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Warner, Book Review  49 

  

Book Review 

 

Human Development and the Catholic Social Tradition: 

Towards an Integral Ecology 
By Severine Deneulin  

 
Reviewed by Jonathan Warner 

 
 

 
 

2021. New York: Routledge. $47.96 

 

This book is concerned with developing and 

deepening our understanding of human development. 

Two main chapters address what development is and 

what it means to live a fully human life. A third chapter 

offers suggestions for the future of development 

thought and practice. For CRDA readers, Severine 

Deneulin’s book will help us engage with Roman 

Catholic social thought (CST), which arises from papal 

encyclicals from the past 130 years. She elegantly 

demonstrates how these ethically rich documents can 

complement one of today’s main development 

paradigms, Amartya Sen’s capability approach to 

human development.  

Over the past thirty years, there has been a big shift 

in the way development policy is conceptualized. 

Following the publication of Sen’s seminal 

Development as Freedom in 1999, key development 

actors shifted their focus from increasing GDP (based 

on Modernization theories of the 1950’s) towards 

expanding the opportunities of real people to live 

valuable lives, or, as Sen famously says, “a life one has 

 
1 Encyclicals are typically referred to by the first words of their Latin text. 

reason to value” (1999, 74). Sen’s capability approach 

(CA) became highly influential in policy circles – the 

UK’s Department for International Development 

(DfID), set up to use the money from meeting the 

UNDP target of 0.7% of GDP going to the Global 

South, used it as a guide to decide which projects to 

support. The change is evident in a shift away from 

grand projects such as harnessing hydroelectric power 

and towards capacity building, in such areas as health, 

education, and poverty-reduction. Expanding 

opportunities is a good in itself, as well as an 

instrumental good in promoting growth in output and 

income. The focus of the CA is on enhancing what are 

termed “positive freedoms” – what someone is able to 

do – rather than negative freedoms – freedom from 

constraints, of the type more associated with Milton and 

Rose Friedman’s 1980 book, Free to Choose. The 

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the 

successor Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 

cohere well with the CA. 

CST has its origins in the Roman Catholic 

Church’s belated response to changes wrought by the 

Industrial Revolution. It draws on a number of papal 

encyclicals (letters from the Bishop of Rome to his flock 

and the wider church) that outline principles for social 

action. The foundational encyclical of CST, Rerum 

Novarum (Of New Things
1

), which was promulgated in 

1891, has shaped the subsequent literature, either 

explicitly (as in the fortieth- and hundredth-year 

anniversary documents, Quadragesimo Anno (1931) 

and Centesimus Annus (1991) respectively) or in 

encyclicals that pick up on one or more themes in these 

documents. While these documents are not well-

known among Protestant Christians, they are 

compatible with much of Protestant Christianity’s 

theology of life in society, especially the development 

theologies of Bryant Myers, Brian Fikkert, and the 

Lausanne Covenant, to name a few. Among their most 

basic principles are human dignity, solidarity, and the 

common good. Unsurprisingly, these are foundational 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 4(1),  Summer 2022 

Warner, Book Review  50 

  

for many Catholic relief and development 

organizations.    

Deneulin’s book draws together the literatures on 

the capabilities approach and Catholic social thought, 

demonstrating how each can inform and enrich the 

other. For example, there are three well-known 

criticisms of the CA. First, some argue that the CA is 

underspecified. Sen has said that he is not attempting to 

produce a complete theory of justice to rival that of 

John Rawls; instead, he is more interested in keeping 

open what a “life one has reason to value” (Sen 1999, 

74) might actually look like in detail. Sen’s view differs 

significantly from Martha Nussbaum’s rival conception 

of the CA, which she dubs the “capabilities approach.” 

Whereas Sen prefers to keep things more general and 

thus prefers the more ambiguous modifier “capability,” 

in her Women and Human Development (2000) 

Nussbaum famously proposes a list of ten specific 

capabilities that she contends are necessary for a 

fulfilling life. But Nussbaum’s approach highlights a 

second criticism, that, at base, the CA is too focused on 

persons as individuals. This is also true of Sen’s 

approach – it is the individual’s assessment of a life that 

counts. The role of social capital and community in 

general is downplayed. In fact, so far, attempts to 

include group or community capabilities within either 

the Sen or Nussbaum frameworks have not been very 

successful. As Deneulin argues, CST, with its emphasis 

on seeking the Common Good, helps address this 

deficiency, both in terms of the importance of relations 

between individuals and community, and in fleshing out 

an account of human flourishing beyond just what the 

individual person finds valuable. The third criticism is 

that while the CA implicitly acknowledges the value of 

the natural environment (as a prerequisite for valuable 

life), CST, particularly under the reign of Pope Francis 

(drawing on his canonized 12/13th century namesake, 

Francis of Assisi) has noted and expounded on the non-

human parts of the biotic creation.  

CST helps address each of these three criticisms, 

but Deneulin points out that the direction of influence 

goes the other way as well, for there is much that CST 

can learn from the CA. For example, the CA is a firm 

advocate of human agency and of the idea that one's 

choosing something has value in itself; but this is not a 

major feature of CST, which could usefully integrate 

this idea. 

The third chapter expands the scope of the 

argument by examining two areas of special concern to 

the author. The first is the environment and the non-

human parts of creation. Recent encyclicals, especially 

Laudato Si! (Praise be!) in 2015), have picked up on the 

idea of the earth being our common home, and have 

laid out some principles for appropriate environmental 

care. At over 37,000 words in the English version, 

Laudato Si!  appears to be the longest official 

contribution to CST, indicating both Francis’s concern 

about the issue and his desire to produce a well-

developed set of ideas capable of gaining traction 

beyond the Roman Catholic Church.  Second, 

Deneulin is concerned about gender issues, which have 

not, to date, been a focus of CST. The CA, on the other 

hand, is highly oriented toward acknowledging the full 

humanity of all genders, and especially women in 

Global South contexts. For CST, it does not help 

gender equality that much of the language of recent 

encyclicals is still gendered – perhaps best illustrated by 

the title of Francis’s 2020 letter, Fratelli Tutti (Brothers 

All), even though it is clear from context that he is 

referring to all people. Similarly, encyclicals that used 

to be addressed to those in communion with the Pope 

(Roman Catholics and a few others, such as Lebanese 

Maronites) are now addressed to “men [sic] of good 

will.”  

In summary, Deneulin’s book provides readers 

with an accessible introduction to and contextualization 

of CST. In addition, the inclusion in the CST 

framework of environmental issues that Deneulin spells 

out has great value for everyone thinking through 

Christian approaches to climate change and concern for 

those likely to be affected by it. This is surely a part of 

what human flourishing means. 

 

References 

 

Francis. 2020. Fratelli Tutti. Vatical City. 

Francis. 2015. Laudato Si!. Vatican City. 

Friedman, Milton and Rose D. 1980. Free to Choose: 

A Personal Statement. Orlando: A Harvest Book, 

Harcourt, Inc. 

John Paul II. 1991. Centesimus Annus. Vatican City. 

Nussbaum, Martha C. 2000. Woman and Human 

Development: The Capabilities Approach. 

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Pius XI. 1931. Quadragesimo Anno. Vatican City. 

Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. 

Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
 

 

Jonathan Warner is an emeritus professor of 

economics at Quest University Canada. He has taught 

economics in Europe and Asia, as well as in North 

America. His research interests are in the economics 

of development, the role of religion in economics, and 

in the nature of money and monetary substitutes. 

 

Author email: jonathan.warner@questu.ca  

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