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The Church’s social doctrine ‘does not claim to possess a monopoly on truth,’ Pope tells Vatican conference
May 19, 2025
» Continue to this story on Vatican Press Office
CWN Editor's Note: Pope Leo XIV received members of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation, named after Pope St. John Paul II’s 1991 social encyclical, as part of its conference on Catholic social thought and polarization.
The Pontiff said that “the Church’s social doctrine, with its specific anthropological approach, seeks to encourage genuine engagement with social issues. It does not claim to possess a monopoly on truth, either in its analysis of problems or its proposal of concrete solutions.”
“Where social questions are concerned, knowing how best to approach them is more important than providing immediate responses to why things happen or how to deal with them,” he continued, explaining:
“Doctrine” can be a synonym of “science,” “discipline” and “knowledge.” Understood in this way, doctrine appears as the product of research, and hence of hypotheses, discussions, progress and setbacks, all aimed at conveying a reliable, organized and systematic body of knowledge about a given issue. Consequently, a doctrine is not the same as an opinion, but is rather a common, collective and even multidisciplinary pursuit of truth.The above note supplements, highlights, or corrects details in the original source (link above). About CWN news coverage.
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