While reading Pope Leo’s recent apostolic exhortation, Dilexi te, I was struck by an oblique reference he makes in the first chapter. Quoting Pope Francis, Leo observes that “some economic rules have proved effective for growth, but not for integral human development” (Dilexi te, 13). The phrase ‘integral human development’ has been floating around Catholic non-governmental, charitable, and academic circles for quite some time now, with Pope Francis even creating a Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development in 2016. But what exactly is integral human development, and why does it matter?
The idea of integral human development first appeared in Catholic Social Teaching in 1967, with Paul VI’s social encyclical Populorum Progressio. In that groundbreaking and still visionary document, Paul VI writes:
The development We speak of here cannot be restricted to economic growth alone. To be authentic, it must be well rounded; it must foster the development of each man and of the whole man. As an eminent specialist on this question has rightly said: ‘We cannot allow economics to be separated from human realities, nor development from the civilization in which it takes place. What counts for us is man—each individual man, each human group, and humanity as a whole.’
This is the basic idea behind integral human development. Real development must “foster the development of each man and of the whole man.” What Paul VI was attempting to correct here was an impulse, quite common in the 1960s and still present in our own day, that the most important dimension of human development is material and economic.
It’s easy to dismiss the well-meaning but ultimately reductionist view of many postwar development models which prized economic growth to the exclusion of other dimensions of the person, but even today, the values of our market economy have taught us to think of flourishing in primarily economic terms. You’ve made it if you have a good job; you go to school to secure a stable, well-paying career; or perhaps – for those of us who live in places where real estate prices are eye-wateringly high – you, at long last, leverage yourself to the hilt to secure your place on the property ladder.
But what the Church is saying, and what the concept of integral human development underscores, is that there is far more to development than just economic development. Other things matter too. Clemens Sedmak, an expert in integral human development at Notre Dame, called these “nonproductive aspects of human life” not just incidental but non-negotiable aspects of human flourishing (Sedmak, Enacting Integral Human Development, Introduction).
It will not shock anyone to learn that, among those ‘nonproductive aspects of human life,’ the Church considers religious and spiritual practice to be essential to human flourishing. But what may come as a surprise is how much value the Church places on things of culture. Gaudium et Spes, Vatican II’s pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world and a cornerstone of Catholic Social Teaching, insists that “it is necessary to provide all with a sufficient quantity of cultural benefits… lest very many be prevented from cooperating in the promotion of the common good in a truly human manner because of illiteracy and a lack of responsible activity” (60). The document goes on to praise the value of literature and the arts, to comment positively in reductions in working hours that enable people to relax and “fortify the health of soul and body through spontaneous study and activity,” and to approve of how sport can help to “preserve equilibrium of spirit” (GS, 61-62). It even has positive things to say about tourism, which “refines man’s character and enriches him with understanding of others” (GS, 61).
Obviously, the Church warns against superficial pleasures and an overly materialistic view of things. But where these cultural goods help us to live more authentically human lives, where they move us toward truth, beauty, and goodness, they have a role to play in lives that are lived out in their integrity. What begins to emerge from the Church’s social tradition is that, when the Church considers the human person, it views the person in all of his or her dimensions. The Church takes a very ‘catholic’ view of the person, where human flourishing is indexed not simply to material well-being (though that is important), but also to cultural engagement, artistic and literary expression, meaningful work, depth and breadth of personal relationships, and, crucially, to spiritual development.
Going back to Paul VI’s definition, however, we see that integral human development is not simply about developing all of the dimensions of individual persons but also of all persons. Real development “must foster the development of each man and of the whole man.” In the Church’s view, the human person should be able to grow in all of his or her dimensions, and every person should be able to do this. Nobody, to recall a famous expression of Pope Francis’, is left out or left over.
And perhaps this is the most radical idea of integral human development: that we are, by the very fact of our being human, connected with all other people. The very idea of integral human development presumes that developing integrally means being concerned for all. I am reminded of a beautiful passage from Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 encyclical on hope:
No man is an island, entire of itself. Our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse.
Perhaps this can help us make sense of why the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development is, according to its statutes, charged with gathering information on “migration and the exploitation of migrants; human trafficking and enslavement; imprisonment, torture and capital punishment; disarmament and arms control as well as armed conflicts and their effects on the civilian population and the natural environment.” The Catholic conviction is that when a migrant is exploited, or when a person on the margins of society is forgotten or ignored, or even when a convicted criminal is sentenced to death, that affects us. The very idea of integral human development presumes that to develop integrally – to develop in an authentically human way – means to be concerned for all people because “the lives of others continually spill over into mine.”
And this, I think, is one of the main takeaways from the concept of integral human development and the Church’s entire social tradition: that we are only fully ourselves – that we are only integrally formed persons – when the things that affect our brothers and sisters matter to us, too.
Image: “Azerbaijan national dances – Keçiməmə” (CC BY 2.0) by Niyaz from Baku
Patrick Calderon is a lay Catholic based in Vancouver, Canada, where he helps coordinate various young adult ministries. He holds a bachelor’s degree in theology and political science and a Master of Global Affairs degree from the University of Notre Dame.
Popular Posts