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Second, the option for the poor involves a prophetic critique of social structures. Sin and conversion become terms that apply to the social realm as well as to the personal, and the option for the poor becomes fundamental to an ethical assessment of society--how a society treats the poor is an essential measure of how well it abides by the requirements of the common good. The U.S. Catholic Bishops state: "The prime purpose of this special commitment to the poor is to enable them to become active participants in the life of society. It is to enable all persons to share in and contribute to the common good."
Third, the Church's evaluation of society draws attention to all those human needs and yearnings that call for fulfillment. The Church's vision of human flourishing is capped by the aim of spiritual freedom and self-transcendence--what Maritain calls "the conquest of freedom." The person's freedom is ultimately fulfilled beyond society, in the society of the Godhead, but human society is not thereby denigrated. For even as self-transcendence is the fruit of the common good, it is also its precondition.
So we conclude Maritain's substantive account of the common good where it began--with an account of human flourishing. But between the first introduction of that concept and this point, we have seen that churches need not and should not limit themselves to offering ethical, political, and philosophical ideas to the public debate, important though that is. A religious tradition can provide conditions for social harmony in several ways: infusing its values into society through its character-shaping activity; cooperating with public and voluntary institutions to provide the cultural, economic, and spiritual conditions for persons to achieve their fulfillment in community; promoting public discussion about justice and the good; building intellectual solidarity through its willingness both to challenge others and to learn from them; loving neighbors concretely; sharing the life of the people, especially the poor; acting to empower the disenfranchised so that they may fully participate in social life; and reminding persons of their call to life with God, who is the deepest basis of their worth and their liberty.
These aspects of religion's contribution to the common good are those promoted by the Catholic tradition, and my exposition has focused on how Catholics and the Catholic Church understand their own contributions to the social task. Other religious traditions would articulate many of their contributions along the same lines, though obviously with distinctive accents and plenty of differences. In every society, normatively speaking, any religious group may present its understanding of the role it can play in promoting the common good. The common good welcomes and urges every group and tradition to do so. All that is required for a group to participate is that it acknowledge the right of equal participation for all others.
We should not expect the contribution of religion to be monolithic, for "religion" only exists as concrete religions. But we should expect religions to draw our attention to values that are not material, conventional, and convenient. We should expect them to witness to a value, a source of good, that lies beyond what humans can know and achieve through rational and technical mastery. To know our limitations, to be awed by the thought that we are not ultimately in control of the world or even our own lives--this alone may work a salutary effect on discussions about the common good in a world too often given to pretensions of control and domination.
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