The common good
embraces the sum total of all those conditions of social life which
enable individuals, families, and organizations to achieve complete an
effective fulfillment.
Mother and Teacher, #74
It is imperative
that no one ... would indulge in a merely individualistic morality. The
best way to fulfill 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. The
Church and the Modern World, #30
It is necessary
that public authorities have a correct understanding of the common good.
This embraces the sum total of those conditions of social living,
whereby men are enabled more fully and more readily to achieve their own
perfection. Hence, we regard it as necessary that the various
intermediary bodies and the numerous social undertaking wherein an
expanded social structure primarily finds expression, be ruled by their
own laws, and as the common good itself progresses, pursue this
objective in a spirit of sincere concord among themselves.
Mother and Teacher, #65
Political power,
which is the natural and necessary link for ensuring the cohesion of the
social body, must have as its aim the achievement of the common good.
While respecting the legitimate liberties of individuals, families and
subsidiary groups, it acts in such a way as to create, effectively and
for the well-being of all, the conditions required for attaining
humanity's true and complete good, including spiritual ends. A
Call to Action, #46
It is also
demanded by the common good that civil authorities should make earnest
efforts to bring about a situation in which individual citizens can
easily exercise their rights and fulfill their duties as well. For
experience has taught us that, unless these authorities take suitable
action with regard to economic, political and cultural matters,
inequalities between the citizens tend to become more and more
widespread, especially in the modern world, and as a result human rights
are rendered totally ineffective and the fulfillment of duties is
compromised.
Peace on Earth, #63
The obligation to
"love our neighbor" has an individual dimension, but it also requires a
broader social commitment to the common good. We have many partial ways
to measure and debate the health of our economy: Gross National Product,
per capita income, stock market prices, and so forth. The Christian
vision of economic life looks beyond them all and asks, Does economic
life enhance or threaten our life together as a community?
Economic
Justice for All, (Pastoral Message)
For this reason,
it is all the more significant that the teachings of the Church insist
that government has a moral function: protecting human rights and
securing basic justice for all members of the commonwealth. Society as a
whole and in all its diversity is responsible for building up the common
good. But it is the government's role to guarantee the minimum
conditions that make this rich social activity possible, namely, human
rights and justice. This obligation also falls on individual citizens as
they choose their representatives and participate in shaping public
opinion. Economic
Justice for All, 122
Just freedom of
action must ... be left both to individual citizens and to families, yet
only on condition that the common good be preserved and wrong to any
individual be abolished. The function of the rulers of the State is to
watch over the community and its parts; but in protecting private
individuals in their rights, chief consideration ought to be given to
the weak and the poor.
Fortieth Year, #25
The members of
the Church, as members of society, have the same right and duty to
promote the common good as do other citizens. Christians ought to fulfil
their temporal obligations with fidelity and competence. They should act
as a leaven in the world, in their family, professional, social,
cultural and political life.
Justice in the World, #38
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.
The
Church in the Modern World, #75
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.
The
Church in the Modern World, #71
To this end, a
sane view of the common good must be present and operative in men
invested with public authority. They must take account of all those
social conditions which favor the full development of human personality.
Moreover, We consider it altogether vital that the numerous intermediary
bodies and corporate enterprises--which are, so to say, the main vehicle
of this social growth ' be really autonomous, and loyally collaborate in
pursuit of their own specific interests and those of the common good.
For these groups must themselves necessarily present the form and
substance of a true community, and this will only be the case if they
treat their individual members as human persons and encourage them to
take an active part in the ordering of their lives.
Mother and Teacher, #65
As for the State,
its whole raison d'etre is the realization of the common good in the
temporal order. It cannot, therefore, hold aloof from economic matters.
On the contrary, it must do all in its power to promote the production
of a sufficient supply of material goods, "the use of which is necessary
for the practice of virtue."[7] It has also the duty to protect the
rights of all its people, and particularly of its weaker members, the
workers, women and children. It can never be right for the State to
shirk its obligation of working actively for the betterment of the
condition of the workingman.
Mother and Teacher, #20
... the whole
reason for the existence of civil authorities is the realization of the
common good....
Peace on Earth, #54
Individual
citizens and intermediate groups are obliged to make their specific
contributions to the common welfare. One of the chief consequences of
this is that they must bring their own interests into harmony with the
needs of the community, and must contribute their goods and their
services as civil authorities have prescribed, in accord with the norms
of justice and within the limits of their competence.
Peace on Earth, #53
The riches that economic-social
developments constantly increase ought to be so distributed among
individual persons and classes that the common advantage of all, which
Leo XIII had praised, will be safeguarded; in other words, that the
common good of all society will be kept inviolate.
The Fortieth Year,
#57
Every day, human interdependence
grows more tightly drawn and spreads by degrees over the whole world. As
a result the common good, that is, the sum of those conditions of social
life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively
thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment, today takes on an
increasingly universal complexion and consequently involves rights and
duties with respect to the whole human race. Every social group must
take account of the needs and legitimate aspirations of other groups,
and even of the general welfare of the entire human family.
Church and the Modern World, #26
The very nature of the common good
requires that all members of the state be entitled to share in it,
although in different ways according to each one's tasks, merits and
circumstances. For this reason, every civil authority must take pains to
promote the common good of all, without preference for any single
citizen or civic group. As Our Predecessor of immortal memory, Leo XIII,
has said: "The civil power must not serve the advantage of any one
individual, or of some few persons, inasmuch as it was established for
the common good of all." Considerations of justice and equity, however,
can at times demand that those involved in civil government give more
attention to the less fortunate members of the community, since they are
less able to defend their rights and to assert their legitimate claims. Peace
on Earth,
#56
Moreover, if we carefully consider
the essential nature of the common good on the one hand, and the nature
and function of public authority on the other, everyone sees that there
is an intrinsic connection between the two. And, indeed, just as the
moral order needs public authority to promote the common good in civil
society, a likewise demands that public authority actually be able to
attain it. Peace
on Earth,
#136
We must remember
that, of its very nature, civil authority exists, not to confine its
people within the boundaries of their nation, but rather to protect,
above all else the common good of that particular civil society, which
certainly cannot be divorced from the common good of the entire human
family. Peace
on Earth, #98
Today the universal common good poses
problems of worldwide dimensions, which cannot be adequately tackled or
solved except by the efforts of public authority endowed with a wideness
of powers, structure and means of the same proportions: that is, of
public authority which is in a position to operate in an effective
manner on a world-wide basis. The moral order itself, therefore, demands
that such a form of public authority be established. Peace
on Earth,
#137