In the 20th century, a movement of priests and laypeople sought to find a way past the clash of ideologies that wracked Latin America. They found a solution in Latin America itself, which was born out of the conflict between Europeans and natives when, with the appearance of the Virgin Mary at Guadalupe, the grace of God forged one, new people out of strangers and enemies.

This movement—called “theology of peoples”—focuses on the reality known as “a people.” Every human person belongs to a people. And every people has a “world”: the way it makes sense out of life, work, love, and the uncertain future.

In this book, Rocco Buttiglione ranges through history and philosophy to shed light on this key dimension of life. How, through our peoples, do we find meaning? How does Christianity help a people’s “world” develop and grow? And how can peoples shape history, not merely have history happen to them? 

This is a reflection on the significance of the contemporary upsurge of populism around the globe and on the proper Christian response. Our modern world—rich and powerful, yes, but ever more systematized, uniform, lonely, and unfree—need not be the last word. With “theology of peoples,” a way opens to a truer peace: to a new and different modernity, founded on the transcendent human spirit.

Praise for Modernity’s Alternative: How History Is Formed in the Depths of the Peoples

In this book, Buttiglione, ... author of one of the most important books on the thought of Karol Wojtyła, ... has been able to reflect in an original way on some of the most important issues before us in the world today.... [He] dares to go beyond repetition or conceited erudition, once more making Christian philosophy an authentic passion for the truth, a diakonía of the intellect, a path of service to the person, to peoples, and to their cultures.... [He] helps us rediscover ... the way in which we Christians must learn to read history.... I hope this book gives rise to intense discussion.

— Pope Francis, from the Introduction

In this rich book, Rocco Buttiglione tackles with great lucidity some of the most important cultural and political questions of our time: the meaning of modernity, globalization, the relationship of religion and culture, and the significance of the Francis papacy. Highly recommended.

— Carlo Lancellotti, 

College of Staten Island, The City University of New York. English translator of Augusto Del Noce

Today, Rocco Buttiglione, scholar of the thought of Karol Wojtyla, and St. John Paul II’s friend and collaborator, is among those who know the Francis pontificate best. In this book, his philosophical wisdom, and his study of the authors who have had the greatest influence on the thought of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, help us to understand in depth and to take up faithfully the guiding lines of the magisterium of the first pope from the American continent.

— Prof. Guzmán Carriquiry Lecour,

Secretary-Vice President Emeritus of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America

This translation of Buttiglione’s Modernity’s Alternative into English is—along with Thomas Rourke’s incisive monograph and Juan Carlos Scannone’s Theology of the People—one of the most pivotal and profound readings currently available to the North American public on the socio-economic, political, and, above all, cultural meaning of the thought and witness of the Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis. In times filled with overheated and misguided polemics, Buttiglione sheds much needed light on the overall meaning of the pontificate and points forward to new paths for thinking about Catholic witness in the world today. 

— Peter J. Casarella,

Duke Divinity School

About the Author:

Rocco Buttiglione is an Italian philosopher and politician. He is a longtime member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, and served in the Italian parliament for 24 years. He was also one of the founders of the International Academy of Philosophy, in Lichtenstein. He wrote his dissertation under Augusto Del Noce. He has authored numerous books, including Karol Wojtyła: The Thought of the Man Who Became Pope John Paul II and The Metaphysics of Knowledge and Politics in Thomas Aquinas.