Humanity is experiencing a new loneliness; it is not in the face of a hostile nature which it has taken centuries to subdue, but in an anonymous crowd which surrounds men and women and in which they feel themselves to be strangers. Urbanization, undoubtedly an irreversible stage in the development of human societies, confronts humanity with difficult problems. How are men and women to master its growth, regulate its organization, and successfully accomplish its animation for the good of all?
Pope Paul VI, 1971
Pope Paul VI, 1971