Rights of the Church

With supernatural fortitude, the Church has often had to demand respect for her inalienable right to teach all that is necessary for fulfilling her purpose. “In this proper object of her mission, that is, ‘in faith and morals, God Himself has made the Church sharer in the divine magisterium (…) and she has inherent in herself an inviolable right to freedom in teaching’,”² to save souls, to extend the Kingdom of God, to unite all things in him (Eph 1:10).

Scope of her mission

The mission of teaching all that refers to our final end belongs properly and directly to the Church’s Hierarchy. But since nothing which contributes to the good of men and women and of civil society can be completely disconnected from our final end, the hierarchical Church, in fulfilling that mission, has made her beneficial influence felt in the most diverse aspects of human life and culture. At the same time, all those who work honourably in these sectors of temporal activity contribute in some way, or can contribute, to the sanctifying and redeeming mission of the Church.

Apostolic value of professional work

Hence all Christians, without exception, must feel an apostolic responsibility in doing their professional work, no matter what kind of job it is; for the fact that these activities, these jobs of work, have been left to people’s free initiative does not mean that they have been deprived of their capacity to cooperate in some way with the work of Redemption. “What the soul is to the body, Christians are to the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, yet is not of the body; and Christians dwell in the world, yet are not of the world.”³