A new philosophical paradigm is required, and Catholic Social Teaching offers it. It is the idea whose time has come. Who says this? No less than The Guardian newspaper in a lead editorial on Monday. Its summary of what is happening to the world could aptly be summarised as “going to hell on a handcart”. Given that The Manchester Guardian, as it once was, was widely dubbed the voice of the nonconformist conscience, such a pessimistic take on human nature could even be described as faithful to its origins.

But not the remedy it proposes. Specifically, it saw the synthesis of Aristotle’s ethics and the Christian world view, which is essentially where Catholic Social Teaching comes from, as an antidote to the cynicism which regards all human activity as fundamentally self-interested.