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PAPAL ENCYCLICAL URGES CAPITALISM TO SHED INJUSTICES (click here)

By PETER STEINFELS
Published: May 03, 1991

In a major encyclical addressing the economic questions raised by the upheaval in Eastern Europe in 1989, Pope John Paul II warned capitalist nations yesterday against letting the collapse of Communism blind them to the need to repair injustices in their own economic system.

The encyclical, "Centesimus Annus" ("The Hundredth Year"), includes the fullest, and in many ways the most positive, treatment of the market economy in any papal document. But praise is typically followed with qualifications and ringing reminders about economic failures in both developing and developed countries.

The point of departure for much of the 25,000-word document is the collapse of Communism in Pope John Paul II's native Poland and other Eastern European countries and the moral and philosophical lessons that those events hold for rebuilding the economies of Eastern Europe and confronting economic inequities throughout the world. 'Human Needs' Beyond Market

"The free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs," the Pope said. "But there are many human needs which find no place on the market," he immediately added, and many people without the purchasing power to meet their needs through the market. [ Excerpts, page A10. ]