I’ve been sidetracked often lately in sharing these quotes from Gaudium et Spes. This excerpt comes from a chapter called “the life of the political community,” and it’s really striking in an era of political division that rests, fundamentally, on the question of how much government control, regulation, and oversight is appropriate.
As Catholics, we’re supposed to let the Church’s teachings guide our world view, but if this quote raises hackles, as I expect it will, I would suggest that it indicates an area in need of examination of conscience and–better still–of digging in to what the Church actually teaches.
The sentence immediately following this quote does address government overreach, but the wording is clearly referring to dictatorships. As much as we love to throw around such claims in America, a rational view of the world should make it clear that we have never been anywhere close to the dictatorial regimes of Europe or Central America. And the paragraphs following this excerpt talk about the need to frame all political philosophy in the context of the common good (in other words, common good is more important than adherence to a theoretical philosophy) and about the proper relationship between Church and the political community–shades of both religious liberty *and* separation between Church and state. It’s well worth digging into this, given the bitter divisions of our time and the devotion to political ideology over Catholic teaching (on both sides of the spectrum).
Intentional Catholic 