CHAPTER VI

COMMITMENTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN THE FIELD
OF ACTION

The Church lives in the Spirit and rests on the foundation of Peter and the Apostles and their successors, so that the episcopal ministry is in fact the guiding principle of the pastoral dynamism of the entire People of God. Consequently the Church works in harmony both with the Holy Spirit who is her soul and with the Head operative in the Body (cf. Part I, ch. II). This evidently has well determined consequences for bishops and religious in the carrying out of their initiatives and activities, even though they are vested with a specific competency, each according to his own role.

The practical directives set forth here refer to two kinds of needs in the field of action: namely, the pastoral and the religious.