The Church has never given up saying the word that corresponds to her about the questions of social life. It is a voice addressed to the Christian communities and especially to lay and lay, people, called as the Second Vatican Council reminds us to deal with temporal realities according to God (Lumen Gentium, 31).

Knowing profoundly and knowing how to act and engage in public life is an essential and complicated task. The social doctrine of the Church allows us to judge the changes of our society in the light of faith and Christian sensitivity in such complex matters as political militancy, service to the common good, participation in society and culture, commitment in the world of work and business, action against poverty and marginalization…

This is how the Christian people find help to discern authentically Christian values in the midst of an open and plural society. Knowing how to guide oneself in the middle of that “sea” of options and commitments is a contribution that we can and should receive from the Social Doctrine of the Church. This was how John Paul II recalled it when defining the mission of the Church and the communities in their evangelizing task: “The fundamental role of the Church in all times and particularly in ours – as I recalled in my first programmatic encyclical – it is “to direct the gaze of man, to orient the conscience and experience of all mankind towards the mystery of Christ.