On 14 May 1971, Paul VI issued the Apostolic Letter Octogesima Adveniens. The Letter was addressed to Cardinal Maurice Roy, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. The letter was issued in honor of the eightieth anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum.
Octogesima Adveniens discusses problems with economic inequality discrimination and other issues of Catholic Social Teaching mentioned in earlier papal documents; but also discusses new issues such as urbanization, the environment, and social communication. It criticizes the problems of Marxism and warns of the dangers of contemporary ideologies which fail to recognize human dignity.
In Octogesima Adveniens, Paul VI notes, “It is to all Christians that we address a fresh and insistent call to action.” Urging laity to “take up as their own proper task the renewal of the temporal order”. In response to this, the bishops of the United States put together the first Call to Action Conference in Detroit, Michigan in 1976. This delegates at this conference in turn would ask for the Catholic Church to reexamine teachings on priestly celibacy, male clergy, birth control and other issues and would lead to the foundation of the Call to Action movement in the United States.
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