Why the Church engages with the world

The Church is often reproached for remaining in the sacristy and never entering worldly affairs. In contrast, to some people it is like she oversteps her boundaries when she raises her voice on social issues. Is she overstepping?

“(The Church)…acts as a torch bearer in order to illuminate what politicians, health workers, educators and all others do in their respective areas of competence to ensure that human dignity is respected.” (CNS photo/Hannibal Hanschke, Reuters)

There are different responses, often conditioned. A poor worker on whose behalf the Church speaks, or a political party in opposition, will mostly likely side with the Church when she chides employers or those in public office for abuse of power.

But employers or those in government will perceive this as an attack and as meddling in their affairs. Even a political party that used to side with the Church, once it gets into power the rift between the two widens. The criticisms that were once appreciated are tolerated no more.

However, the legitimacy of the Church’s involvement in social issues does not lie in such volatile and conditioned human approval but rather in her mission, the very reason for her existence. She announces the Good News, witnessing the Kingdom of God in the present and concrete life situation of the people.

Is there not confusion between spiritual and worldly matters?

Faith is not abstract and it is not indifferent to any one aspect of human life. Besides, a human person is not a divided being but integrated. A believer lives in society and his or her belief should permeate and influence all relationships and activities. This is what the Church does by her social teaching: permeating and enriching the social structures with Gospel values (Gaudium et Spes, 40).

However, the Church still faces the challenge of a worldview that compartmentalises the world between the sacred and the profane, whereby one is expected somehow to change coats depending on which domain one is operating from. Such dichotomy is not a Catholic view.

Human beings and the world are both created by God. The social teaching of the Church is founded on this awareness that the entire world is sacred ground where God is at work. Thus, there is no divide between what is profane and sacred. Hence, “with her social doctrine not only does the Church not stray from her mission but she is rigorously faithful to it” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church CSDC), 64).

This is also related to the mystery of incarnation by which God reaches out to man in the fullness of his life: corporal and spiritual. Thus, a real encounter of the Gospel and life must necessarily embrace such aspects of human existence.

This does not mean, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church clarifies, that the Church is a kind of jack of all trades (2420). Rather, she acts as a torch bearer in order to illuminate what politicians, health workers, educators and all others do in their respective areas of competence to ensure that human dignity is respected.

That torch is the Gospel. In his encyclical letter Sollicitudeo Rei Socialis, 1987, John Paul II says: “The Church does not assume responsibility for every aspect of life in society, but speaks with the competence that is hers, which is that of proclaiming Christ the Redeemer….this means that the Church does not intervene in technical questions with her social doctrine, nor does she propose or establish systems or models of social organisation.”

So, far from merely meddling in other people’s affairs, the Church, in line with her mission, seeks to build a truly human society according to the will of God. She achieves that by assuming a prophetic voice that guides, encourages and sounds alarm when there is deviation from values of a truly human and godly society.

Here is a beautiful recap of what the social teaching of the Church is all about: “Men and women must respond to the gift of salvation not with a partial, abstract or merely verbal acceptance, but with the whole of their lives – in every relationship that defines life – so as not to neglect anything, leaving it in a profane and worldly realm where it is irrelevant or foreign to salvation. For this reason the Church’s social doctrine is not a privilege for her, nor a digression…it is her right to proclaim the Gospel in the context of society, to make the liberating word of the Gospel resound in the complex worlds of production, labour, business, finance, trade, politics, law, culture, social communication, where men and women live” (CSDC 70).

And inspired by St Paul, “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” (1Cor 9:16), the Church cannot abandon her prophetic role in society without doing injustice to her very reason for existing. She just cannot remain mute.

This witness is not limited to the pulpit but extends to the lifestyle of every Catholic, rendering society a privileged milieu of evangelisation for the laity. Thus, their places of work are not just a space for earning a living but also a field of evangelisation.

Therefore, we would say, the social doctrine of the Church is a spirituality, a manner of living and witnessing the Gospel, proposed especially to the laity in their daily life and work.