Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

Culture must represent a privileged area for the presence and commitment of the Church and individual Christians. The Second Vatican Council sees the separation of Christian faith and daily life as one of the most serious errors of our day^{1162Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 43: AAS 58 (1966), 1062.}. Without a metaphysical perspective, the loss of a longing for God in self-serving narcissism and the varied means found in a consumeristic lifestyle; the primacy given to technology and scientific research as ends in themselves; the emphasis placed on appearance, the quest for an image, communication techniques: all of these phenomena must be understood in their cultural aspects and placed in relation to the central issue of the human person, of integral human growth, of the human capacity to communicate and relate with other people, and of the constant human search for an answer to the great questions that run throughout life. It must be kept in mind that “culture is that through which man, as man, becomes more man, ‘is' more, has more access to ‘being'”^{1163John Paul II, Address to UNESCO (2 June 1980), 7: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 23 June 1980, p. 9.}.

Fostering a social and political culture inspired by the Gospel must be an area of particular importance for the lay faithful. Recent history has shown the weakness and radical failure of commonly held cultural perspectives that prevailed for a long time, especially on the social and political levels. In this area, particularly in the decades following the Second World War, Catholics in different countries have been involved at high levels, which shows with ever greater clarity today the consistency of their inspiration and of their heritage of values. The social and political involvement of Catholics, in fact, has never been limited to the mere transformation of structures, because this involvement takes place at the foundations of a culture that receives and listens to the reasoning made by faith and morality, including them as the basis and goal of concrete planning. When this awareness is lacking, Catholics themselves are condemned to cultural dispersion and their proposals are rendered insufficient and limited. An urgent priority today is also found in the need to present the patrimony of Catholic tradition, its values and content, and the entire spiritual, intellectual and moral heritage of Catholicism, in culturally up-to-date terms. Faith in Jesus Christ, who described himself as “the way and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6), prompts Christians to commit themselves with firm and ever new resolve to building a social and political culture inspired by the Gospel^{1164Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life (24 November 2002), 7: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City 2002, p. 15.}.

The integral perfection of the person and the good of the whole of society are the essential ends of culture^{1165Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 59: AAS 58 (1966), 1079-1080.}; the ethical dimension of culture is therefore a priority in the social action of the laity. Failure to pay attention to this dimension easily transforms culture into an instrument that impoverishes humanity. A culture can become sterile and headed for decadence when it “becomes inward looking, and tries to perpetuate obsolete ways of living by rejecting any exchange or debate with regard to the truth about man”^{1166John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 50: AAS 83 (1991), 856.}. The formation of a culture capable of enriching men and women requires on the contrary the involvement of the whole person, who, in the cultural sphere, expresses his creativity, his intelligence, his knowledge of the world and of human persons; someone moreover who puts to good use his capacity for self-control, personal sacrifice, solidarity and readiness to promote the common good^{1167Cf. John Paul II, Address to UNESCO (2 June 1980), 11: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 23 June 1980, p. 10.}.

The social and political involvement of the lay faithful in the area of culture moves today in specific directions. The first is that of seeking to guarantee the right of each person to a human and civil culture “in harmony with the dignity of the human person, without distinction of race, sex, nation, religion, or social circumstances”^{1168Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 60: AAS 58 (1966), 1081.}. This right implies the right of families and persons to free and open schools; freedom of access to the means of social communication together with the avoidance of all forms of monopolies and ideological control of this field; freedom of research, sharing one's thoughts, debate and discussion. At the root of the poverty of so many peoples are also various forms of cultural deprivation and the failure to recognize cultural rights. The commitment to the education and formation of the person has always represented the first concern of Christian social action.

The second challenge for Christian commitment concerns the content of culture, that is, truth. The question of truth is essential for culture because “it remains each man's duty to retain an understanding of the whole human person in which the values of intellect, will, conscience and fraternity are pre-eminent”.^{1169Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 61: AAS 58 (1966), 1082.} A correct anthropology is the criterion for shedding light on and verifying every historical form of culture. The Christian commitment in the field of culture is opposed to all reductionistic and ideological perspectives of man and life. The dynamism of openness to the truth is guaranteed above all by the fact that “different cultures are basically different ways of facing the question of the meaning of personal existence”^{1170John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 24: AAS 83 (1991), 822.}.

