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4. To carry out such a task, the Church has always had the duty of
scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the
light of the Gospel. Thus, in language intelligible to each
generation, she can respond to the perennial questions which men ask
about this present life and the life to come, and about the
relationship of the one to the other. We must therefore recognize and
understand the world in which we live, its explanations, its
longings, and its often dramatic characteristics. Some of the main
features of the modern world can be sketched as follows.
Today, the human race is involved in a new stage of history.
Profound and rapid changes are spreading by degrees around the whole
world. Triggered by the intelligence and creative energies of man,
these changes recoil upon him, upon his decisions and desires, both
individual and collective, and upon his manner of thinking and acting
with respect to things and to people. Hence we can already speak of a
true cultural and social transformation, one which has repercussions on
man's religious life as well.
As happens in any crisis of growth, this transformation has brought
serious difficulties in its wake. Thus while man extends his power in
every direction, he does not always succeed in subjecting it to his own
welfare. Striving to probe more profoundly into the deeper recesses of
his own mind, he frequently appears more unsure of himself. Gradually
and more precisely he lays bare the laws of society, only to be
paralyzed by uncertainty about the direction to give it.
Never has the human race enjoyed such an abundance of wealth,
resources and economic power, and yet a huge proportion of the worlds
citizens are still tormented by hunger and poverty, while countless
numbers suffer from total illiteracy. Never before has man had so keen
an understanding of freedom, yet at the same time new forms of social
and psychological slavery make their appearance. Although the world of
today has a very vivid awareness of its unity and of how one man depends
on another in needful solidarity, it is most grievously turn into
opposing camps by conflicting forces. For political, social,
economic, racial and ideological disputes still continue bitterly, and
with them the peril of a war which would reduce everything to ashes.
True, there is a growing exchange of ideas, but the very words by
which key concepts are expressed take on quite different meanings in
diverse ideological systems. Finally, man painstakingly searches for
a better world, without a corresponding spiritual advancement.
Influenced by such a variety of complexities, many of our
contemporaries are kept from accurately identifying permanent values and
adjusting them properly to fresh discoveries. As a result, buffeted
between hope and anxiety and pressing one another with questions about
the present course of events, they are burdened down with uneasiness.
This same course of events leads men to look for answers; indeed, it
forces them to do so.
5. Today's spiritual agitation and the changing conditions of life
are part of a broader and deeper revolution. As a result of the
latter, intellectual formation is ever increasingly based on the
mathematical and natural sciences and on those dealing with man
himself, while in the practical order the technology which stems from
these sciences takes on mounting importance.
This scientific spirit has a new kind of impact on the cultural sphere
and on modes of thought. Technology is now transforming the face of
the earth, and is already trying to master outer space. To a certain
extent, the human intellect is also broadening its dominion over time:
over the past by means of historical knowledge; over the future, by
the art of projecting and by planning.
Advances in biology, psychology, and the social sciences not only
bring men hope of improved self-knowledge; in conjunction with
technical methods, they are helping men exert direct influence on the
life of social groups.
At the same time, the human race is giving steadily-increasing
thought to forecasting and regulating its own population growth.
History itself speeds along on so rapid a course that an individual
person can scarcely keep abreast of it. The destiny of the human
community has become all of a piece, where once the various groups of
men had a kind of private history of their own.
Thus, the human race has passed from a rather static concept of
reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one. In consequence there has
arisen a new series of problems, a series as numerous as can be,
calling for efforts of analysis and synthesis.
6. By this very circumstance, the traditional local communities such
as families, clans, tribes, villages, various groups and
associations stemming from social contacts, experience more thorough
changes every day.
The industrial type of society is gradually being spread, leading some
nations to economic affluence, and radically transforming ideas and
social conditions established for centuries.
Likewise, the cult and pursuit of city living has grown, either
because of a multiplication of cities and their inhabitants, or by a
transplantation of city life to rural settings.
New and more efficient media of social communication are contributing
to the knowledge of events; by setting off chain reactions they are
giving the swiftest and widest possible circulation to styles of thought
and feeling.
It is also noteworthy how many men are being induced to migrate on
various counts, and are thereby changing their manner of life. Thus a
man's ties with his fellows are constantly being multiplied, and at
the same time "socialization" brings further ties, without however
always promoting appropriate personal development and truly personal
relationships.
This kind of evolution can be seen more clearly in those nations which
already enjoy the conveniences of economic and technological progress,
though it is also astir among peoples still striving for such progress
and eager to secure for themselves the advantages of an industrialized
and urbanized society. These peoples, especially those among them who
are attached to older traditions, are simultaneously undergoing a
movement toward more mature and personal exercise of liberty.
7. A change in attitudes and in human structures frequently calls
accepted values into question, especially among young people, who have
grown impatient on more than one occasion, and indeed become rebels in
their distress. Aware of their own influence in the life of society,
they want a part in it sooner. This frequently causes parents and
educators to experience greater difficulties day by day in discharging
their tasks. The institutions, laws and modes of thinking and feeling
as handed down from previous generations do not always seem to be well
adapted to the contemporary state of affairs; hence arises an upheaval
in the manner and even the norms of behavior.
