«Economics from John Paul II to Benedict XVI»
«Expectations of Catholic Social Teaching Under Pope Benedict XVI Joseph Ratzinger»»
What can we expect from the new Pope in terms of social ethics? What attitude does the Catholic Church have towards the market economy? The speakers at the 21st Progress Foundation Economic Conference explored these questions.
‘Formulating expectations of a newly elected pope naturally has something unassuming about it, but also something fascinating,’ said economist and business ethicist Peter Koslowski (Free University of Amsterdam), introducing his presentation at the 21st Progress Foundation Economic Conference in Zurich. Together with the American philosopher of religion and Catholic theologian Michael Novak (American Enterprise Institute), Koslowski speculated on what form Catholic social teaching would take under Pope Benedict XVI. The speakers also dealt in detail with the question of the Catholic Church’s attitude towards the market economy. In their remarks, they focussed primarily on papal positions, which are expressed particularly in the encyclicals on social issues.
Speech by Peter Koslowski
Professor of Philosophy of Management and History of Philosophy, Vrije Universiteit
Formulating expectations of a newly elected pope naturally has something unassuming about it, but also something fascinating. What can we expect from the new pope from Germany, the first in 500 years, as the Germans say, and the first in a thousand years, as the Dutch say, because they do not recognise Hadrian of Utrecht as the German pope, in terms of his proclamation on social issues? The formation of expectations here concerns two things, firstly the expectation of what he will say, taking into account what he has said so far in his books and the statements of his predecessors, and secondly the expectation of what he should say from the point of view of a philosopher and economist, on which topics he should speak.
The full text of the speech is available as a PDF here:
