changed with it. And it was metanoia. Through a powerful outpouring of the Spirit, that ecumenical assembly transcended itself and intuited that the world was not only or primarily the kingdom of the enemy, the city of Satan, but a place created by God and inhabited by Adam, created in his image. Christians looked at the face of the people of their time and recognized their own faces, their own beauty, and their own sins. With this new perspective, the long season of Church-World dualism ended and the Church-Kingdom dynamic began. We know that this dualism is also present in the Gospels (John), but it has never been a good idea to put the Gospel in conflict with Genesis and its vision of the creation of man as something ‘very good and beautiful’ (Genesis 1:31): it suits no one, or perhaps it suits only the ‘devil’ who finds himself ‘master of the world’, legitimate because he is legitimized.
Now ‘new things’ are seen as good things, and reading the spirit and tone of Rerum Novarum, it seems that many centuries have passed, not just seventy years: “What we have done in the past for the good of the Church and for the common salvation with our encyclical letters on public powers, human freedom, the Christian constitution of states, and other similar topics that seemed appropriate to us in order to refute fatal errors, we believe we must do now for the same reasons on the question of labor” (1). The Council no longer writes to “break down fatal errors,” but to cooperate sincerely with humanity, which it views with a positive and encouraging gaze. The theological, anthropological, and social heights reached by the Council remain unsurpassed: “Here we see the explosion of a new historical resurrection of the Mystical Christ: the Second Vatican Council and Pope Roncalli, a resurrection that is not yet complete” (Pietro Pavan, Chiesa fermento, 1987).
There is also a radical change in attitude towards inequality among men, which now extends to that between peoples. In Pius XII's Sertum Laetitiae, in 1939, we still read: "The memories of every age testify that there have always been rich and poor; and the inflexible condition of human affairs suggests that this will always be so. The poor who fear God are worthy of honor, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs and because they easily abound in spiritual graces. The rich, then, if they are upright and honest, fulfill the office of dispensers and procurers of God's earthly gifts; as ministers of Providence, they help the needy, through whom they often receive gifts that concern the spirit and whose hand will lead them to the eternal tabernacles." In Gaudium et spes, everything changes radically: "Developing countries wish to share in the benefits of modern civilization, not only politically but also economically. Peoples gripped by hunger call on the richer peoples to help them. Women demand, where they have not yet achieved it, equality with men, not only in law but also in fact. Workers and farmers do not want only to earn what they need to live, but to develop their personalities through work, indeed to participate in the organization of economic, social, political, and cultural life" (9). Times have truly changed. We no longer start from the fact that inequalities exist to say that ‘it will always be this way’, and from considering the rich as ‘ministers of Providence’ without questioning their wealth and the poverty of others. The poor are no longer called ‘blessed’ and left poor, assisted by the righteous rich, but it is affirmed that the poor, individuals and peoples, want and must change their condition, reduce the ‘distances’: “Peoples today are convinced that the benefits of civilization can and must be extended to all. Underlying all these demands is a deeper and more universal aspiration” (9).
The important theological and cultural element that was missing from pre-conciliar social teaching was the awareness that inequalities are not all the same, and that some can be reduced by the political will of the people. Among the reducible inequalities are economic and educational ones, which, if reduced, reduce many others. If a poor family lives in a country where free and universal compulsory public education has been established, the next generation will see a reduction not only in economic inequalities but also in educational, social, talent, and intelligence inequalities, as the history of peoples teaches us. My father was a municipal road maintenance worker and my mother a housewife, but thanks to the Italian public school system, I am a university professor.
Without entering into the debate as to whether the Second Vatican Council should be interpreted with a ‘hermeneutic of reform in continuity’ or a ‘hermeneutic of discontinuity’ (Benedict XVI, 2005), what is certain is that if it was a reform and not a discontinuity, it was a reform of enormous scope, such as to equate it with a revolution, at least as regards the attitude towards the questions of modern man, peoples, and the poor. For this reason, when reading the evolution of the Church's social doctrine, the category of “continuity” is of little help and causes confusion. Inequalities, which are at the heart of any discussion of social ethics, are now criticized, inviting everyone, the Church and the world, to reduce them. We also read this in Populorum Progressio, Paul VI's encyclical that is the continuation of Gaudium et Spes: “Excessive economic, social, and cultural inequalities between peoples cause tensions and discord and endanger peace” (1967, 76). And to wage this fight against inequality, Paul VI again addresses everyone: “Catholics, Christians, all people of good will” (85). Because, “if development is the new name for peace, who would not want to cooperate with all their strength? Yes, everyone: we invite you to respond to our cry of anguish” (87). An unprecedented and extraordinary prophetic season that still calls us today. The earth glimpsed by the Council is a land of the not-yet. Because after that season, both the world and the Church have not always lived up to the great and prophetic promises of equality, freedom, and fraternity announced and lived in the 1960s. Inequalities have increased again, and lately, thanks to new ideologies (leadership and meritocracy), it is said that inequality is not even a problem.
This resurrection of the Church and its thinking also involved some Catholic intellectuals. Father Gemelli, who had been one of the leading exponents of the restoration of the medieval order (“We are medievalists” had been his program), wrote words in the aftermath of war and fascism that already contained an echo of resurrection: “Faced with the collapse and disintegration of a world in ruins, ... rather than rebuilding, restoring, and re-establishing the institutions and systems of yesterday, there is a need to build from scratch, to explore new paths, to move decisively towards goals that prevent the repetition of tragic mistakes.” (‘Preface’ to La vita sociale nei documenti pontifici, edited by Pietro Pavan, Vita e Pensiero, 1945, p. vi). And Amintore Fanfani, who was also part of Gemelli's program and the Catholic University of Milan during the twenty-year period, in commemorating Giuseppe Toniolo, echoes the critical judgment that Alcide De Gasperi had expressed regarding Toniolo's medievalist positions, a restorationist attitude that “led Toniolo to underestimate the transformation of the modern state.” (Giuseppe Toniolo maestro, ‘Studium’, 1949, p. 170).
Around the time of the Council, the modern Catholic Church experienced perhaps its most beautiful and fruitful season. Great mass movements were born, and a great protagonism of lay people, women, and young people began, radically changing the face of the Church. Initiatives, movements, and institutions arose to embody and develop the social and economic prophecies of the Council and Popolurum Progessio. These were the years of Liberation Theology, of Bishops Helder Camara and Oscar Romero, of the Basic Ecclesial Communities, of Paolo Freire and the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, of worker priests, of CELAM, and of the preferential option for the poor. In Italy, these were the years of Barbiana, Father Balducci, and La Pira. The spirit of the Council immediately became the different spirit of a new economy that questioned capitalism and, therefore, inequality. It was a new ‘axial age’ of social and economic charisms, which Pope Francis wanted to continue by adding the environmental axis. Because when you start to rise again, you must never stop.
