Today, the "Parable of the barren fig tree" suggests that progress —in its origin and essence— is a divine plan. To regard development as a vocation is to recognize that it derives from a transcendent call and that it is incapable, on its own, of supplying its ultimate meaning. God is the guarantor of man's true development, inasmuch as, having created him in His image He also establishes the transcendent dignity of men and women and feeds their innate yearning to “be more”.

If man were merely the fruit of either chance or necessity, and man did not possess a nature destined to transcend itself in a supernatural life, then one could speak of growth, or evolution, but not development. Without the perspective of eternal life, human progress in this world is denied breathing-space. Without Him, development is either denied, or entrusted exclusively to man, who falls into the trap of thinking he can bring about his own salvation and ends up promoting a dehumanized form of development.

—Lord, deliver us from the damage of "super-development" promoted with "moral underdevelopment".