We must therefore recognize and understand the world in which we live, its explanations, its longings, and its often dramatic characteristics.
Thus, in language intelligible to each generation, she can respond to the perennial questions which men ask about this present life and the life to come, and about the relationship of the one to the other. To carry out such a task, the Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel. And Christ entered this world to give witness to the truth, to rescue and not to sit in judgment, to serve and not to be served.(2) INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT THE SITUATION OF MEN IN THE MODERN WORLDĤ.
Inspired by no earthly ambition, the Church seeks but a solitary goal: to carry forward the work of Christ under the lead of the befriending Spirit. Therefore, this sacred synod, proclaiming the noble destiny of man and championing the Godlike seed which has been sown in him, offers to mankind the honest assistance of the Church in fostering that brotherhood of all men which corresponds to this destiny of theirs. Hence the focal point of our total presentation will be man himself, whole and entire, body and soul, heart and conscience, mind and will. For the human person deserves to be preserved human society deserves to be renewed. The council brings to mankind light kindled from the Gospel, and puts at its disposal those saving resources which the Church herself, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, receives from her Founder. Hence, giving witness and voice to the faith of the whole people of God gathered together by Christ, this council can provide no more eloquent proof of its solidarity with, as well as its respect and love for the entire human family with which it is bound up, than by engaging with it in conversation about these various problems. Though mankind is stricken with wonder at its own discoveries and its power, it often raises anxious questions about the current trend of the world, about the place and role of man in the universe, about the meaning of its individual and collective strivings, and about the ultimate destiny of reality and of humanity. Therefore, the council focuses its attention on the world of men, the whole human family along with the sum of those realities in the midst of which it lives that world which is the theater of man's history, and the heir of his energies, his tragedies and his triumphs that world which the Christian sees as created and sustained by its Maker's love, fallen indeed into the bondage of sin, yet emancipated now by Christ, Who was crucified and rose again to break the strangle hold of personified evil, so that the world might be fashioned anew according to God's design and reach its fulfillment.ģ. For the council yearns to explain to everyone how it conceives of the presence and activity of the Church in the world of today.
Hence this Second Vatican Council, having probed more profoundly into the mystery of the Church, now addresses itself without hesitation, not only to the sons of the Church and to all who invoke the name of Christ, but to the whole of humanity. That is why this community realizes that it is truly linked with mankind and its history by the deepest of bonds.Ģ. United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation which is meant for every man. For theirs is a community composed of men. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern Word-Gaudium et Spesġ.
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