An article by Professor M. Carbajo-Núñez, published on the blog of the Alphonsian Academy
Before being elected Pope, Cardinal Robert Prevost, in 2024, wrote the preface to Father John Joseph Lydon McHugh’s book , The Social Doctrine of the Church: Its History and Teachings (translated and published in Italian in 2025), where he expresses his vision of the Social Doctrine of the Church (henceforth SDC ), which is not lacking in relevance and originality.
According to the Pope, one of the central aspects that we should always keep in mind in the Church’s reflection on social issues is that the learning we can gain from a serene study of the SDC does not consist so much in memorizing things that should not be forgotten, but in how we relate to society and to people.
For this reason, perhaps the first obstacle we encounter when discussing SDC is the very name of this reflection: the word “doctrine,” which seems to demand intellectual obedience to something we cannot question and must accept even if we disagree. However, the word doctrine needs to be purified of misleading meanings to defend its use, especially in the current circumstances in which everyone wants answers, but no one wants to hear doctrine.
Indeed, although the term doctrine may seemingly indicate a religious ideology, it also retains the meaning of matter or science, that is, a certain form of knowledge that, like any science, seeks to convey a secure, orderly, and systematic understanding of something, the fruit of serious, calm, and rigorous reflection on a subject of study. Consequently, a doctrine is not an opinion, but an attempt to reach the truth on a subject. In this sense, the purpose of the SDC is not to know what this or that pontiff said on this or that issue, but to learn to address problems, which are always different because every generation is new, with new challenges, new dreams, and new questions.
This also justifies the Catholic Church’s commitment, as part of its mission, to providing answers to social issues. In this regard, many consider the Church’s intervention in social issues inadequate and inappropriate. However, while for Marxism, religion points only to heaven and not to earth, and for liberalism, every religion is a private matter, devoid of a voice or valid opinion in the socioeconomic and political spheres, the Church, in responding to these two ideologies, reminds the world that every ideology, no matter how perfect it may seem, ultimately degenerates into a utopia that pushes people to fight, either to make everyone equal or to achieve their own selfish advantage, even at the cost of their neighbor’s life. For this reason, the SDC reminds us that social, political, and economic issues are fundamentally moral issues and that it is vital to be able to approach social problems as moral problems and analyse them with moral criteria and principles. To this end, with the SDC, the Church wishes to foster the formation of a moral conscience, respecting the critical judgment of each individual and the autonomy of peoples and their governments, essential for facing the old and new challenges of existence with respect for the whole person and for all people.
Over the past 130 years, the SDC has addressed numerous issues and continues to do so today, with situations that require a new analysis and a calm response, based on fundamental moral principles such as, to name a few, human dignity, the common good, solidarity, and freedom of conscience. The challenge lies in addressing social issues with the awareness that it is not theory that creates reality, but reality that grounds theory. As such, theory seeks to provide a response, without claiming universal acceptance, but with the conviction that it is a response that respects reality and addresses it appropriately based on the most solid and appropriate principles and criteria.
Certainly, some aspects of the Church’s reflection will remain theological from certain perspectives, but this is not its distinctive feature. The SDC is not a theology of social problems, but rather an ethical analysis grounded in the concrete reality of those problems.
For this reason, then-Cardinal Prevost shared the author’s intention to have as his primary target audience not so much the ecclesiastical hierarchy, priests, lay people and their communities, or people of good will participating in social movements or holding public office, but rather young university students, to guide them in understanding the richness of the SDC and in the formation of a Christian political and social conscience capable of overcoming personal and cultural prejudices.
This is because the academic world, the world of university students, reflects what society is today and what it will be in the future. Future political decisions are being formed in the consciousness of young people, future family ties are being forged, new ideals are being awakened toward which a society will dare to move, a social transformative figure resides, an artist, a mother, a father, a political leader, a defender of rights not yet recognized… and so on. The next generation of society is being shaped in the consciousness of young university students. Turning to them to teach them how to confront the world with all its social problems seems today more than ever a task of the highest importance.
Source: https://www.ilmantellodellagiustizia.it/2026/la-dottrina-sociale-della-chiesa-secondo-leone-xiv
