The Compendium goes on to outline a number of priority areas for action.
— Service to the human person, by affirming the inviolability of human life, from conception to natural death. Human dignity also requires freedom of conscience and religious freedom, as well as the defense of marriage and the family.
— Service in the area of culture, broadly intended. The Compendium notes the problems with a consumeristic lifestyle and the emphasis placed on superficial appearances. We need to recover the genuine sense of human growth, and develop our capacity to communicate and relate with others.
— Encouraging the participation of Catholics in social and political life is another priority. Involvement in public life is necessary in order to present in an efficacious way the proposals stemming from a Catholic vision of social life.
— Preserving the ethical dimension of culture is another important task. Culture can become sterile and decadent, or it can be a means to enriching people's lives. Ensuring the latter requires people who are prepared to use their capacities "for self-control, personal sacrifice, solidarity and readiness to promote the common good" (No. 556).
— Specifically, within today's culture, the Compendium outlines a number of fields where action is particularly needed: guaranteeing the rights of each person; ensuring a commitment to truth; working to ensure that the religious dimension of culture is respected; and using correctly the mass media.
— Service in the economy. The Compendium calls upon Christians to remember the centrality of the human person. It also urges a better harmony between the demands of economic efficiency and the requirements of social justice.
— Service in politics. Pursuing the common good in spirit of service should inspire the Christian laity, the text recommends. The text also insists on an adequate attention to the moral dimension in political life and for an increased Christian witness on the part of politicians.
The closing pages of the Compendium are dedicated to the theme of building a "Civilization of Love." People are searching for meaning in their lives, the text notes, and the Church responds with the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ. Through faith in God and Jesus Christ, Christians can obtain inspiration regarding the principles that should order private and public life.
Bringing about a renewal of society to ensure justice and solidarity is no easy task, and we should not be led into thinking that there is some magic formula to solve problems. Our salvation does not lie in such a formula, but in the person of Christ, found in the Gospel and in the Tradition of the Church.
And even if believers know that there will never be an earthly paradise, their hope founded in Christ gives them confidence in the building of a better world. In this effort we should be guided by the principle of the primacy of love. Love, the Compendium adds, should permeate every social relationship and be the highest norm for all activity.
The commandment of love contained in the Gospel should be for Christians a message that transforms them and leads them to reject egoism, individualism and selfishness. This love in turn requires the practice of justice and inspires us to self-giving. Fitting words to close this synthesis of the Church's social doctrine.
Read an online version:
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=7209
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