Church, State, and Society: An Introduction to Catholic Social Doctrine

2. The Meaning of the Common Good

81 chapter 2 The Meaning of the Common Good Recent Catholic social doctrine still holds that the highest purpose of the political community is to promote the common good.1 This seems clear enough until one asks what Church documents mean by the term. Echoing John XXIII’s Mater et magistra (On Christianity and Social Progress) and Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth), and quoting Vatican Council II’s Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World), the Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the common good as “the sum total of the conditions of social life which allow people, either as groups or individuals, to reach their own perfection more fully and more easily.”2 In a more specific paragraph the Catechism adds, “The common good consists of three elements: respect for and promotion of the fundamental rights of the person ; prosperity, or the development of the spiritual and temporal goods of society; the peace and security of the group and its members.”3 Except for the reference to “spiritual goods,” this seems to be a purely instrumental description of the common good. The term “instrumental” 1. Vatican Council II, Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World), no. 74, formulates the traditional teaching as follows: “Hence the political community exists for that common good in which it finds its full justification and meaning , and from which it derives its pristine and proper right”; quotations from the documents of Vatican Council are taken from Walter M.Abbott, ed., The Documents of Vatican II (NewYork: Guild Press, America Press, and Association Press, 1966). I will, however, often modify the translation in the light of the authoritative Latin text. 2. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994), no. 1906 (summam eorum vitae socialis condicionum quae tum coetibus, tum singulis membris permittunt ut propriam perfectionem plenius atque expeditius consequantur); cf. John XXIII, Mater et Magistra (On Christianity and Social Progress), no. 65; John XXIII, Pacem in terris (Peace on Earth), no. 58; Gaudium et spes, nos. 26 and 74; and Vatican Council II, Dignitatis humanae (Declaration on Religious Freedom), no. 6. 3. Catechism, no. 1925; bonum commune tria elementa implicat essentialia: iurium fundamentalium personae observantiam et promotionem; prosperitatem seu bonorum spiritualium et temporalium societatis incrementum; pacem et securitatem coetus eiusque membrorum. 82 The Common Good refers to goods that facilitate the attainment of our proper end as human beings, but are not part of that end, such as food, clothing, shelter, a transportation system, and civil liberties. Instrumental goods would not include such important civic goods as the practice of faith, character formation in schools, forgiveness and reconciliation among racial and ethnic groups, the promotion of fidelity in marriage, courtesy, the prohibition of euthanasia, or the promotion of a commitment to the poor. In both Mater et magistra and Pacem in terris Pope John XXIII described the common good as “the sum total of the conditions of social life, by which people may reach their perfection more fully and easily.”4 So, John XXIII’s encyclicals are clearly the source of the definition found in Vatican Council II’s Gaudium et spes and the Catechism. The only difference is that Pope John XXIII speaks of “people” (homines) instead of individuals and groups, but this doesn’t change the substantial identity of the two definitions. Writing on Christian social doctrine, Oswald von Nell-Breuning, the well-known architect of Pius XI’s Quadragesimo anno (On Reconstruction of the Social Order), referred to Pope John’s definition of the common good as an “organizational and organizing value,” what we would call the common welfare or instrumental goods.5 These would include the whole panoply of rights described in Pacem in terris. Nell-Breuning says that Pope John’s understanding of the common good differs from the traditional view articulated by Thomas Aquinas. For Aquinas the highest purpose of politics is to promote virtue in the body politic. Therefore, the common good in a Thomistic perspective includes not only instrumental goods, but also goods that perfect the human soul. God is the common good, par excellence. Nell-Breuning says that Thomistic authors understand by the term “common good” the perfection of human nature in all citizens. In summing up the differences between the Thomistic understanding of the common good and Pope John’s view, he writes: “The common welfare is a most important value in the service of the good, whereas the common...