The common good is, in Catholic doctrine, the sum of those conditions of social life which allow each person and each group to achieve their fulfilment more fully and more readily.[1][2] It is neither the mere addition of particular interests, nor a "great whole" that would crush persons: it is the shared good of a community of persons, which redounds to each one and which each one helps to build.
The common good is one of the four permanent principles of the Church's social doctrine, together with the dignity of the human person, subsidiarity and solidarity.[3] It is even its pivot: it links the dignity of each to the responsibility of all, and directs all political, economic and social action towards the true end of society — not efficiency, not power, but the integral flourishing of persons.
The notion was not born in 1891 with modern social doctrine. It is rooted in Greek philosophy (Aristotle), in the thought of Saint Augustine and above all in the synthesis of Saint Thomas Aquinas, for whom "the common good is more divine than the good of one man alone".[4] The contemporary Magisterium, from Leo XIII to today, has only unfolded this intuition in response to the "new things" of each age.
To understand the common good is to hold together two truths that the modern world tends to oppose: the person is never a mere means at the service of the collectivity; but neither is he fulfilled alone, folded back on his own interests. Man is a social being, and his own good necessarily passes through the good of all.[5]
What is the common good?
The definition of Vatican II and the Catechism
The reference definition is given by the Second Vatican Council, in the pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes (1965), then taken up word for word by the Catechism of the Catholic Church.[6][7]
"By the common good is to be understood the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfilment." — Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et spes, 26[8]
Every word counts. The common good is not an object to be possessed, nor a sum of money to be distributed: it is a sum of conditions — peace, justice, just laws, sound institutions, access to essential goods — which form the framework in which human beings can grow.[9] It concerns "both groups and each of their members": neither the isolated individual, nor the anonymous mass, but the community of persons in its real fabric.
The expression "access to their own fulfilment" is decisive. The end of society is not mere material survival or comfort, but full human development: intellectual, moral, spiritual. The common good is ordered to the growth of persons towards what they are called to become.[10]
Neither the sum of private interests, nor absorption into the collective
The greatest misunderstanding consists in confusing the common good with the sum of particular goods. If everyone pursues his private interest, the result is not automatically the good of all: it can be organised injustice, the law of the strongest, the ruin of the weakest. The common good is a good of another order: it is properly common, that is, it belongs to all together and to each one, without being divisible into private shares.[11]
At the opposite extreme, the common good cannot be identified with the "good" of a collective entity that would absorb persons — the State, the nation, the class, the race, the Party. That would be to fall back into totalitarianism, where the individual is but a cog sacrificed to the "whole".[12] The philosopher Jacques Maritain masterfully illuminated this double pitfall: the common good is neither individualist (its dissolution into private interests) nor collectivist (the crushing of the person by the group).[13]
Maritain expresses it in substance — the passage is rendered here in paraphrase, the exact text of the 1947 edition having been impossible to collate word for word: the common good of the city is neither a mere addition of private goods, nor the good of a whole which would relate the parts to itself alone and sacrifice them to itself; it is the good human life of a multitude of persons, their communion in a shared good life.[14]
The three essential elements of the common good
The Catechism specifies that the common good involves three essential elements.[15] Far from being an abstract formula, this triad provides a concrete criterion for judging a society: does a city truly serve the common good? It suffices to verify these three conditions.
| Element | What it requires | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Respect for the person | Recognising and protecting the fundamental and inviolable rights of each one; enabling each one to fulfil his vocation; respecting freedom of conscience | CCC 1907 |
| Social well-being and the development of the group | Providing what is necessary for a truly human life: food, clothing, health, work, education, culture, information, the right to found a family | CCC 1908 |
| Peace | Ensuring the stability and security of a just order; defending society and its members; grounding the right to legitimate personal and collective defence | CCC 1909 |
The first element — respect for the person — comes before the other two and commands them. In the name of the common good, public authorities are bound to respect the fundamental rights of the human person.[16] A society that would "develop" by trampling the dignity of its members does not serve the common good: it contradicts it.
