Synodal Church as a ‘New Way of Being Church Today’ for the Public Good in Asia – Part 2

I. A CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATION: PUBLIC GOOD OR COMMON GOOD?

In providing their descriptions of these two concepts for the purposes of the UNESCO, Emma Sabzalieva and José Antonio Quinteiro situate them with the following comment. The notions of “public goods”, “common goods” and “global common goods” have often been used interchangeably. The boundaries of these concepts are blurred and imprecise, mainly because the language used to refer to them is highly connected with the ideological connotations within the prevailing political discourse of each time.(1)

Although the term ‘common good’ has various meanings according to the socio-political orientation of the ones who use the term, within the Catholic social doctrinal tradition, it has a unique meaning. This meaning is based primarily on the Aristotelian-Thomistic concept of human beings as social beings. Accordingly, the human being (man) lives in society with others. Consequently, ‘common good’ would amount to the good of each and every human being in that society and also the good of the society as a whole, in its totality. Thus, Vatican-II taught that common good is “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment”.(2) It went on to teach: “Every social group must take account of the needs and legitimate aspirations of other groups, and even of the general welfare of the entire human family”.(3) That is to say, common good is both the individual person’s good as well as the good of the society as a whole. In that sense, every involvement of the Church in public square ought to be for the same goal, i.e., to assist and encourage the State to promote common good, namely, the good of the individual persons and of the society, as a whole. 

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) published in 1992, it is “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily” (n.1906). Then, it adds: “The common good concerns the life of all”. Here, one ought to notice how this understanding of common good almost overlaps with the wider societal concept of public good.

Moreover, re-echoing what the CCC already said, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (CSDC) issued by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in 2004, describes common good as follows: According to its primary and broadly accepted sense, the common good indicates “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily” (n.164)

Then, it goes on to elaborate by stating: The common good does not consist in the simple sum of the particular goods of each subject of a social entity. Belonging to everyone and to each person, it is and remains “common”, because it is indivisible and because only together is it possible to attain it, increase it and safeguard its effectiveness, with regard also to the future. Just as the moral actions of an individual are accomplished in doing what is good, so too the actions of a society attain their full stature when they bring about the common good. The common good, in fact, can be understood as the social and community dimension of the moral good. (n.164)

Again, one notices here an overlapping of the concepts of ‘common good’ and ‘public good’. (4) As if to collaborate this point, the same CSDC in its very Introduction no:12 says: “This document is proposed also to the brethren of other Churches and Ecclesial Communities, to the followers of other religions, as well as to all people of good will who are committed to serving the common good”. In view of such official teachings, for the purposes of this paper, we take the contemporary understanding of the traditional Catholic concept of common good as not only overlapping with the wider social concept of public good, but also as a wider concept that goes well beyond the Church community or the institutional Church. In this sense, both these concepts tend to be synonymous in the context of this paper.

II. THE CHURCH IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE TO PROMOTE PUBLIC/COMMON GOOD

Following the Augustinian dualistic political view of the world (5), traditionally, Catholics had been taught that the Church should not get involved in worldly (or the so-called “secular”) affairs, especially in political affairs. (6) However, in actual history, beginning with the time of Constantine in the early fourth century, the official hierarchical Church had been actively involved in the public square, especially in European politics. It was only with the loss of the control of Papal States and the emergence of the Italian Republic in 1870 that the official Church had begun at last to heed the centuries old call (especially from the various quarters and movements of the secular world) to separate the Church and the State. And in the process, the institutional Church in Europe had been gradually keeping herself away from performing an active role in the socio-political affairs though it did not give up entirely her activities (mainly through her hierarchy) in the political field. This stand 

of the European Churches was passed on almost literally to most of the Asian countries that were evangelized by the European missionaries in such a literal and vigorous way that any and every effort on the part of the members of the local Churches to be present in public square was also often perceived with suspicion, as getting involved in secular partisan politics. The Church in many countries of Asia, especially in the pre-Vatican II era, was fully engulfed in this erroneous perception of what politics really meant, which was a result of the failure to make a clear-cut distinction between political involvement in society/community and partisan politics. 