Finally, these new conditions have their impact on religion. On the
one hand a more critical ability to distinguish religion from a magical
view of the world and from the superstitions which still circulate
purifies it and exacts day by day a more personal and explicit adherence
to faith. As a result many persons are achieving a more vivid sense of
God. On the other hand, growing numbers of people are abandoning
religion in practice. Unlike former days, the denial of God or of
religion, or the abandonment oś them, are no longer unusual and
individual occurrences. For today it is not rare for such things to be
presented as requirements of scientific progress or of a certain new
humanism. In numerous places these views are voiced not only in the
teachings of philosophers, but on every side they influence
literature, the arts, the interpretation of the humanities and of
history and civil laws themselves. As a consequence, many people are
shaken.
8. This development coming so rapidly and often in a disorderly
fashion, combined with keener awareness itself of the inequalities in
the world beget or intensify contradictions and imbalances.
Within the individual person there develops rather frequently an
imbalance between an intellect which is modern in practical matters and
a theoretical system of thought which can neither master the sum total
of its ideas, nor arrange them adequately into a synthesis. Likewise
an imbalance arises between a concern for practicality and efficiency,
and the demands of moral conscience; also very often between the
conditions of collective existence and the requisites of personal
thought, and even of contemplation. At length there develops an
imbalance between specialized human activity and a comprehensive view of
reality.
As for the family, discord results from population, economic and
social pressures, or from difficulties which arise between succeeding
generations, or from new social relationships between men and women.
Differences crop up too between races and between various kinds of
social orders; between wealthy nations and those which are less
influential or are needy; finally, between international institutions
born of the popular desire for peace, and the ambition to propagate
one's own ideology, as well as collective greeds existing in nations
or other groups.
What results is mutual distrust, enmities, conflicts and hardships.
Of such is man at once the cause and the victim.
9. Meanwhile the conviction grows not only that humanity can and
should increasingly consolidate its control over creation, but even
more, that it devolves on humanity to establish a political, social
and economic order which will growingly serve man and help individuals
as well as groups to affirm and develop the dignity proper to them.
As a result many persons are quite aggressively demanding those
benefits of which with vivid awareness they judge themselves to be
deprived either through injustice or unequal distribution. Nations on
the road to progress, like those recently made independent, desire to
participate in the goods of modern civilization, not only in the
political field but also economically, and to play their part freely on
the world scene. Still they continually fall behind while very often
their economic and other dependence on wealthier nations advances more
rapidly.
People hounded by hunger call upon those better off. Where they have
not yet won it, women claim for themselves an equity with men before
the law and in fact. Laborers and farmers seek not only to provide for
the necessities of life, but to develop the gifts of their personality
by their labors and indeed to take part in regulating economic,
social, political and cultural life. Now, for the first time in
human history all people are convinced that the benefits of culture
ought to be and actually can be extended to everyone.
Still, beneath all these demands lies a deeper and more widespread
longing: persons and societies thirst for a full and free life worthy
of man; one in which they can subject to their own welfare all that the
modern world can offer them so abundantly. In addition, nations try
harder every day to bring about a kind of universal community.
Since all these things are so, the modern world shows itself at once
powerful and weak, capable of the noblest deeds or the foulest; before
it lies the path to freedom or to slavery, to progress or retreat, to
brotherhood or hatred. Moreover, man is becoming aware that it is his
responsibility to guide aright the forces which he has unleashed and
which can enslave him or minister to him. That is why he is putting
questions to himself.
10. The truth is that the imbalances under which the modern world
labors are linked with that more basic imbalance which is rooted in the
heart of man. For in man himself many elements wrestle with one
another. Thus, on the one hand, as a creature he experiences his
limitations in a multitude of ways; on the other he feels himself to be
boundless in his desires and summoned to a higher life. Pulled by
manifold attractions he is constantly forced to choose among them and
renounce some. Indeed, as a weak and sinful being, he often does
what he would not, and fails to do what he would.[3] Hence he
suffers from internal divisions, and from these flow so many and such
great discords in society. No doubt many whose lives are infected with
a practical materialism are blinded against any sharp insight into this
kind of dramatic situation; or else, weighed down by unhappiness they
are prevented from giving the matter any thought. Thinking they have
found serenity in an interpretation of reality everywhere proposed these
days, many look forward to a genuine and total emancipation of humanity
wrought solely by human effort; they are convinced that the future rule
of man over the earth will satisfy every desire of his heart. Nor are
there lacking men who despair of any meaning to life and praise the
boldness of those who think that human existence is devoid of any
inherent significance and strive to confer a total meaning on it by
their own ingenuity alone.
Nevertheless, in the face of the modern development of the world, the
number constantly swells of the people who raise the most basic
questions of recognize them with a new sharpness: what is man? What
is this sense of sorrow, of evil, of death, which continues to exist
despite so much progress? What purpose have these victories purchased
at so high a cost? What can man offer to society, what can he expect
from it? What follows this earthly life?
The Church firmly believes that Christ, who died and was raised up
for all,[4] can through His Spirit offer man the light and the
strength to measure up to his supreme destiny. Nor has any other name
under the heaven been given to man by which it is fitting for him to be
saved.[5] She likewise holds that in her most benign Lord and
Master can be found the key, the focal point and the goal of man, as
well as of all human history. The Church also maintains that beneath
all changes there are many realities which do not change and which have
their ultimate foundation in Christ, Who is the same yesterday and
today, yes and forever.[6] Hence under the light of Christ, the
image of the unseen God, the firstborn of every creature,[7] the
council wishes to speak to all men in order to shed light on the mystery
of man and to cooperate in finding the solution to the outstanding
problems of our time.
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