“Patriotism is love of country. But you can’t love your country without loving your countrymen and countrywoman. We don’t always have to agree, but we must empower each other, we must find the common ground, we must build bridges across our differences to pursue the common good…Let’s not judge. Let’s draw inspiration from each other’s stories – successes and failures and realise we’re all connected” (Cory Booker).
If we love T&T what action are we prepared to take this year to promote the common good? When I lived in London, I was a member of the Catholic Bishops Committee for Community Relations. We drafted a document entitled: “The Common Good”. Before the UK’S 2010 General Elections, the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales issued a 19-page guide entitled: Choosing the Common Good, and a questionnaire to assist politicians and voters.
The guide highlights some of the key issues in Catholic Social Teaching e.g. poverty and inequality – including the need to support the development of the world’s poor, care of the elderly, migration and community relations, the global community and ecology, marriage and family life, valuing life, and the role of faith communities.
St. Pope John XXIII’s defined the common good in his 1961 encyclical, Mater et Magistra (On Christianity and Social Progress – Mother and Teacher, 74) , as “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.” As writers have noted, The Pastoral Constitution of the Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes integrates the legacy of Mater et Magistra and defines the common good as “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfilment.”
Pope Francis reminds us that “Building a future of freedom requires love of the common good and cooperation in a spirit of subsidiarity and solidarity.” While we work and pray that everyone will open his/her mind and heart to build the common good, let us remember that each of us has a duty to use our God-given talents to build the common good – the good of each person and of every person – and, in doing so, to remember those who will come after us – future generations.
“In a global culture driven by excessive individualism”, our Church teaches us that “the human person is both sacred and social. We realise our dignity and rights in relationship with others, in community. Human beings grow and achieve fulfilment in community. Human dignity can only be realized and protected in the context of relationships with the wider society. How we organize our society — in economics and politics, in law and policy — directly affects human dignity and the capacity of individuals to grow in community.”
(http://cgcatholic.org.au). “The role of government and other institutions is to protect human life and human dignity and promote the common good” (https://www.tcdsb.org).
Building the common good also requires us to consider whether or not we are good stewards of God’s creation. We have much work to do to promote ecological justice, which is inextricably linked to integral human development. In his encyclical, Laudato Si, Pope Francis reminds us: “An integral ecology is inseparable from the notion of the common good, a central and unifying principle of social ethics. …Underlying the principle of the common good is respect for the human person as such, endowed with basic and inalienable rights ordered to his or her integral development. It has also to do with the overall welfare of society and the development of a variety of intermediate groups, applying the principle of subsidiarity. Outstanding among those groups is the family, as the basic cell of society…
“Finally, the common good calls for social peace, the stability and security provided by a certain order which cannot be achieved without particular concern for distributive justice; whenever this is violated, violence always ensues. Society, and the state, are obliged to defend and promote the common good. In the present condition of global society, where injustices abound and growing numbers of people are deprived of basic human rights and considered expendable, the principle of the common good immediately becomes, logically and inevitably, a summons to solidarity and a preferential option for the poorest of our brothers and sisters.”
And remember, Justice and the common good are inextricably linked.
First Published in Trinidad and Tobago Guardian Newspapers
