If You Want Peace, Work For Justice.

There Are Those Who Ask What Authority, What Theological Qualification, The Council Intended To Give To Its Teachings, Knowing That It Avoided Issuing Solemn Dogmatic Definitions Backed By The Church's Infallible Teaching Authority. The Answer Is Known By Those Who Remember The Conciliar Declaration Of March 6, 1964, Repeated On November 16, 1964. In View Of The Pastoral Nature Of The Council, It Avoided Proclaiming In An Extraordinary Manner Any Dogmata Carrying The Mark Of Infallibility.

The Task Of Evangelizing All People Constitutes The Essential Mission Of The Church. It Is A Task And Mission Which The Vast And Profound Changes Of Present-day Society Make All The More Urgent. Evangelizing Is In Fact The Grace And Vocation Proper To The Church, Her Deepest Identity. She Exists In Order To Evangelize.

Man Is Suddenly Becoming Aware That By An Ill-considered Exploitation Of Nature He Risks Destroying It And Becoming In His Turn The Victim Of This Degradation. Not Only Is The Material Environment Becoming A Permanent Menace - Pollution And Refuse, New Illness And Absolute Destructive Capacity - But The Human Framework Is No Longer Under Man's Control, Thus Creating An Environment For Tomorrow Which May Well Be Intolerable. This Is A Wide-ranging Social Problem Which Concerns The Entire Human Family.

Anger Is As A Stone Cast Into A Wasp's Nest.

Peace Is Not Merely The Absence Of War. Nor Can It Be Reduced Solely To The Maintenance Of A Balance Of Power Between Enemies. Nor Is It Brought About By Dictatorship. Instead, It Is Rightly And Appropriately Called "an Enterprise Of Justice" (is. 32:7). Peace Results From That Order Structured Into Human Society By Its Divine Founder, And Actualized By Men As They Thirst After Ever Greater Justice.