I am currently teaching permanent deacon candidates a course in Catholic Social Teaching and we are approaching the end of the semester. We have been reading the full texts, or, in some cases, excerpts from the full texts of papal encyclicals that define the principles that undergird the Church’s teaching and the process used to illuminate the opportunities to shape a world ever more in line with charity, justice and peace.
A correct answer to dealing with any social problem presupposes the correct answer to two fundamental questions: “What is the human person?” and “What is the human person for?”
Reason and revelation tell us that the human person is a unity of body and soul created in love by God, in God’s image and likeness, male and female. Sharing in the light of the divine mind through the power of human reason, the human person can detect the voice of conscience within and move in freedom toward what is good and true.
The Baltimore Catechism answered the second question in this way: “We are created to know, love and serve God in this life, and be happy with Him in the next.” Thus, the human person is called to relationship, with God and with the other fellow sojourners in this earthly life, having been created in the image of God, who is a community of persons. Pope John Paul II described this call to an eternal relationship with God as our transcendent vocation and our ultimate end.
The conditions of social life and the structures that are part of its environment can either help or hinder the human person in living out a life in accord with their inherent worth and human dignity and in reaching eternal beatitude. That is why Dorothy Day, quoting her co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, Peter Maurin, would often say, “We must make the kind of society where it is easier for people to be good.” The Church cares about life, poverty, unemployment, racism, war, refugees, marriage, the family and all other social issues because she cares about the dignity and destiny of every human person and wants to animate the followers of Christ to make it easier for people to be better by building a better society.
Every good solution to a social problem must take into account the inherent worth and dignity of every person from conception to natural death as well as their transcendent vocation and ultimate end. Creating a better society necessarily involves politics.
The Church recognizes what Pope Benedict XVI stated in his encyclical letter Deus Caritas Est: “The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church. Yet the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.”
Pope Benedict also recognized that the direct duty to work for just ordering of society is an important task of the laity in the Church and their participation in the political realm.
Summer is almost here, and that means election season is not far behind. The Church offers resources for us to consider as we prepare ourselves to take our proper role in the just ordering of society. The U.S. bishops’ guide, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, is a helpful resource in purifying our power of reason from the narrow vision of political ads and special interests. It can be read at https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/faithful-citizenship/upload/forming-consciences-for-faithful-citizenship.pdf. Another good resource is Civilize It, calling us to a better kind of politics. It can also be found on the USCCB website at https://www.usccb.org/civilizeit. Take time this summer to immerse yourself in these resources. We can help to create a society where it is easier for people to be good.