The Second Vatican Council wished to end the resurgence of Augustinian political dualism when it made the careful distinction between the Church and the world but also simultaneously insisted that the Church is also in the world. It went further to state that the Church as a whole, had a vital role to play in the world, in the public square. The opening words of Gaudium et spes illustrates this well: “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”. (7) Interestingly, the Council explicitly condemned the then prevailing split between faith and life in the political society when it said:

This split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age. Long since, the Prophets of the Old Testament fought vehemently against this scandal and even more so did Jesus Christ Himself in the New Testament threaten it with grave punishments. Therefore, let there be no false opposition between professional and social activities on the one part, and religious life on the other. The Christian who neglects his temporal duties, neglects his duties toward his neighbour and even God, and jeopardizes his eternal salvation. Christians should rather rejoice that, following the example of Christ Who worked as an artisan, they are free to give proper exercise to all their earthly activities and to their humane, domestic, professional, social and technical enterprises by gathering them into one vital synthesis with religious values, under whose supreme direction all things are harmonized unto God’s glory. (8)

In fact, the cherished Catholic moral tradition has consistently upheld that the main role of the State is exclusively to promote common good, as already exemplified by Vatican-II. Thus, we read in CSDC: “The responsibility for attaining the common good, besides falling to individual persons, belongs also to the State, since the common good is the reason that the political authority exists” (n.168).

III. SYNODALITY AS ‘A NEW WAY’ OF BEING CHURCH IN ASIA

For centuries (at least till Vatican-II), within the Catholic Church it has been taken for granted that the internal affairs of the Church are mainly decided by the clerical hierarchy while the external (secular) affairs are exclusively to do with the non-clerics or the laity. Even some of the Vatican-II teachings are susceptible to similar interpretations. (9) But the current synodal process turns this sort of an understanding upside down because the fundamental premise of this process is that it is the Holy Spirit – whose voice is heard through both the hierarchy/clergy and the laity in virtue of their baptism – who guides and leads the Church. A necessary corollary of this is the need to harness that voice of the Spirit in all the baptized, and then, to allow the Church community to be guided by Him. This is the synodal way, namely, creating “a culture of listening” within and among the Church communities, in order to promote a participatory and inclusive community in every sphere of ecclesial life. It is the “new way” of being the Church proposed by the present synodal process. 

Moreover, in this new way of being Church, there is no strict compartmentalisation of ecclesial and secular worlds. Already Vatican-II made a revolutionary move when it taught the vital need to move out into the world. Earlier, as is well-known, the ecclesial vision for the Catholic Church was quite self-referential and often it considered the Church and the world as two neatly and tightly compartmentalized realities. But with the conciliar understanding of the Church as being in the world, especially, in her teachings in Gaudium et spes, the need for the involvement in the non-ecclesial or the so-called “secular” realities was highlighted. The very term “Church in the Contemporary World” itself indicates this. This document explicitly insisted on the need to scrutinize and interpret the ‘signs of the times’ and also to respond to them, (10) especially by being in dialogue with those realities in the process of proclaiming the Church’s good news.

Inspired and encouraged by this conciliar teaching, the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) since its very inception in the 1970’s had been insisting on the need to be in dialogue with the three main characteristically Asian realities: the ancient religions, cultures and the teeming millions of the Asian poor. In fact, a careful analysis of this concept of ‘triple-dialogue’ enables one to grasp that by definition itself, it is a movement to the public square in Asia. This FABC foundational vision of being in dialogue with the throbbing Asian realities and being inclusive are further enhanced by the current synodal process which revolves around the concept of “enlarging the space of the tent”. Walking together with others in Asia has been a common theme for the FABC ever since its inception in 1970’s. Being tiny minorities amidst the vast ocean of diverse religions and cultures, the Christian communities in Asia have always sought to live and walk together this journey of life here on earth:

We believe that everyone in Asia is a partner and co-pilgrim in the journey to God’s Reign, that the fields of mission are grounds of the mysterious presence and action of God’s Spirit. In the vast mission in Asia the silent but eloquent witness of an authentic Christian life requires a humble presence, a mode of dialogical living that includes a prayerful and “contemplative” way of life. (11)

In other words, it is certainly not a separate or isolated walking (only within the institutional Church realms) that is parallel to the rest of humanity. Rather, in the peculiarly multi-cultural and multi-religious Asian context, it is a “walking together” with all the peoples of Asia, the vast majority of whom are poor. Being faithful to the teachings of Vatican-II, Pope Francis has been tirelessly insisting on the need for the Church to go out of herself, to get out of being self-referential.(12) This certainly has great relevance to the Church in Asia.

