Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

The Church, the community of those who have been brought together by the Risen Christ and who have set out to follow him, is “the sign and the safeguard of the transcendent dimension of the human person”^{54Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 76: AAS 58 (1966), 1099.}. She is “in Christ a kind of sacrament — a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men”^{55Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, 1: AAS 57 (1965), 5.}. Her mission is that of proclaiming and communicating the salvation wrought in Jesus Christ, which he calls “the Kingdom of God” (Mk 1:15), that is, communion with God and among men. The goal of salvation, the Kingdom of God embraces all people and is fully realized beyond history, in God. The Church has received “the mission of proclaiming and establishing among all peoples the Kingdom of Christ and of God, and she is, on earth, the seed and the beginning of that Kingdom”^{56Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, 5: AAS 57 (1965), 8.}.

The Church places herself concretely at the service of the Kingdom of God above all by announcing and communicating the Gospel of salvation and by establishing new Christian communities. Moreover, she “serves the Kingdom by spreading throughout the world the ‘Gospel values' which are an expression of the Kingdom and which help people to accept God's plan. It is true that the inchoate reality of the Kingdom can also be found beyond the confines of the Church among peoples everywhere, to the extent that they live ‘Gospel values' and are open to the working of the Spirit who breathes when and where he wills (cf. Jn 3:8). But it must immediately be added that this temporal dimension of the Kingdom remains incomplete unless it is related to the Kingdom of Christ present in the Church and straining towards eschatological fullness”^{57John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Missio, 20: AAS 83 (1991), 267.}. It follows from this, in particular, that the Church is not to be confused with the political community and is not bound to any political system^{58Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 76: AAS 58 (1966), 1099; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2245.}. In fact, the political community and the Church are autonomous and independent of each other in their own fields, and both are, even if under different titles, “devoted to the service of the personal and social vocation of the same human beings”^{59Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 76: AAS 58 (1966), 1099.}. Indeed, it can be affirmed that the distinction between religion and politics and the principle of religious freedom constitute a specific achievement of Christianity and one of its fundamental historical and cultural contributions.

According to the plan of God brought about in Christ, there corresponds to the identity and mission of the Church in the world “a saving and eschatological purpose which can be fully attained only in the next life”^{60Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 40: AAS 58 (1966), 1058.}. Precisely for this reason, the Church offers an original and irreplaceable contribution with the concern that impels her to make the family of mankind and its history more human, prompting her to place herself as a bulwark against every totalitarian temptation, as she shows man his integral and definitive vocation^{61Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2244.}. By her preaching of the Gospel, the grace of the sacraments and the experience of fraternal communion, the Church “heals and elevates the dignity of the human person, ... consolidates society and endows the daily activity of men with a deeper sense and meaning”^{62Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 40: AAS 58 (1966), 1058.}. At the level of concrete historical dynamics, therefore, the coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be discerned in the perspective of a determined and definitive social, economic or political organization. Rather, it is seen in the development of a human social sense which for mankind is a leaven for attaining wholeness, justice and solidarity in openness to the Transcendent as a point of reference for one's own personal definitive fulfilment.