Common good or the good of ‘all of us’

One of the values frequently referred to in the divorce debate is the common good. The Catholic Church holds that society must always include among its fundamental tasks the achievement of the common good.

Forty five years ago, Vatican Ecumenical Council II described the common good as “the sum total of social conditions, which allow people, either as groups or individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily” ( Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, on the Church in the Modern World, December 7, 1965, no. 26).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, proposing anew the definition of Gaudium et Spes, summarises the common good in three purposes or properties as follows:

“First, the common good presupposes respect for the person as such... the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person...” and “the conditions for the exercise of the natural freedoms indispensable for the development of the human vocation.

“Second, the common good requires the social well-being and development of the group itself. Development is the epitome of all social duties. Certainly, it is the proper function of authority to arbitrate, in the name of the common good, between various particular interests; but it should make accessible to each what is needed to lead a truly human life: food, clothing, health, work, education and culture...

“Finally, the common good requires peace, that is, the stability and security of a just order. It presupposes that authority should ensure by morally acceptable means the security of society and its members” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 1907-1909).

For its part, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church states: “The common good does not consist in the simple sum of the particular goods of each subject of a social entity. Belonging to everyone and to each person, it is and remains common, because it is indivisible and because only together is it possible to attain it, increase it and safeguard its effectiveness, with regard also to the future” ( no. 164).

According to Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, who is among the 24 bishops named by the Holy Father to enter the College of Cardinals in a Vatican consistory on November 20, the fulfillment of individuals and societies is not some subjective determination by those, for example, who are in power.

“It is the fulfillment which is written in the very nature of man, in nature itself. It is the fulfillment for which God has created us and our world, not the fulfillment which, at any given time, we may find attractive or useful,” stated the new cardinal when addressing a Human Life International World Prayer Congress held in October at the Vatican.

Cardinal Burke notes that the English word, fulfillment, translates the Latin word, perfectio, that is, the perfection of the individual or group, according to man’s proper nature and end.

“The common good refers to an objective perfection which is not defined by common agreement among some of us. The common good is defined by creation itself as it has come from the hand of the Creator. Not only does the notion of common ground not correspond to the reality of the common good, it can well be antithetical to it. For instance, should there be common agreement in society to accept as good for society what is, in reality, always and everywhere evil?” he asked.

In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, the common good is “the good of ‘all of us’, made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society. It is a good that is sought not for its own sake but for the people who belong to the social community and who can only really and effectively pursue their good within it. To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity. To take a stand for the common good is, on the one hand, to be solicitous for and, on the other hand, to avail oneself of that complex of institutions that give structure to the life of society, juridically, civilly, politically and culturally, making it the pólis, or ‘city’” (Caritas in Veritate, no. 7). The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbours, adds Pope Benedict XVI, the more effectively we love them.

“Every Christian is called to practise this charity, in a manner corresponding to his vocation and according to the degree of influence he wields in the pólis. This is the institutional path – we might also call it the political path – of charity, no less excellent and effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbour directly, outside the institutional mediation of the pólis. When animated by charity, commitment to the common good has greater worth than a merely secular and political stand would have. Like all commitment to justice, it has a place within the testimony of divine charity that paves the way for eternity through temporal action,” the Holy Father explains in the same document when considering the common good.

Concluding the same encyclical, the Pope states: “God’s love calls us to move beyond the limited and the ephemeral, it gives us the courage to continue seeking and working for the benefit of all, even if this cannot be achieved immediately and if what we are able to achieve, alongside political authorities and those working in the field of economics, is always less than we might wish. God gives us the strength to fight and to suffer for love of the common good because He is our All, our greatest hope” (Caritas in Veritate, no. 78).