THE DYNAMISM 0F OUR AGE

4 The building up of human society, human progress, and the ongoing execution of human plans stimulate the concern of the men of our era (cf. GS, 4). Faith should by no means keep itself as it were outside that human progress. Joined with that progress there are indeed even now serious aberrations. Accordingly, the Gospel message should pass judgement on this state of affairs and tell men what it means.

The ministry of the word, through an ever-deeper study of the divine and human calling of man, must permit the Gospel to spread its own vital seeds of genuine freedom and progress (cf. AG, 8, 12) and to stimulate a desire for promoting the growth of the human person and for contending against that way of acting and thinking which tends toward fatalism.

What has been said above is meant merely 10 show how today’s ministry of the word ought to direct its activity toward this world: ". . . it is demanded from the Church that she inject the perennial, vital, divine power of the Gospel into the human society of today" (John XXIII, Apost. Const. Humanae salutis, AAS, 1962, p. 6).