407. What is the common good?
(Comp 407) By the common good is meant
the sum total of those conditions of social life which allow people as groups
and as individuals to reach their proper fulfillment.
“In brief”
(CCC 1924) The common good comprises "the sum total of
social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to
reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily" (GS 26 1).
To deepen and
explain
(CCC 1905) In keeping with the social nature of man, the
good of each individual is necessarily related to the common good, which in
turn can be defined only in reference to the human person: Do not live entirely
isolated, having retreated into yourselves, as if you were already justified,
but gather instead to seek the common good together (Ep. Barnabae, 4,10: PG 2, 734). (CCC 1906) By common good is to be
understood "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either
as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more
easily" (GS 26 § 1; cf. GS 74 § 1). The common good concerns the life of
all. It calls for prudence from each, and even more from those who exercise the
office of authority. It consists of three
essential elements:
Reflection
(CCC 1881) Each community is defined by its purpose and
consequently obeys specific rules; but "the human person… is and ought to be the principle, the subject and the
end of all social institutions" (GS 25 § 1). (CCC 1929) Social justice can
be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man. The person
represents the ultimate end of society, which is ordered to him: What is at
stake is the dignity of the human person, whose defense and promotion have been
entrusted to us by the Creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment
of history are strictly and responsibly in debt (John Paul II, SRS 47).
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