EIGHTEENTH PLENARY SESSION OF THE PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Vatican City, 2 May 2012 (VIS) - A press conference was held this morning in the Holy See Press Office to present the conclusions of the eighteenth plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. The meeting was held in Rome from 27 April to 1 May and examined the theme: "The Global Search for 'Tranquillitas Ordinis'. 'Pacem in Terris', fifty years on". The conference was presented by Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, chancellor of the "Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences; Archbishop Roland Minnerath of Dijon, France, and Margaret S. Archer, professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale of Lausanne, Switzerland.

During the meeting participants focused their attention on the contribution Blessed John XXIII’s Encyclical "Pacem in Terris" has made to the social doctrine of the Church. That document reaffirms the central thesis of all Church social doctrine, which is that "each individual man is truly a person. His is a nature that is endowed with intelligence and free will". On this basis the Encyclical underlines the notion of the common good, that is to say "all those social conditions which favour the full development of human personality". Participants in the plenary concluded that, in the modern world characterised by globalisation, the economic crisis and nationalist and religious conflicts, it is vital to rediscover the truth about human beings and the common good, because they are the cornerstones of social life.