409. Where can one find the most complete realization of the common good?
(Comp 409) The most complete realization
of the common good is found in those political communities which defend and
promote the good of their citizens and of intermediate groups without
forgetting the universal good of the entire human family.
“In brief”
(CCC 1927) It is the role of the state to defend and promote
the common good of civil society. The common good of the whole human family
calls for an organization of society on the international level.
To deepen and
explain
(CCC 1910) Each human community possesses a common good
which permits it to be recognized as such; it is in the political community that its most complete realization is found. It
is the role of the state to defend and promote the common good of civil
society, its citizens, and intermediate bodies. (CCC 1911) Human
interdependence is increasing and gradually spreading throughout the world. The
unity of the human family, embracing people who enjoy equal natural dignity,
implies a universal common good. This
good calls for an organization of the community of nations able to
"provide for the different needs of men; this will involve the sphere of
social life to which belong questions of food, hygiene, education, . . . and
certain situations arising here and there, as for example . . . alleviating the
miseries of refugees dispersed throughout the world, and assisting migrants and
their families" (GS 84 § 2). (CCC 1912) The common good is always oriented
towards the progress of persons: "The order of things must be subordinate
to the order of persons, and not the other way around" (GS 26 § 3). This
order is founded on truth, built up in justice, and animated by love.
Reflection
(CCC 2244) Every institution is inspired, at least
implicitly, by a vision of man and his destiny, from which it derives the point
of reference for its judgment, its hierarchy of values, its line of conduct.
Most societies have formed their institutions in the recognition of a certain
preeminence of man over things. Only the divinely revealed religion has clearly
recognized man's origin and destiny in God, the Creator and Redeemer. The
Church invites political authorities to measure their judgments and decisions
against this inspired truth about God and man: Societies not recognizing this
vision or rejecting it in the name of their independence from God are brought
to seek their criteria and goal in themselves or to borrow them from some
ideology. Since they do not admit that one can defend an objective criterion of
good and evil, they arrogate to themselves an explicit or implicit totalitarian
power over man and his destiny, as history shows (Cf. CA 45; 46).
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