5. Gaudium et Spes
English title: The Church in the Modern World
Second Vatican Council, December 1965
The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the
people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any
way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and
anxieties of the followers of Christ. (#1)
This Council exhorts Christians, as citizens of two cities, to
strive to discharge their earthly duties conscientiously and in
response to the Gospel spirit. They are mistaken who, knowing
that we have here no abiding city but seek one which is to
come, think that they may therefore shirk their earthly
responsibilities. For they are forgetting that by the faith itself t
hey are more obliged than ever to measure up to these duties....
Nor are they any less wide of the mark who think that religion
consists in acts of worship alone and in the discharge of certain
moral obligations, and who imagine they can plunge themselves
into earthly affairs in such a way as to imply that these are
altogether divorced from the religious life.
This split between the faith which many profess and their daily
lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of
our age. Long since, the Prophets of the Old Testament fought
vehemently against this scandal and even more so did Jesus
Christ Himself in the New Testament threaten it with grave
punishments.
Therefore, let there be no false opposition between professional
and social activities on the one part, and religious life on the other.
Christians who neglect their temporal duties, jeopardizes their
eternal salvation. (#43)
The Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of
the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel.
Thus, in language intelligible to each generation, she can respond
to the perennial questions which men ask about this present life
and the life to come, and about the relationship of the one to the
other. (#4)
The church, by reason of her role and competence, is not
identified with any political community nor is it tied to any
political system. It is at once the sign and the safeguard of
the transcendental dimension of the human person. (#76)
Thus the church, at once "a visible organization and a spiritual
community," travels the same journey as all of humanity and
shares the same earthly lot with the world: it is to be a leaven
and, as it were, the soul of human society in its renewal by
Christ and transformation into the family of God. (#40)
It is imperative that no one, out of indifference to the course
of events or because of inertia, would indulge in a merely
individualistic morality. The best way to fulfil one's obligations
of justice and love is to contribute to the common good
according to one's means and the needs of others, and also
to promote and help public and private organizations devoted
to bettering the conditions of life. (#30)
The fact that human beings are social by nature indicates that
the betterment of the person and the improvement of society
depend on each other. Insofar as humanity by its very nature
stands completely in need of life in society, it is and it ought
to be the beginning, the subject and the object of every social
organization. Life in society is not something accessory to
humanity: through their dealings with others, through mutual
service, and through fraternal and sororal dialogue, men and
women develop all their talents and become able to rise to
their destiny. (#25)
All must consider it their sacred duty to count social obligations
among their chief duties today and observe them as such. For
the more closely the world comes together, the more widely do
people's obligations transcend particular groups and extend to
the whole world. This will be realized only if individuals and groups
practise moral and social virtues and foster them in social living.
Then, under the necessary help of divine grace, there will arise a
generation of new women and men, the molders of a new humanity. (#30)
In the face of this immense enterprise now involving the whole
human race people face many worrying questions. What is the
meaning and value of this feverish activity? How ought all of
these things be used? To what goal is all this individual and
collective enterprise heading? (#33)
The council exhorts Christians, as citizens of both cities, to
perform their duties faithfully in the spirit of the Gospel. It is a
mistake to think that, because we have here no lasting city, but
seek the city which is to come, we are entitled to evade our earthly
responsibilities; this is to forget that because of our faith we are
all the more bound to fufil these responsibilities according to each
one's vocation. (#43)
For excessive economic and social differences between the
members of the one human family or population groups cause
scandal, and militate against social justice, equity, the dignity
of the human person, as well as social and international peace. (#29)
Economic development must ... not be left to the sole judgement
of a few men or groups, possessing excessive economic power,
or of the political community alone, or of certain powerful nations.
It is proper, on the contrary, that at every level the largest number
of people have an active share in directing that development. (#65)
The arms race is one of the greatest curses on the human race
and the harm it inflicts on the poor is more than can be endured. (#61)
Therefore everyone has the right to possess a sufficient amount
of the earth's goods for themselves and their family. This has been
the opinion of the Fathers and Doctors of the church, who taught
that people are bound to come to the aid of the poor and to do so
not merely out of their superfluous goods.
