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III. TheSocial Doctrine of theChurch
2419"Christian revelation . . . promotes deeper understanding of the laws ofsocial living." The Church receives from the Gospel the fullrevelation of the truth about man. When she fulfills her mission of proclaimingthe Gospel, she bears witness to man, in the name of Christ, to his dignity andhis vocation to the communion of persons. She teaches him the demands ofjustice and peace in conformity with divine wisdom.
2420The Church makes a moral judgment about economic and social matters, "whenthe fundamental rights of the person or the salvation of souls requiresit." In the moral order she bears a mission distinct from thatof political authorities: the Church is concerned with the temporal aspects ofthe common good because they are ordered to the sovereign Good, our ultimateend. She strives to inspire right attitudes with respect to earthly goods andin socio-economic relationships.
2421Thesocial doctrine of the Church developed in the nineteenth century when theGospel encountered modern industrial society with its new structures for theproduction of consumer goods, its new concept of society, the state andauthority, and its new forms of labor and ownership. the development of thedoctrine of the Church on economic and social matters attests the permanentvalue of the Church's teaching at the same time as it attests the true meaningof her Tradition, always living and active.
2422The Church's social teaching comprises a body of doctrine, which is articulatedas the Church interprets events in the course of history, with the assistanceof the Holy Spirit, in the light of the whole of what has been revealed byJesus Christ. This teaching can be more easily accepted by men ofgood will, the more the faithful let themselves be guided by it.
2423The Church's social teaching proposes principles for reflection; it providescriteria for judgment; it gives guidelines for action:
Any system in which social relationships are determined entirely byeconomic factors is contrary to the nature of the human person and hisacts.
2424Atheory that makes profit the exclusive norm and ultimate end of economicactivity is morally unacceptable. the disordered desire for money cannot butproduce perverse effects. It is one of the causes of the many conflicts whichdisturb the social order.
A system that "subordinates the basic rights of individuals and of groupsto the collective organization of production" is contrary to humandignity. Every practice that reduces persons to nothing more than ameans of profit enslaves man, leads to idolizing money, and contributes to thespread of atheism. "You cannot serve God and mammon."
2425TheChurch has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated inmodem times with "communism" or "socialism." She haslikewise refused to accept, in the practice of "capitalism,"individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over humanlabor. Regulating the economy solely by centralized planningperverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of themarketplace fails social justice, for "there are many human needs whichcannot be satisfied by the market." Reasonable regulation ofthe marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy ofvalues and a view to the common good, is to be commended.