In this paper we seek to analyze the encyclical Caritas in veritate based on the idea of globalization as a hermeneutical key to the whole document.We think that this notion -understood in its multiple social, ethical, political, cultural and spiritual dimensions-can contribute not only to a deeper understanding of this text, but also help unravel many of the criticisms directed against the letter, its excessive length and thematic complexity, as well as its silence regarding capitalism and liberalism.In a second stage, we set out to compare the proposal of this social encyclical with Alasdair MacIntyre's political project of local communities.Our purpose lies in demonstrating that far from an opposition between the two positions -as Jeffrey Nicholas has in a way pointed out-that they can be understood as complementary, to the extent that we make a new meaning of the very concept of globalization, now understood as a typically postmodern dialectical process based on to the analyses of authors such as