Responding to Gaudium et Spes

By Dr. Ella Johnson
SAU Theological Perspective

When I pause to reflect on the challenges currently facing our country and world, and how I should respond, my instinct is often to turn to the wisdom offered in the Second Vatican Council document Gaudium et Spes: the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (GS). Why? You might ask. Isn’t the document now over 60 years old? Indeed, it is. But, as the document’s English title indicates, it provides a pastoral vision for the Church’s relationship to the world. In fact, it’s the only pastoral constitution in the Church’s conciliar documents. As such, it remains a deeply relevant resource for guiding our pastoral response to the needs of the world today.

This is why, I’ve been thinking about GS lately in my reflections on the state of immigration in our country and beyond. Of course, the recent Iowa Catholic bishops’ letter on the “Pilgrims of Hope: A Pastoral Re­flection on Immigration” is foundational for providing us with a local resource on the Church’s extensive, consistent teaching on immigration and how to apply that teaching in our lives. (If you haven’t read “Pilgrims of Hope” yet, do that before reading any further!) Because “Pilgrims of Hope” is rooted in Catholic Social Teaching, including key themes from GS, the Vatican II document is a helpful supplemental resource for reflection. In what follows I’ve noted the way GS employs three key Catholic Social Teaching themes to discuss migration. My hope is that these themes might challenge us to deepen the “why” and “how” in our responses to immigration issues in our country and world today.

1. Human Dignity

The dignity of the human person is specifically discussed in GS, Chapter One (#12-22). Such dignity is due to God’s act of creating the human person “in the image of God.”  Regardless of nationality or legal status, every person possesses inherent dignity. This principle calls for the humane treatment of all immigrants and refugees, opposing discrimination and dehumanization. In calling for “an end to excessive economic and social differences,” this foundational principle of human dignity affirms the right to migrate (#65), and it challenges policies or attitudes that migrants and refugees as mere economic units:

“When workers come from another country or district and contribute to the economic advancement of a nation or region by their labor, all discrimination as regards wages and working conditions must be carefully avoided. All the people, moreover, above all the public authorities, must treat them not as mere tools of production but as persons, and must help them to bring their families to live with them and to provide themselves with a decent dwelling; they must also see to it that these workers are incorporated into the social life of the country or region that receives them” (#66).

2. Solidarity and Pref­erential Option for the Poor

The document calls Christians to global solidarity, which transcends national borders. The opening lines of the document remind us that “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of our time, especially those who are poor or afflicted, are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ as well.” It therefore calls us to be “in deep solidarity with the human race and its history” (#1).

Based on Jesus’ identification with the poor and afflicted, the document emphasizes the preferential option for the poor. In the context of immigration, this is a moral imperative — a call to action — to prioritize the needs of refugees, asylum seekers, and those fleeing violence, poverty, or environmental crises:

“In our times a special obligation binds us to make ourselves the neighbor of every person without exception, and of actively helping him when he comes across our path, whether he be an old person abandoned by all, a foreign laborer unjustly looked down upon, a refugee,…or a hungry person who disturbs our conscience by recalling the voice of the Lord, ‘As long as you did it for one of these the least of my brethren, you did it for me’” (Matt. 25:40) (#27).

3. Common Good

GS teaches that the sole purpose of government and political policies is for the “common good,” which “embraces the sum total of all those conditions of the social life which enable individuals, families, and organizations to achieve complete and effective fulfillment” (#74). Society should be organized for the benefit of all, not just a privileged few. The Church recognizes the right of nations to regulate immigration and manage borders, but this right (as with all political authority) “must be exercised within the limits of the moral order and directed toward the common good.” GS, therefore, warns us to “be careful not to attribute excessive power to public authority” (#75). The Church, for its part, is not identified with any political party or system (#76), rather it serves as the sign and safeguard of the transcendence of the human person.

Ultimately GS reminds us that our current immigration reality is a moral and ecclesial concern before it is a political one. At the same time, the Church and its members are called to deep solidarity with all people, particularly the poor and afflicted. We are obliged to uphold the common good and human dignity, which can have political implications.

How does the document challenge you? How do you discern God’s call in the current reality of immigration?

(Dr. Ella Johnson is an associate professor of theology at St. Ambrose University (SAU) in Davenport. This is part of a series of SAU columns on migration being featured in The Catholic Messenger.)