Week 10: The Common Good

This section seeks to raise a greater awareness and understanding of the Church’s deep moral and social doctrine.

The Common Good
Founded to build the kingdom of heaven on earth rather than to acquire temporal power, the Church openly avows that the two powers—Church and State—are distinct from one another; that each is supreme in its own sphere of competency. (13) But since the Church does dwell among men, she has the duty "of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel." (14) Sharing the noblest aspirations of men and suffering when she sees these aspirations not satisfied, she wishes to help them attain their full realization. So she offers man her distinctive contribution: a global perspective on man and human realities.
Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, § 13, March 26, 1967