Day 252: The Common Good

By common good is to be understood "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily." The common good concerns the life of all. It calls for prudence from each, and even more from those who exercise the office of authority. CCC 1906

The Catechism today discusses the common good in society. Included in this are

• "respect for the person... public authorities are bound to respect the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person." (CCC 1907)
• "the social well-being and development of the group itself." That is, the basic needs of individuals, both temporal and spiritual, as well as those of society as a whole. (CCC 1908)
• "peace, that is, the stability and security of a just order." (CCC 1909)

These three things are all involved in the common good, and the lack of one or more of them wounds society as a whole.

The Catechism Compendium summarizes where we find the most complete realization of the common good:

The most complete realization of the common good is found in those political communities which defend and promote the good of their citizens and of intermediate groups without forgetting the universal good of the entire human family. (#409)

So the common good has a delicate balance between individuals and the whole, caring for their needs and respecting their God-given dignity, for all of us were made in His image (Gen 1:27).

The Catechism Companion, Vol III notes:

We belong to each other. We are made for each other. We must care for the common good, but in doing so we must never forget the individual. The common good can never violate even one individual human being... All people, regardless of where or how they live, have "equal natural dignity," so there is a "universal common good" (CCC 1911).  (p. 20)