We all await the heralded third encyclical of Benedict XVI, which will evoke the publication of Populorum Progressio by Paul VI twenty [sic] years ago, and will be entitled Caritas in Veritate. Our time is therefore a propitious time for us to ponder the sense of the “timeliness” of the social doctrine of the Church (SDC). The Holy Father is going to publish a new social encyclical precisely in order for a teaching dating back centuries to continue to be ever timely, alive and at work in history. What, therefore, is the source of this ‘timeliness’? On what basis can we say the social doctrine is ‘timely’?
