Social Catholicism and Christian Democracy

This chapter looks at the two most important Catholic social movements following the Second World War: social Catholicism and Christian democracy. Dating back to the nineteenth century, social Catholicism was the Catholic Church’s response to capitalism by organizing workers and urging individuals to transform society according to Christian principles. In the postwar period, the organizations of social Catholicism increasingly came to accept the secularization of society and saw greater leadership roles for the laity. Christian democracy was a political movement that governed much of Western Europe in the years after the Second World War. It supported a platform in which the government collaborated with social associations to steer the economy toward the common good and meet the needs of all citizens. Both social Catholicism and Christian democracy had an important influence on later official Catholic social teaching.