The second element — well-being and development — covers all that a human life needs to flourish, from daily bread to access to truth and culture.[17] It is here that the right to work, the just wage, concern for the poor and care for the most fragile are rooted.
The third element — peace — is not the absence of conflict, but "the stability and security of a just order".[18] Without peace, none of the other goods holds. That is why social doctrine closely links the common good with civil and international peace.
Why the common good is not "the good of the majority"
A democracy may be tempted to reduce the common good to the will of the majority. That is an error. A majority can vote an unjust law; numbers do not create right. The common good is an objective reality, measured by the dignity of each person and by justice, not by the counting of votes.[19] Democracy according to the Church is legitimate only if it remains ordered to this objective common good, and not the reverse.
Likewise, the common good is not the greatest happiness of the greatest number of utilitarianism. In a utilitarian logic, one could sacrifice a minority to maximise overall well-being. Catholic doctrine absolutely refuses this: each person is an end in himself, never a mere means, because he is created in the image of God and called to salvation.[20]
The roots: from the philosophers' common good to the Christian common good
Aristotle: the city ordered to "living well"
The idea that every community aims at a good, and the political community at the highest good, goes back to Aristotle (4th century BC). From the very first sentence of the Politics, he affirms that every city is a community, and that "every community is constituted with a view to some good".[21] The city exists not only to survive, but for living well (eu zên): the good and virtuous life.
Aristotle also establishes, at the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, that the good of the city is greater and more beautiful than that of the individual:
"Even if the good is identical for a single individual and for a city, it is manifestly a greater and more perfect thing to attain and to safeguard that of the city; for it is lovable even for a single man, but more beautiful and more divine for a people and for cities." — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I, 2[22]
This intuition — the primacy in order of the common good over the particular good — would be taken up and purified by the Christian tradition.
Saint Augustine: a people defined by its common loves
Saint Augustine (354-430) shifts the question towards interiority. In The City of God, he defines a people not by race, territory or mere law, but by what it loves in common:
"A people is the assemblage of a multitude of rational beings united by agreement in the objects of their love." — Saint Augustine, The City of God, XIX, 24[23]
For Augustine, the quality of a people is known by examining the objects of its love. A people that loves justice, truth and God is a good people; a people that loves glory, domination and money carries its own ruin within itself. The authentic common good therefore presupposes a conversion of loves: it is not only a matter of institutions, but of the orientation of the heart. This idea later grounds the notion of political charity.
Saint Thomas Aquinas: the common good "more divine" than the particular good
It is Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) who gives the notion its most rigorous form. Taking up Aristotle, he teaches that the common good is superior in dignity to the particular good, because it participates more greatly in the perfection of being:
"The common good of the multitude is greater and more divine than the good of one man." — Saint Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle[24]
But Thomas avoids all collectivism. The common good is not a "super-individual": it is a good of communion, which communicates itself to persons instead of absorbing them. The city is not made for itself, but for the persons who compose it, who are themselves ordered, beyond the city, to God himself.
Law, "an ordination of reason for the common good"
The Thomist doctrine of the common good culminates in his definition of law. Every authentic law, he writes, is "an ordination of reason for the common good, promulgated by him who has the care of the community".[25] A rule that does not aim at the common good, but at the private interest of the ruler, is not a true law but a corruption of law.
"Law is an ordination of reason for the common good, promulgated by him who has the care of the community." — Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 90, a. 4[26]
This definition has immense scope: it provides the criterion of legitimacy for all authority. Power is legitimate only if it serves the common good; it becomes tyranny as soon as it turns away from it. This is the foundation of the Catholic doctrine of political authority.
The person is not ordered to the city "in his entirety"
Thomas finally sets a decisive limit, which rules out all totalitarianism in advance. Man is not ordered to the political community "in his entirety and with all that he has".[27] A part of him — his soul, his eternal vocation, his relationship with God — infinitely surpasses the city. Society can therefore never claim the totality of the person: it comes up against a higher order, that of man's supernatural destiny.
