Magnifica Humanitas §38

³⁸ With his Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis , marking the twentieth anniversary of Populorum Progressio , John Paul II reexamined the scourge of underdevelopment. He acknowledged the failure of numerous attempts to accelerate the economic development of poor peoples and to assist them in the process of industrialization, noting the persistent and indeed widening gap between the world’s North and South. He also denounced the economic, financial and commercial mechanisms that, managed by the strongest economies, structurally favor their own interests while stifling weaker economies, and he asked that they be subjected to serious ethical, not just technical, scrutiny. In this context, solidarity was understood as a concrete, shared responsibility among individuals, peoples and nations — a form of social friendship or political charity oriented toward the “civilization of love” proposed by Paul VI .