In Catholic social teaching, achieving integral human development requires building and strengthening the relationships that bind persons to each other in communities and institutions. Integral human development is the advancement of the whole person, and of all persons. This can only be attained through participation in the social and institutional relationships that enable people to live with dignity.
Several decades ago, through the influence of Nobel prize-winner Amartya Sen, the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) recognized that development cannot be adequately measured solely by narrow economic factors such as income. Genuine human development also requires adequate levels of health and of education. Measuring development, therefore, requires a more holistic standard than a narrow monetary index. A further advancement would be to attend to the relationships that link people with each other. There are both normative and empirical reasons for including relational considerations in an understanding of development. Other UN indices, such as the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index and the Gender Development Index, go beyond the HDI by tracking the distribution of resources directly for the poor and to women, who are too often left behind. A relational understanding of development is particularly important for the advancement of those who are excluded in this way.
Humans are relational beings who can flourish only in social interaction. This has long been an important emphasis in western ethical reflection. In Aristotle’s Politics, the human person is described as an essentially social animal, a zoon politikon (an animal of the polis or city-state). Indeed, Aristotle saw speech and the ability to communicate with others in public debate as a key indicator of humanity. In recent days, a number of women thinkers have also stressed relationality as an important to full human dignity. It is therefore also an essential aspect to integral development for women and girls.
In this relational understanding, the development of each person will depend on his or her active participation in social interaction. A developed society is one where all persons can actively participate in the life they share together. This will require health care, education, income, and other social goods that their interaction makes possible, as well as active political participation in shaping their common life together. This participation in social relationships and their shared fruits will enable persons to live with dignity.
The importance of participation in social relationships and institutions has been stressed not only in classical Greek and recent feminist reflection, but also by Christianity and the tradition of Catholic social thought. Following the Jewish tradition, Christians see the covenantal bond they have with God and with other humans as the source of the communal solidarity to which they are summoned and which supports their well-being. Followers of Christ are called to show love to their neighbors, and this love will further enhance community solidarity.
Catholicism synthesizes these biblical perspectives with Aristotle’s more secular understanding, leading to a relational understanding of development that can be proposed as normative in a pluralistic society. This relational, participation-based model of development is made more explicit in several normative affirmations of recent Catholic social thought. For example, the U.S. Catholic bishops have insisted that the most basic form of justice requires avoiding patterns of social interdependence marked by inequality, domination, and oppression. These should be replaced by social relations based on equality, reciprocity, and solidarity. In the words of the U.S. bishops, basic justice “demands the establishment of minimum levels of participation in the life of the human community for all persons.” Justice requires policies that enable those who are excluded to become active participants in society.
In this framework, severe injustice occurs when persons are arbitrarily excluded from participation in the social relationships they need to live with dignity. In a similar way, Pope Francis objected to what he called an “economy of exclusion.” An economy that excludes causes severe poverty by preventing people from participating in relationships that are essential to their development. In the pope’s strong words, “such an economy kills.” For Pope Francis, justice requires policies that enable those who are excluded to become active participants in the life of society.
This normative stance is supported by experience and by a growing body of empirical analysis. It is also backed up by the experience of an organization I have worked with, the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS). JRS sees its work with refugees as having three dimensions: accompaniment, service, and advocacy. JRS has inductively concluded from its day-to-day interaction with refugees that “accompaniment” should shape the service it provides to displaced people and guide the policies it advocates.
Accompaniment means being with the people being served, listening to their stories, and showing them that they are not forgotten. Many refugees say the relationships that grow in this way are the most important form of help they have received. Relationships of accompaniment also shape the policy-oriented work of JRS. It leads both to perceptive knowledge of what forms of assistance will best aid the displaced people and what humanitarian and political policies are likely to serve them effectively. JRS is widely acknowledged as a successful humanitarian program and an effective catalyst of constructive social change. Just as relationships are important to the humanitarian assistance provided by JRS, a relational understanding of what will support human dignity is crucial to an adequate pursuit of development, both for women and for men as well.
On the political and institutional level, the approach that led the UN Development Program to its insistence that development includes health and education along with income has been further elaborated in the so-called “capabilities approach” to development. In this approach, development requires that people become capable of avoiding hunger and of attaining basic health and education. Realizing these goods requires that people be able to participate actively in social and political relationships. The health care, education, and income needed to live with dignity will be attained through active participation in social life. Achieving this will in turn require “social commitment” through public policy. A person’s growth in freedom, agency, and dignity will be dependent on the quality of their social relationships.
Therefore, the quality of human relationships and how these relations are institutionally structured will be crucial to a person’s development. This argument is rooted in longstanding normative traditions, documented by empirical evidence, and directed to policy makers. To the extent that this counsel is heeded by development experts and agencies worldwide, it will benefit the millions who remain poor and excluded today. Since integral development requires enabling people to become capable of avoiding hunger and of attaining basic health and education, the relationships that make this possible are essential to development. This is surely true in a special way of the access to development by women and girls, since women and girls are too often excluded from the relationships that enable them to develop fully as persons.
An earlier version of this reflection was presented at the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.
