ABSTRACT
International relations have changed dramatically since the Second Vatican Council, yet there are remarkable continuities in Catholic social teaching and its approach to global development. The debate over building civil society is part of the struggle in developing countries over religion and state, over the boundaries of the sacred and the profane, and over authenticity and development. The modern concept of civil society and the separation of politics and religion are part of a self-congratulatory form of political liberalism, and are often considered to be of the unique accomplishments of the West. The concept of Christian personalism can be interpreted within Alasdair MacIntyre’s narrative conception of identity because both conceptions share a relational understanding of identity, rather than a notion of identity rooted in the rational autonomy of the individual in the liberal West.
