Christine E. Gudorf. Catholic Social Teaching on Liberation Themes (1981) 34. "This interpretation of social justice exclusively in terms of commutative justice in property and labor theory did not continue in the work of either John XXIII or Paul VI. While John resembled Pius XI and Pius XII in his identification of social justice with peace and order, he did not follow their lead in the prominence given to commutative justice, any more than he followed their lead in the meaning of the principle of subsidiarity. Paul VI reflected even greater change. In fact, one would be hard pressed to prove that Paul assumed the traditional association of social justice and the order of the status quo."

Donal Dorr Option for the Poor (1983) 143. "Paul VI is far more reluctant than (Pius XI) to imply that there is a specific 'Catholic answer' to social and economic problems."

Lord Peter Bauer. "Ecclesiastical Economics: Envy Legitimized" (1984) 88-89. Paul VI chose to speak on subjects with which he was unfamiliar. "People who pronounce on matters about which they are ignorant are apt simply to absorb ideas propagated or taken up by other Älite or establishment groups.... The spirit of these documents is contrary to the most durable and best elements in Catholic tradition. They are indeed even un-Christian. Their Utopian, chiliastic ideology, combined with an overriding preoccupation with economic differences, is an amalgam of the ideas of millenarian sects, of the extravagant claims of the early American advocates of foreign aid, and of the Messianic component of Marxism-Leninism.... Populorum Progressio and Octogesima Adveniens are documents which are immoral ... because they are incompetent (and because) they give color to the notion that envy can be legitimate; and they spread confusion about the meaning of charity."

William Au. The Cross, the Flag, and the Bomb (1985) 177. Paul VI called for "renewed appreciation of politics and political power. For Paul it was essential to break the control of society by economics, and to destroy the psychological atmosphere of fatalism that stemmed from viewing the world as controlled by impersonal 'forces' (for example, the laws of the market). This fatalism and the economic imperialism which fed upon it had to be countered by a renewed personal and collective sense of the responsibility and competency of the individual conscience, and the belief that people can change the world which people created. This meant a renewed sense of politics as the public realm in which the human will directed the social enterprise."

Peter Hebblethwaite. "Latest Encyclical Seen As Update." National Catholic Reporter (1988) 7. Paul knew that Catholic social doctrine up to and including that of Pope John XXIII had been more often admired than implemented because it had confined itself to principles that could not be translated in practice. "Paul knew that either one stated principles that hovered somewhere up in the stratosphere, where they were perfectly safe, did no harm and made not the slightest difference to any real situation, or they 'came down to earth,' where they were controversial and subject to revision in the light of empirical evidence." In view of this dilemma between irrelevant generality and controversial precision, the only safe course was to say nothing. But Paul had seen how Pius XII's silences were misinterpreted, so he made amends, so to speak, "by speaking out, though diplomatically, on every conceivable topic."

Liam Ryan. Furrow (1991) 98-99. "Whereas John XXIII had looked to a consensus model of change, Paul seems to favor a confrontational model. Where previous Popes favored change from the top down, Paul looks to change from below.... For Paul, liberation demands effective political action as economics had for John XXIII replaced moral reform as the focus of strategy, so now politics replaces economics for Paul VI."

George McCarthy and Royal Rhodes. Eclipse of Justice (1992) 173-74. "Novak's book Freedom with Justice stresses in its title his basic assumption that political and market freedom, the former guaranteed by the latter, will eventually insure justice. Paul VI's encyclicals have made the cautious observation that freedom can sometimes mask an ideology of radical autonomy 'opposing the freedom of others,' and that in the social and political spheres, a more just sharing in decisions and goods is a better basis for the exercise of human freedom and authentic development. Paul VI's version of the title would have been Justice with Freedom."