It should be obvious then, that from an Asian Christian point of view, there is no better way to achieve public good of a society than the current synodal process which has its re-echoing in the FABC teachings too. For example, when the synodal document for the continental stage (DCS) No: 11.1 speaks of the Church’s mission as “a mission that Catholics recognise as needing to be carried out with brothers and sisters of other confessions and in dialogue with believers of other religions, transforming human actions of care into authentically spiritual experiences that proclaim the face of a God who cares to the point of giving his own life so that we may have it in abundance”, one notices a clear implication for solidarity among all peoples within a given society in achieving the public good. Similar sentiments are noticed in the same document in No: 22 where we read: “A synodal process is incomplete without meeting brothers and sisters from other confessions, sharing and dialogue with them, and engaging in common actions”. The same point was highlighted also in the recommendation which the DCS makes with regard to the need to include “fraternal delegates from other Christian denominations; representatives of other religions and faith traditions; and some people with no religious affiliation” (No:108) in the Continental Ecclesial Assemblies, a vital stage in the current synodal process. Interestingly, the Asian Continental Ecclesial Assembly which used this DCS as its working document (instrumentum laboris) of the current synodal process, says:

The culture of dialogue with religions and encounter with cultures must be integrated into the life of the Church. The Church must move towards greater networking with others (organisations and institutions) for the common good of all. (No:150)

Thus, we notice again, how the current synodal process, in fact, is ‘a new way’ of being Church in Asia, especially in her efforts to achieve public good, namely, in dialogical solidarity with the religions and cultures of Asia. One might be tempted to point out that this is not ‘a new way’ for Asia because already the FABC has been insisting on the same path for decades, as we saw above. Yet, since this FABC recipe for Churches in Asia has often fallen on deaf ears and remained merely on paper, this papal appeal for the synodal process which is now taking place in the universal Church could be in a sense really “a new way of being Church in Asia” because it puts not only a fresh accent on the FABC teachings, but it also has now become a concrete project for the whole Church, that too, coming from the highest ecclesial authority of the Church.*

By Vimal Tirimanna, CSsR

Ref:

1. Emma Sabzalieva and José Quinteiro, “Public Goods, Common Goods and Global Common Goods”, 2022, available at https://www.iesalc.unesco.org/en/2022/04/10/public-goods-common-goods-and-global-common-goods-a-brief-explanation/ (accessed on 19^th May 2023).
2.  Gaudium et spes (1965), No:26. Henceforth, this document will be referred to as GS.
3. ibid
4.  For a fine, succinct summary of the Catholic understanding of the concept of ‘common good’, see Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2004, Nos: 164-170.
5.  Cf., St.Augustine, “The City of God”, in Hemigild Dressler, et.al. (Eds.), The Fathers of the Church, Vol.8, Transl. by Demetrius B. Zema and Gerald G.Walsh, Washington DC: The Catholicy University of America, 1949, especially, refer to the Second Part of this work beginning with Book XI. The same work in summary form can be accessed at https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/augustine/section2/
6.  This, in spite of the assertion by Aristotle that man is a political/social animal in the polis, on whom the Catholic understanding of the human person and society depended, at least since the time of St.Thomas Aquinas in the middle ages.
7.  GS, No:1.
8.  GS, No:43.
9.  For example, GS 43 says: “Secular duties and activities belong properly although not exclusively to laymen”.
10.  GS, No:4.
11.  Vimal Tirimanna, For All the Peoples of Asia: Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences Documents from 2007 to 2012, Vol.5, Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 2014, 45.
12.  For a succinct description of this papal vision for the Church, see Joseph Xavier, “The Church of the People: Ecclesial Vision of Pope Francis”, Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection 80 (2016), 585-608.