Issued by Pope John XXIII in 1961, Mater et Magistra (“Mother and Teacher”) brought Catholic social teaching into the postwar world of growing prosperity, new technology, and widening inequality between rich and poor nations.

John XXIII reaffirmed the dignity of work and the just wage, and extended the Church’s concern to global development, the situation of farmers and agriculture, and the duty of wealthier nations to assist poorer ones. He insisted that economic growth must serve the whole human person and the common good, not become an end in itself.

The encyclical is also remembered for its pastoral method — observe, judge, act — and for its confidence that Christians are called to engage the structures of modern economic and social life, bringing the light of the Gospel to bear on concrete conditions.

Read the full text at Vatican.va.