Ekklesia, Part V

This is the fifth article in an eight-part series on the nature and mission of the Church in the world today. As Roman Catholics, we believe that being a disciple of Jesus means living out our commitment through active involvement in the community called Church. In this series, we are exploring the origins and characteristics of the Christian community, as well as some of the challenges that the Church faces in the contemporary world.

The Second Vatican Council (II)

In the last installment of this series, we explored some of the salient features of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium). This seminal document articulated the Church’s self-understanding and offered a description of its own inner life. It dealt with the “family business” of the Church. Church councils are usually called to address significant issues that relate to the internal life of the Christian community.

But something else happened at the Second Vatican Council that was refreshingly new. Some of the bishops spoke of the need for the Church to move beyond its own “family business” and address the wider world. Cardinal Suenens of Belgium, an influential figure at the council, gave an important speech articulating this need of the council to speak ad extra. Bishop Dom Helder Camara, a Brazilian bishop famous for his advocacy for the poor, gave a prophetic intervention in which he suggested that the council should not spend all of its time discussing the Church’s internal problems when so many people were dying of hunger. Bishop Karol Wojtilya – the future Pope John Paul II – was also actively involved in this movement at the council. The bishops expressed the challenge that lay before the council as one of reading the “signs of the times” of the modern world. This invitation is based on the conviction that God continues to speak to us through the events of human history. The result of these initiatives was the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, known in Latin as Gaudium et Spes.

Gaudium et Spes is a relatively lengthy document that addresses many important themes, including a Christian understanding of the human person, the relationship between the Church and culture, the arts and sciences, economic justice, war and peace, marriage and family life. If you have never read the document, I encourage you to do so. Though written more than forty years ago, it is still quite relevant to Christian life today. In this brief reflection, I will simply highlight three themes found in this constitution: the dignity of the human person, the relationship between Christians and culture, and social justice.

The Dignity of the Human Person

In this constitution, the bishops wished to speak in solidarity with the human family across the globe. The opening lines articulate this desire with eloquence: “The joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the [people] of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts” (n. 1). These opening lines set the tone for the entire constitution. It is marked by a tenor of dialogue between Christians and the world in which we live. The constitution accentuates those hopes, desires and needs that believers have in common with all of our brothers and sisters throughout the world. It says that the Church “must be aware of and understand the aspirations, the yearnings and the often dramatic features of the world in which we live” (n. 4).

With this dialogical approach in mind, the constitution proceeds to affirm and reflect on the dignity of the human person. Responding to the challenges raised by atheism, the bishops stress that “to acknowledge God is in no way to oppose the dignity of [the human], since such dignity is grounded and brought to perfection in God” (n. 21). In n. 22 of Gaudium et Spes, the bishops root this affirmation of human dignity in Christ. This part of the constitution, a section later quoted by John Paul II time and time again, is one of the most beautiful and moving texts in any Church document. It suggests that it is Christ who shows us what it means to be truly human; he manifests the dignity of the human person in a paradigmatic way. “In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of [the human] becomes clear… Christ the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals [the human person] to himself and brings to light his most high calling” (n. 22). The constitution proceeds to reaffirm the Catholic teaching that in his humanity Christ was like us in all things but sin:

Everything that the bishops teach in this constitution about marriage and family life, economic justice, the search for peace in our world, etc. is rooted in this fundamental affirmation of the dignity of every human person. This human dignity has been illumined and ennobled in the incarnation of the Son of God.

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Robin Ryan, CP