Throughout its history, the Christian churches have encountered all kinds, economic and political, social situations such as social inequality, violence, exploitation of indigenous peoples, building democracy or development rights human. In this historical review, we find personalities and schools of considerable importance in the defense of human dignity, such as the School of Salamanca, School of Coimbra, the Reductions of Paraguay and the Liberation Theology. It is mostly in the twentieth century comes to light when a systematic and coherent Christian social thought, often illuminated by documents of the social doctrine of the Church.

This book is an introductory course to the Christian social thought, taught by the author in Berkeley, California, leaders of Catholic Hispanic communities of the Western United States. Personalist construction of the social, Christian anthropology as the foundation of human rights first, the universal destination of goods as part of the right to property, the transition from capitalism / socialism antinomy to the economy: It addresses five major themes social market, and the way of structural violence just peace through political reconciliation.