Social Teaching

[We offer] to the Council of the Laity and the Pontifical Commission Justice and Peace some fresh contributions, as well as an encouragement, for the pursuit of their task of ‘awakening the people of God to a full understanding of its role at the present time’ and of promoting the apostolate on the international level.’

The disproportionate distribution of wealth and poverty and the existence of some countries and continents that are developed and of others that are not call for a levelling out and for a search for ways to ensure just development for all.

Respect and love ought to be extended also to those who think or act differently from us in social, political and even religious matters. In fact, the more deeply we come to understand their ways of thinking through such courtesy and love, the more easily will we be able to enter into dialogue with them.

It is appropriate to emphasize the pre-eminent role that belongs to the laity, ...it is their task to animate temporal realities with Christian commitment, by which they show that they are witnesses and agents of peace and justice.

...the Christian community is never closed in upon itself.  The intimate life of this community – the life of listening to the word and the apostle’s teaching, charity lived in a fraternal way, the sharing of bread – this intimate life only acquires its full meaning when it becomes a witness, when it evokes admiration and conversion, and when it becomes the preaching and proclamation of the good news.

‘Let each one examine their conscience, a conscience that conveys a new message for our times. Are we prepared to support out of our own pocket works and undertakings organized in favour of the most destitute? Are we ready to pay higher taxes so that the public authorities can intensify their efforts in favor of development? Are we ready to pay a higher price for imported goods so that the producer may be more justly rewarded?’

This is why I want a Church which is poor and for the poor… Any Church community, if it thinks it can comfortably go its own way without creative concern and effective cooperation in helping the poor to live with dignity and reaching out to everyone, will also risk breaking down, however much it may talk about social issues or criticise governments. It will easily drift into a spiritual worldliness camouflaged by religious practices, unproductive meetings and empty talk’

‘Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills’:  ‘Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.’