Justice and Peace Council discusses global governance

(Vatican Radio) The Pontifical Justice and Peace Council held its plenary assembly earlier this week with three days of discussions focused on ways of bringing the social teaching of the Church to bear in the political and economic spheres.
In particular participants at the meeting, which concluded on Wednesday, were considering the possibility of global financial or political institutions that could offer oversight of sovereign states in service of the common good. It’s an idea that has been proposed by several popes over recent decades – most recently by Pope Benedict in Caritas in Veritate – yet it’s an ideal that is often dismissed by utopian or unrealistic by critics.
Vatican Radio’s Philippa Hitchen discussed the proposal with one of the consulters to the Justice and Peace Council, Domincan Sr Helen Alford…

Listen:

"We’re just coming up to the 50^th anniversary of Pacem in Terris and this theme will come up again because Pope John XXIII deals with it in Pacem in Terris, so it’s the continuation of an idea which the popes have been developing in the period when the idea of international cooperation has been developing, and it’s normal that the social teaching is following the way in which things are going in society, helping to guide and direct it….

One of the things that came out in this plenary session is the need to be both able to imagine a world that’s different but also not to be at all unrealistic about getting there. I think we need to hold both of these things in tension - we need to think about a world order which does put the human being at the centre and promote the common good...A lot of political thinkers in the past have argued that without some kind of authority – not a world government, I think that’s off the agenda – but a set of institutions that can be promoting the common good, somehow we need that kind of thing. But a lot of people are also saying this is not realistic, not on the agenda of international institutions. We need to hold these two things in tensions, a bit like the presence of Christ in the world - in some ways we have the seeds of the Kingdom, but we have to keep working towards developing those seeds today….

One of the things the Pope says in Caritas in Veritate is that the world is suffering from a lack of ideas and I think the Holy See can inject these ideas…it can do that well, be really independent without national interests and I think the Catholic Church has a huge role to play.."