Why we need social teaching
As we near the end of this series, one may pose the question: What is the place of the social teaching in Church’s pastoral action? What does the Church intend to achieve?
In its social doctrine, the Church gives a basic and holistic perspective of the human person so that work, economics and politics are organised around promoting the dignity of a human person as revealed by Christian anthropology. This dimension of evangelisation is credited to Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum.
“The Church exists and is at work within history. She interacts with the society and culture of her time in order to fulfil her mission of announcing the newness of the Christian message to all people in the concrete circumstances of their difficulties, struggles and challenges,” says the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (CSDC).
The social doctrine should be a source of inspiration especially to the lay faithful who have responsibilities in public life. Yet, regrettably, the social teaching of the Church is little known, and many Catholics do not know what step to take on a particular social question.
This demands that we revise how we look at catechesis, which no longer should be the mere acquisition of knowledge in the matters of doctrine, but be a guide and inspiration for Christian living.
Unfortunately, catechesis can be impoverished by both those who teach and those receive it. When it is presented as a requirement for receiving sacraments, no wonder then, once one receives the sacraments, catechesis also ends there.
Catechists should help people have Christian reflexes in dealing with questions in their daily life, especially those in public office often confronted with multiple and complex questions.
This should be a point for self-evaluation for any learning institution that considers itself Catholic.
The lay faithful, by baptism through which they share the priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ, are called to work as leaven in influencing family, work, culture and political spheres with the spirit of Christ (Lumen Gentium 31).
And here is the Church’s prescription for the laity: “To cultivate an authentic lay spirituality by which they are reborn as new men and women, both sanctified and sanctifiers, immersed in the mystery of God and inserted in society” (CSDC 545).
Their role is to let the face of Christ shine in the world. There is no double standard between spiritual and secular life since for a mature and integrated Christian is guided only by one standard: faith (John Paul II, Christifidelis Laici, 1989).
But how do the lay people go about in their witness and infusing temporal institutions with the Gospel?
It begins with the conversion of their proper lives. Their witness demands a serious discernment so as to avoid the trap of falling into the popular way of seeing things, such as thinking of truth as something determined by the majority or to be conditioned by political expediency. Hence, the social doctrine should not be understood as an intrusion of the Church in political life, but rather as “to instruct and illuminate the conscience of the faithful” (CSDC 571) so as to build an authentic human community.
As the US Catholic bishops regret, “far too many Catholics are not familiar with the basic content of the Catholic social teaching. More fundamentally, many Catholics do not adequately understand that the social teaching of the Church is an essential part of the Catholic faith. This…weakens our capacity to be a Church that is true to the demands of the Gospel….”
That is why I hope that this series has provided a taste of such a rich mine of social teachings and encouraged you to embrace the “Civilisation of Love” — which is the matter for the next, and last, article in this series.
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- Towards an African Pentecost! - June 4, 2017
- A Greek Orthodox Giant of Unity - August 3, 2015