Lk 5, 12-16 + CSDC and CV

Luke 5, 12-16 + CSDC and CV

CV 29b. Violence puts the brakes on authentic development and impedes the evolution of peoples towards greater socio-economic and spiritual well-being. This applies especially to terrorism motivated by fundamentalism[69], which generates grief, destruction and death, obstructs dialogue between nations and diverts extensive resources from their peaceful and civil uses. Yet it should be added that, as well as religious fanaticism that in some contexts impedes the exercise of the right to religious freedom, so too the deliberate promotion of religious indifference or practical atheism on the part of many countries obstructs the requirements for the development of peoples, depriving them of spiritual and human resources.

Notes: [69] Cf. John Paul II, Message for the 2002 World Day of Peace, 6: loc. cit., 135; Benedict XVI, Message for the 2006 World Day of Peace, 9-10: loc. cit., 60-61.

The Church heals and elevates the dignity of the human person and consolidates society

CSDC 81a. The object of the Church's social doctrine is essentially the same that constitutes the reason for its existence: the human person called to salvation, and as such entrusted by Christ to the Church's care and responsibility[117]. By means of her social doctrine, the Church shows her concern for human life in society, aware that the quality of social life — that is, of the relationships of justice and love that form the fabric of society — depends in a decisive manner on the protection and promotion of the human person, for whom every community comes into existence. In fact, at play in society are the dignity and rights of the person, and peace in the relationships between persons and between communities of persons. These are goods that the social community must pursue and guarantee. In this perspective, the Church's social doctrine has the task of proclamation, but also of denunciation. In the first place it is the proclamation of what the Church possesses as proper to herself: “a view of man and of human affairs in their totality”[118].

Notes: [117] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 53: AAS 83 (1991), 859. [118] Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 13: AAS 59 (1967), 264. 

(Luke 5, 12-16) Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean

[12] Now there was a man full of leprosy in one of the towns where he was; and when he saw Jesus, he fell prostrate, pleaded with him, and said, "Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean." [13] Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, "I do will it. Be made clean." And the leprosy left him immediately. [14] Then he ordered him not to tell anyone, but "Go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them." [15] The report about him spread all the more, and great crowds assembled to listen to him and to be cured of their ailments, [16] but he would withdraw to deserted places to pray.

CSDC 51. According to the plan of God brought about in Christ, there corresponds to the identity and mission of the Church in the world “a saving and eschatological purpose which can be fully attained only in the next life”[60]. Precisely for this reason, the Church offers an original and irreplaceable contribution with the concern that impels her to make the family of mankind and its history more human, prompting her to place herself as a bulwark against every totalitarian temptation, as she shows man his integral and definitive vocation[61]. By her preaching of the Gospel, the grace of the sacraments and the experience of fraternal communion, the Church “heals and elevates the dignity of the human person, ... consolidates society and endows the daily activity of men with a deeper sense and meaning”[62]. At the level of concrete historical dynamics, therefore, the coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be discerned in the perspective of a determined and definitive social, economic or political organization. Rather, it is seen in the development of a human social sense which for mankind is a leaven for attaining wholeness, justice and solidarity in openness to the Transcendent as a point of reference for one's own personal definitive fulfilment.

Notes: [60] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 40: AAS 58 (1966), 1058. [61] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2244. [62] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 40: AAS 58 (1966), 1058.

[Initials and Abbreviations.- CSDC: Pontifical Council for Justice And Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church; -  SDC: Social Doctrine of the Church; - CV: Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in truth)]