Vatican II: The Church, the World, and Human Dignity

From the invaluable Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Excerpts:

...“Due to his sensitivity and intelligence in grasping the ‘signs of the times', Pope Pius XII can be considered the immediate precursor of Vatican Council II and of the social teaching of the Popes who followed him”[162]... The Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes [172] of the Second Vatican Council is a significant response of the Church to the expectations of the contemporary world. In this Constitution, “in harmony with the ecclesiological renewal, a new concept of how to be a community of believers and people of God are reflected. It aroused new interest regarding the doctrine contained in the preceding documents on the witness and life of Christians, as authentic ways of making the presence of God in the world visible”[173]. Gaudium et Spes presents the face of a Church that “cherishes a feeling of deep solidarity with the human race and its history”[174], that travels the same journey as all mankind and shares the same earthly lot with the world, but which at the same time “is to be a leaven and, as it were, the soul of human society in its renewal by Christ and transformation into the family of God”[175].

Gaudium et Spes presents in a systematic manner the themes of culture, of economic and social life, of marriage and the family, of the political community, of peace and the community of peoples, in the light of a Christian anthropological outlook and of the Church's mission. Everything is considered from the starting point of the person and with a view to the person, “the only creature that God willed for its own sake”[176]. Society, its structures and development must be oriented towards “the progress of the human person”[177]. For the first time, the Magisterium of the Church, at its highest level, speaks at great length about the different temporal aspects of Christian life: “It must be recognized that the attention given by the Constitution to social, psychological, political, economic, moral and religious changes has increasingly stimulated ... the Church's pastoral concern for men's problems and dialogue with the world”[178].

Another very important document of the Second Vatican Council in the corpus of the Church's social doctrine is the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae[179], in which the right to religious freedom is clearly proclaimed. The document presents the theme in two chapters. The first, of a general character, affirms that religious freedom is based on the dignity of the human person and that it must be sanctioned as a civil right in the legal order of society. The second chapter deals with the theme in the light of Revelation and clarifies its pastoral implications, pointing out that it is a right that concerns not only people as individuals but also the different communities of people.  (articles 93, 96-97)