''A splendid return'' : the intellectual reception of the Catholic social doctrine in Hungary (1931-1944)

Abstract

The inception of the encyclical writing of the popes started in the eighteenth century with Benedict XIVs first encyclical in 1740.1 In the past nearly 270 years a coherent papal social doctrine has been developed around the corpus of these encyclicals. The changes in the mode of communicating Roman Catholic official teaching is in direct connection with the changed situation of the Catholic Church in the modern era. Consequent upon the secularization process, a distance came into being between the church2 and the secular societies. Through the papal circular letters, this distance was to be bridged. In this sense, the encyclicals may be examined as the answer of the Catholic Church to the challenge of modernity in the fields of theology, philosophy, politics, economics, family and cultural life.