The preferential option for the poor and integral human development

Scripture teaches us that God has a special concern for the poor and vulnerable. Similarly, the Church calls on all of us, followers of Christ, who was himself poor, to take on this preferential option for the poor and vulnerable. This is eloquently expressed in the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, Lumen Gentium (1964): “Just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and oppression, so the Church is called to follow the same path.... [T]he Church encompasses with her love all those who are afflicted by human misery and she recognizes in those who are poor and who suffer, the image of her poor and suffering founder. She does all in her power to relieve their need and in them she strives to serve Christ” (no. 8).

Embracing the preferential option for the poor asks us to look at the world from the perspective of the poor, and create conditions for them to be heard, defended against injustices, and provided opportunities for their empowerment and attainment of the fullness of human life. An interrelated principle of Catholic social teaching is that of integral human development, which asserts that the whole person, and every person in society, must be allowed to develop to his or her full potential. As Pope Paul VI says in Populorum Progressio (1967): “Development cannot be limited to mere economic growth. In order to be authentic, it must be complete: integral, that is, it has to promote the good of every man and of the whole man” (no. 14). This is imperative because “[i]n God’s plan, every man is born to seek fulfillment.... At birth, a human being possesses certain aptitudes and abilities in germinal form, and these qualities are to be cultivated so they may bear fruit” (no. 15).