Promoting and Protecting the Common Good

     The John Cardinal Krol Chair of Moral Theology has as its fundamental purpose to promote a better understanding, appreciation and acceptance of Catholic moral teaching. Through classroom instruction, lectures, symposiums, workshops and publications, the Krol Chair contributes to the Seminary’s primary mission of preparing men for pastoral service as ordained priests and to its secondary mission of educational outreach to the broader Church community, as in this conference on Promoting and Protecting the Common Good.

     Citing Gaudium et Spes (GS), the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) defines the common good as “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily” (GS 24, CCC 1906). Thus, service to the common good demands an absolute respect for the dignity of every human being. Fundamental to this respect is the legal protection of all innocent human life from conception until natural death.

      Public authorities serve the common good first by safeguarding the fundamental and inalienable rights of all persons. These include the right to act according to a sound norm of conscience, the right to privacy, and rightful freedom in matters of religion (CCC 1907). Additionally, “the common good requires the social well-being and development of the group itself” (CCC 1908). To ensure such development, public authorities must arbitrate various particular interests, while making “accessible to each [person] what is needed to lead a truly human life: food, clothing, health, work, education and culture, suitable information, the right to establish a family, and so on” (CCC 1908). Finally, “the common good requires peace, that is, the stability and security of a just order. It presupposes that authority should ensure by morally acceptable means the security of society and its members. It is the basis of the right to legitimate personal and collective defense” (CCC 1909).

     But, the common good should also be viewed from a broader perspective. “The unity of the human family, embracing people who enjoy equal natural dignity, implies a universal common good.” This good calls for an organization of the community of nations able to meet the needs of all persons (CCC 1911). In promoting and protecting the common good, “the order of things must be subordinate to the order of persons, and not the other way around. This order is founded on truth, built up in justice, and animated by love” (CCC 1912).

Msgr. Kevin T. McMahon, S.T.D.
The John Cardinal Krol Chair of Moral Theology

Copyright © 2007 by Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary, Overbrook, The John Cardinal Krol Chair of Moral Theology. All rights reserved. No part of these proceedings may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the express written permission of:

Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary
The John Cardinal Krol Chair of Moral Theology
100 East Wynnewood Road
Wynnewood, Pennsylvania 19096

Click on the title links below to read the papers from this year's conference.

The Individual and the Common Good
Dr. David Walsh
Professor of Politics
The Catholic University of America

Law, Government and the Common Good
Dr. Gerald V. Bradley
Professor of Law
University of Notre Dame Law School

Religion and the Common Good
The Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Denver

The Media and the Common Good
Mr. Russell Shaw
Journalist and Syndicated Columnist