Issued by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009, amid a global financial crisis, Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”) treats economic life in the light of charity governed by truth, and of integral human development — the development of the whole person and of every person.

Benedict argues that the economy needs not only justice but gratuitousness and the logic of gift; he calls for business and markets to serve the common good, for wealthy nations to attend to the poor, and for development to respect the dignity of life and the moral and spiritual dimensions of the person. There can be no authentic development, he insists, that sets aside the truth about the human person.

The encyclical also takes up globalization, technology, and the environment, insisting that technical progress must be guided by a sound understanding of the human person and ordered to the good of all.

Read the full text at Vatican.va.