John 12, 20-28 + CSDC and CV

John 12, 20-28 + CSDC and CV 

CV 7a Another important consideration is the common good. To love someone is to desire that person's good and to take effective steps to secure it. Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good. It is the good of “all of us”, made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society [4]. It is a good that is sought not for its own sake, but for the people who belong to the social community and who can only really and effectively pursue their good within it.

 Notes: [4] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 26.

Modern biotechnologies have powerful social, economic and political impact locally, nationally and internationally

CSDC 474. Modern biotechnologies have powerful social, economic and political impact locally, nationally and internationally. They need to be evaluated according to the ethical criteria that must always guide human activities and relations in the social, economic and political spheres.[1003] Above all the criteria of justice and solidarity must be taken into account. Individuals and groups who engage in research and the commercialization of the field of biotechnology must especially abide by these criteria. In any event, one must avoid falling into the error of believing that only the spreading of the benefits connected with the new techniques of biotechnology can solve the urgent problems of poverty and underdevelopment that still afflict so many countries on the planet.

Notes: [1003] Cf. John Paul II, Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (3 October 1981): AAS 73 (1981), 668-672.

(John 12, 20-28) Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be 

[20] Now there were some Greeks among those who had come up to worship at the feast. [21] They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, "Sir, we would like to see Jesus." [22] Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. [23] Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. [24] Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. [25] Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. [26] Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me. [27] "I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. [28] Father, glorify your name." Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it and will glorify it again."

CSDC 31. The Face of God, progressively revealed in the history of salvation, shines in its fullness in the Face of Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. God is Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; truly distinct and truly one, because God is an infinite communion of love. God's gratuitous love for humanity is revealed, before anything else, as love springing from the Father, from whom everything draws its source; as the free communication that the Son makes of this love, giving himself anew to the Father and giving himself to mankind; as the ever new fruitfulness of divine love that the Holy Spirit pours forth into the hearts of men (cf. Rom 5:5). By his words and deeds, and fully and definitively by his death and resurrection[30], Jesus reveals to humanity that God is Father and that we are all called by grace to become his children in the Spirit (cf. Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6), and therefore brothers and sisters among ourselves. It is for this reason that the Church firmly believes that “the key, the centre and the purpose of the whole of man's history is to be found in her Lord and Master”[31].

Notes: [30] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum, 4: AAS 58 (1966), 819. [31] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 10: AAS 58 (1966), 1033. 

[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)]