Slides for talk given by Fr Slavin on Gaudium et Spes

1. Please use the sheet of paper to prepare to
update your parish statement with a tweet
(limited to 140 characters)

2. • How much of it is new?

3. Second Vatican Council
(1962 – 65)
16 Documents

4. Gaudium et Spes
(The Church in the Modern World)
• The final statement of Vatican 2 on 8.12.65
• The only document not part of the original
presentation on 11.10.62
• Not to be confused with Lumen Gentium (the
constitution of the Church) 21.11.64
• The acceptance of 1789 (via facti: J Ratzinger)
• How Vat 2 should be remembered. Or not.

5. The longest document, by far
• Preface = paras 1 – 3
• Introduction = 4 – 10
• Part I Dogmatic Theology: The human condition
= 12 – 45
• Part II Practical Theology: Ethical issues 47 - 93

6. Preface
The hopes and fears of all the years…..
line 2: especially of those who are poor or
afflicted in any way
…..having deeply studied the mystery of the
Church (Lumen Gentium) …..enters into dialogue
with the whole of humanity…..about different
problems in the light of the Gospel.

7. Introduction
The Church carries the responsibility of reading
the signs of the times…..of a real social and
cultural transformation…..we cannot escape.
The scientific mentality and technological
progress…..mass media…..emigration…..so that
young people have grown rebellious in their
distress…it seems a matter of course to reject
God and religion…..the modern dilemna….”man”
feels himself divided.

8. Part I Dogma: the human condition.
Natural values are good but
corruptible, yet subject to conscience
• Dignity of the human person (10 paras)
• The Community of persons (9)
• Human activity (6)
• Role of Church (5)

9. Part I: section 1
Dignity of the human person: Imago
Dei
Mission Statement Imago Dei Parish, Peoria, Ill.
The importance of the problems raised by athiesm (19-
21)

10. Part 1: section 2
The Common Good
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

11. Part 1: section 3
• Human activity
• Faith and science are not opposed

12. Part I: section 4
• The Church as the People of God
• True humanism: practising what we preach

13. Conclusion
• G & S is a profound reflection of the whole
human family in the light of the crucified and
risen Christ. The whole People of God, led by the
Spirit that fills the world, tries to discern in the
longings it shares with all people of good will the
true signs of the purpose of God.
• Followed up by JP2’s reflection on human
experience in Redemptor Hominis (1979) and
Dives in Misericordia (1980)

14. Part II Pastoral: Current issues
• Marriage and the Family (5 paras)
• Culture and Society (9)
• Economics (9)
• Politics (3)
• War and Peace (20)

15. Part II: Section 1
• Marriage and the Family
• Marriage is a sacrament for the transmission of
human life

16. Part II: section 2
• Culture
• Everyone is entitled to benefit from mass
communications

17. Part II: section 3
• Economics
• The Market permits luxury and misery to exist
side by side

18. Part II: section 4
• Politics
• The principle of subsidiarity

19. Part II: section 5
• War and Peace
• Peace is not the absence of war, the primary
cause of which is injustice.

20. • In the light of this would you simplify your parish
mission tweet?
• To what extent is this what we already believed
but didn’t connect with the teaching of the
church
• Is action on behalf of justice a “constitutive”
dimension of preaching the gospel? (1971 Synod
of Bishops)