Christians must work so that the full value of the religious dimension of culture is seen. This is a very important and urgent task for the quality of human life, at both the individual and social levels. The question arising from the mystery of life and referring to the greater mystery of God is in fact at the centre of every culture; when it is eliminated, culture and the moral life of nations are corrupted^{1171Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 24: AAS 83 (1991), 821-822.}. The authentic religious dimension is an essential part of man and allows him to open his diverse activities to the horizon in which they find meaning and direction. Human religiosity or spirituality is manifested in the forms taken on by a culture, to which it gives vitality and inspiration. The countless works of art of every period bear witness to this. When the religious dimension of the person or of a people is denied, culture itself starts to die off, sometimes disappearing completely.

In the promotion of an authentic culture, the laity will place great importance on mass media, examining above all the contents of the countless choices that people make. These choices, while varying from group to group and from individual to individual, all have a moral weight and should be evaluated in this light. In order to choose correctly, one must know the norms of the moral order and apply them faithfully.^{1172Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree Inter Mirifica, 4: AAS 56 (1964), 146.} The Church offers a long tradition of wisdom, rooted in divine Revelation and human reflection,^{1173Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio, 36-48: AAS 91 (1999), 33-34.} the theological orientation of which provides an important corrective function to both “the ‘atheistic' solution which deprives man of one of his basic dimensions, namely the spiritual one, and to permissive and consumerist solutions, which under various pretexts seek to convince man that he is free from every law and from God himself”^{1174John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 55: AAS 83 (1991), 861.}. Rather than judging the means of social communication, this tradition is placed at their service: “The Church's culture of wisdom can save the media culture of information from becoming a meaningless accumulation of facts”^{1175John Paul II, Message for the 1999 World Day of Social Communications, 3: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 3 February 1999, pp. 1-2.}.

The lay faithful will look upon the media as possible and powerful instruments of solidarity: “Solidarity is a consequence of genuine and right communication and the free circulation of ideas that further knowledge and respect for others”^{1176Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2495.}. This is not the case if the media are used to build and sustain economic systems that serve greed and covetousness. Faced with grave injustices, the decision to ignore completely certain aspects of human suffering reflects an indefensible selectivity^{1177Cf. Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Ethics in Communications (4 June 2000), 14, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City 2000, pp. 14-16.}. Communication structures and policies, and the distribution of technology are factors that help to make some people “information rich” and others “information poor” at a time when prosperity, and even survival, depend on information. In this way, the media often contribute to the injustices and imbalances that give rise to the very suffering that they report. Communications and information technology, along with training in its use, must aim at eliminating such injustices and imbalances.

Professionals in the field of media are not the only people with ethical duties. Those who make use of the media also have obligations. Media operators who try to meet their responsibilities deserve audiences who are aware of their own responsibilities. The first duty of media users is to be discerning and selective. Parents, families and the Church have precise responsibilities they cannot renounce. For those who work, in various capacities, in the area of social communications, the warning of St. Paul rings out loud and clear: “Therefore, putting away falsehood, let every one speak the truth with his neighbour, for we are members one of another ... Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear” (Eph 4:25, 29). Serving the human person through the building up of a human community based on solidarity, justice and love, and spreading the truth about human life and its final fulfilment in God remain at the heart of ethics in the media^{1178Cf. Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Ethics in Communications, 4 June 2000, 33, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City 2000, p. 40.}. In the light of faith, human communication can be seen as a journey from Babel to Pentecost, or rather, as the personal and social commitment to overcome the collapse of communication (cf. Gen 11:4-8), opening people to the gift of tongues (cf. Acts 2:5-11), to communication as restored by the power of the Spirit sent by the Son.