"THE SOCIAL AGENDA - A COLLECTION OF MAGISTERIAL TEXTS"

VATICAN CITY, APR 27, 2000 (VIS) - "The Social Agenda - A Collection of Magisterial Texts," a volume edited by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, was presented this morning in the Holy See Press Office by council president, Archbishop Francois-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan.

Joining him were Bishop Diarmuid Martin and Msgr. Giampaolo Crepaldi, secretary and under-secretary of the council, Fr. Robert Sirico, founder and president of the Acton Institute and Kris Mauren, co-founder of the institute.

Archbishop Van Thuan explained that the 200-page plus volume "gathers together the most significant texts of the Church's social Magisterium from Leo XIII to the current pontiff. It is a praiseworthy work done by Fr. Sirico and Fr. Zieba that the pontifical council felt it should sponsor as a useful way to make the social doctrine of the Church known and spread." He emphasized that it is precisely the duty of this council to teach the Church's social doctrine.

The current volume is in English but will be translated into several languages, said the archbishop. The book is divided into articles which encompass Church teaching on the human person, the family, social order, role of the State, the economy, work and wages, poverty and charity, the environment and the international community.

The council president observed that "going through the table of contents one is struck by the variety and precision of the themes traced by the social Magisterium in its more than 100 years of life which have accompanied the extraordinary transformations started by the industrial revolution."

Archbishop Van Thuan added that the volume is "a symphony of themes held together organically by a constant attention to man and his centrality and, at the same time, by the need to affirm in the socio-economic and socio-political systems the inviolable dignity of the human person."

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