Question 3.48

3.48 For the former president of the Pontifical Council Cor unum, is Paul VI therefore the pope of the encyclical Populorum progressio?

Paul VI hoped that the world could become better. In that year, 1967, he wrote: “Some would regard these hopes as vain flights of fancy. It may be that these people are not realistic enough and that they have not noticed the world is moving rapidly in a certain direction. Men are growing more anxious to establish closer ties of brotherhood; despite their ignorance, their mistakes, their offenses, and even their lapses into barbarism and their wanderings from the path of salvation, they are slowly making their way to the Creator, even without adverting to it” (PP 79).

Pope Montini believed in the importance of the development of peoples in order for them to end their destitution.

In a rich country, this sort of reflection may seem superfluous. As an African, I can assure you that I see the problem quite differently. …

In the sorrow of Paul VI there was also great disappointment with the indifference of the Western countries. The beatification of this pope seems to me a resounding response to the suffering that he endured on this earth.

Paul VI was a prophet.