Pope Benedict XVI's third encyclical letter, Caritas In Veritate (Love In Truth), revisits the teachings on "integral human development" expounded by Pope Paul VI in his landmark 1967 document Populorum Progressio, seeking to apply them to the contemporary world. This Pope highlights the inseparable connection between love and truth as "without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality" and "love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way".

A key theme of the new social encyclical is globalisation. The Pope sees it as the chief challenge facing society today. He states that, in an increasingly globalised society, the common good and the effort to obtain it cannot fail to assume the dimensions of the whole human family - the community of peoples and nations - in order to shape the earthly city in unity and peace. Promotion of the common good - of individuals, families and groups in society - is a requirement of justice and charity and, in a globalised society, understanding of the common good must be extended to relations between nations.

The Holy Father recognises that the Church does not have technical solutions to offer and does not claim "to interfere in any way in the politics of states". She does, however, have a mission of truth to accomplish for a society attuned to man, his dignity, his vocation. This mission is something the Church can never renounce. Her social teaching is a particular dimension of this proclamation: It is a service to the truth, which sets humans free. Open to the truth, the Church's social doctrine receives it, assembles into a unity the fragments in which it is often found and mediates it within the constantly-changing life patterns of the society of peoples and nations.

Indeed, the heart of the social doctrine of the Church is mankind.

The teaching proposes a set of principles for reflection, criteria for judgement and directives for action.

Deriving from the dynamic of love given and received through man's relationship with God and neighbour, it is addressed primarily to members of the Church. The Church rightly expects Christian leaders in the Church and society and, especially lay men and women with responsibilities in public life, to be well formed in this teaching so they can inspire and vivify civil society and its structures with the leaven of the Gospel.

The Pope, as expected, reminds humanity that one of the most striking aspects of development today is the important question of respect for life, "which cannot in any way be detached from questions concerning the development of peoples". He insists that openness to life is at the centre of true development. Along with the fundamental right to life, the right to food and the right to water have an important place within the pursuit of other rights. There is also the environment, God's gift to everyone, in which nature has to be seen as entrusted to human beings for the good of everyone.

The Holy Father rightly emphasises that development of peoples depends, above all, on the recognition that the human race is a single family working together in true communion. Hence, "the Christian religion and other religions can offer their contribution to development only if God has a place in the public realm, specifically in regard to its cultural, social, economic, and particularly its political dimensions".

May all, leaders and those they lead, realise the full spirit of this exhortation and set their agendas accordingly for the benefit of all.