Persons in extreme necessity are entitled to take what they need
from the riches of others. Faced with a world today where so many
people are suffering from want, the council asks individuals and
governments to remember the saying of the Fathers: "Feed the
people dying of hunger, because if you do not feed them you are
killing them," and it urges them according to their ability to share
and dispose of their goods to help others, above all by giving them
aid which will enable them to help and develop themselves. (#69)
In pursuing its own salvific purpose not only does the church
communicate divine life to humanity but in a certain sense it
casts the reflected light of that divine life over all the earth,
notably in the way it heals and elevates the dignity of the human
person, in the way it consolidates society, and endows people's
daily activity with a deeper sense and meaning. The church, then,
believes that through each of its members and its community as
a whole it can help to make the human family and its history still
more human. (#40)
Excessive economic and social disparity between individuals
and peoples of the one human race is a source of scandal and
militates against social justice, equity, human dignity, as well
as social and international peace. (#29)
The more the power of men and women increases, the greater
is their responsibility as individuals and as members of the
community. There is no question, then, of the Christian message
inhibiting them from building up the world or making them
disinterested in the good of others: on the contrary it makes it a
matter of stricter obligation. (#34)
People are of greater value for what they are than for what they
have. Technical progress is of less value than advances towards
greater justice, wider kinship and a more humane social environment.
Technical progress may supply the material for human advance
but it is powerless to achieve it. (#35)
The common good embraces the sum total of all those conditions
of social life which enable individuals, families, and organizations
to achieve complete and effective fulfillment. (#74)
[Bishops and priests] are to preach the message of Christ in such
a way that the light of the Gospel will shine on all activities of the
faithful. Let all pastors of souls bear in mind that by their daily
behavior and concerns they are presenting the face of the church
to the world and that people judge from that the power and truth of
the Christian message. (#43)
This Council lays stress on reverence for the human person; all
people must consider their every neighbor without exception as
another self, taking into account, first of all, life and the means
necessary to living it with dignity, so as not to imitate the rich man
who had no concern for the poor man Lazarus. (#27)
Whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions,
arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling
of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions,
where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and
responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies
indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those
who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. (#27)
The social order and its development must constantly yield to the
good of the person, since the order of things must be subordinate
to the order of persons and not the other way around....
The social order requires constant improvement; it must be founded
in truth, built on justice, and enlivened by love: it should grow in
freedom towards a more humane equilibrium. If these objectives are
to be attained there will first have to be a renewal of attitudes and
far-reaching social changes. (#26)
Furthermore, the state has the duty to prevent people from abusing
their private property to the detriment of the common good. By its
nature private property has a social dimension which is based on the
law of the common destination of earthly goods. Whenever the social
aspect is forgotten, ownership can often become the object of greed
and a source of serious disorder, and its opponents easily find a pretext
for calling the right itself into question. (#71)
To satisfy the demands of justice and equity, strenuous efforts must
be made, without disregarding the rights of persons or the natural
qualities of each country, to remove as quickly as possible the immense
economic inequalities, which now exist and in many cases are growing
and which are connected with individual and social discrimination. (#66)
By its very nature private property has a social quality which is based
in the law of the common destination of earthly goods. If this social
quality is overlooked, property often becomes an occasion of a
passionate desire for wealth and serious disturbances, so that a
pretext is given to those who attack private property for calling the right
itself into question. (#71)
The fundamental purpose of this productivity must not be the mere
multiplication of products. It must not be profit or domination. Rather,
it must be the service of the human person, and indeed of the whole
person, viewed in terms of one's material needs and the demands of
one's intellectual, moral spiritual, and religious life. And when we say
human person, we mean every person whatsoever and every group of
people, of whatever race and from whatever part of the world.
Consequently, economic activity is to be carried out according to its
own methods and laws but within the limits of morality, so that God's
plan for humanity can be realized. (#64)
Christians must be conscious of their specific and proper role in the
political community; they should be a shining example by their sense
of responsibility and their dedication to the common good; they should
show in practice how authority can be reconciled with freedom, personal
initiative with solidarity and the needs of the social framework as a whole,
and the advantages of unity with the benefits of diversity. (#75)