Members are continually challenged to examine what the demands for social justice and the common good in today’s society are, and how do we meet that demand? It is in this way that we continually refine the specific and targeted projects in our mission.
As Christians, if we lose sight of our mission and aspiration to bring social justice and the common good to all, we begin to tear apart the very spiritual ideal and fabric rooted inside us, and we relinquish our role as stalwarts and stewards of human creation.
Members strive to bring the message of Christ to all, and actively challenge the evil of abortion, the threat to Christian family and marriage values, the hovering threat of euthanasia and the continual challenges to our Christian beliefs and Catholic ethos.
While there is no definitive single descriptor of the common good or how we should see or live it, as Christians in an ever-changing world, this need not be viewed negatively. Our members are continually vigilant and push for open, honest and transparent debate regarding the future definition of what society deems as ethical
Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Gaudium et Spes, addresses social veracity rather than personal ethics or spirituality. The document’s central theme is the establishment of social conditions that can help preserve the ideals of the dignity of the human being, the common good and the unity of humanity, offering to ‘foster a sense of family ties within humanity’.[1]
This visionary document engaged with a modern world and gave new hope in a prophetic text that has become an illuminating guide to the meaning of the common good, which is still so relevant today:
‘Therefore, there must be made available to all men everything necessary for leading a life truly human, such as food, clothing, and shelter; the right to choose a state of life freely and to found a family, the right to education, to employment, to a good reputation, to respect, to appropriate information, to activity in accord with the upright norm of one’s own conscience, to protection of privacy and rightful freedom even in matters religious.’[2]
These words are the basis of many of the projects we undertake, be it the Christmas Day Dinner, Brú Columbanus, or the many local outreach programs running throughout the country.
[1] Francis Schüssler Fiorenza & John P. Galvin, Regis A. Duffy, Penance, Systematic Theology Roman Catholic Perspectives (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), p. 64.
[2] Gaudium et Spes, Ch. II, par. 26, Second Vatican Council, Vatican Council II: The councillor and Post Councillor Documents.