ABSTRACT

Democracy, literally the rule of the people, is a term still relatively new in history, especially in its present day connotations, ambiguous as they may become from one given social context to another. Catholic Church history can be dated appropriately from Pope Leo XIII, who succeeded Pius IX, whose reign was longest ever as Pope and last of the post-Tridentine Popes. Pope John Paul II closed the century of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum with his encyclical Centesimus Annus. Exponents of Western democracy have received with warmth the Pope’s acceptance of “capitalism” or the “market economy.” In 1899, Pope Leo XIII convoked all the Catholic Bishops of Latin America for a Synod, the first for their continent in its history. The Church of Latin America, battered and worn by the liberal-conservative struggles of the century, received this call to action well.