"Man is not ordered to the political community in his entirety and with all that he has." — Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 21, a. 4, ad 3[28]
This nuance is capital: it explains why the common good, far from threatening the person, protects him — including against the State. Jacques Maritain would draw from it, in the 20th century, an entire personalist political philosophy.
The common good, a permanent principle of social doctrine
The four principles: dignity, common good, subsidiarity, solidarity
Modern social doctrine articulates the common good with three other permanent principles.[29] These principles do not oppose one another: they illuminate each other and form a single body of doctrine.
| Principle | What it affirms | Link with the common good |
|---|---|---|
| Dignity of the person | Every man, created in the image of God, possesses inviolable worth | The common good is at the service of this dignity |
| Common good | The social conditions for the full flourishing of all | The pivotal principle linking person and community |
| Subsidiarity | The higher level must not absorb what the lower level can do | The common good is built from the bottom up, through intermediate bodies |
| Solidarity | The firm determination to work for the good of all | Solidarity is the virtue that carries the common good |
Subsidiarity prevents the common good from serving as a pretext for statism: it is not always the highest level that must act. Solidarity, for its part, is defined by John Paul II as "the firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good", that is, to the good of all and of each individual.[30]
"Solidarity […] is the firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good, that is to say, to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all." — John Paul II, Sollicitudo rei socialis, 38[31]
From Leo XIII to Leo XIV: an unbroken thread
The common good runs through all of social doctrine, from the founding encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) to the most recent texts. Each pope has re-read it in the light of the "new things" of his time.
| Document | Author, date | Contribution on the common good |
|---|---|---|
| Rerum novarum | Leo XIII, 1891 | Private property and wages ordered to the common good; the protective role of the State towards the weak[32] |
| Quadragesimo anno | Pius XI, 1931 | Social justice and the common good; the principle of subsidiarity[33] |
| Mater et magistra | John XXIII, 1961 | The common good embraces "the sum of those conditions of social life" enabling the flourishing of all[34] |
| Pacem in terris | John XXIII, 1963 | The universal common good and the need for an authority at the service of all peoples[35] |
| Gaudium et spes | Vatican II, 1965 | The canonical definition of the common good; its growing scope on a world scale[36] |
| Populorum progressio | Paul VI, 1967 | Integral development "of the whole man and of every man"[37] |
| Centesimus annus | John Paul II, 1991 | The rule of law at the service of the common good; the limits of market and collectivism[38] |
| Caritas in veritate | Benedict XVI, 2009 | To love one's neighbour is to work for the common good[39] |
| Laudato si' / Fratelli tutti | Francis, 2015 / 2020 | The common good extended to the "common home" and to social friendship[40][41] |
This continuity is itself a teaching: social doctrine is not a dated political programme, but a living body that develops, without denying it, the same founding principle. In 2026, Pope Leo XIV explicitly inscribes his social teaching in this continuity, re-reading the question of the common good in the face of contemporary transformations of work and technology.[42]
The common good and the universal destination of goods
The common good illuminates the question of property. The Catholic tradition affirms both the right to private property and the universal destination of goods: the goods of the earth are destined by God for all men.[43] Private property is legitimate, but it is burdened with a social mortgage: its use must also serve the good of others.[44]
"The right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the universal destination of goods." — after the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church[45]
This principle forbids two excesses: proprietary individualism, which makes possession an absolute and closed right; and collectivism, which abolishes property and concentrates everything in the hands of the State. The common good traces the way: an open, responsible property, ordered to the service of all.
The concrete requirements of the common good
Guaranteeing the fundamental rights of the person
The first requirement of the common good is the protection of the inviolable rights of the person: the right to life from conception to natural death, to religious freedom, to freedom of conscience, to found a family, to work and to a just wage.[46] A society that flouts these rights — for instance by legalising the elimination of the weakest — destroys the common good at its root, whatever its material successes.
Providing integral development
The common good is not only security: it aims at the integral development of the person, in all his dimensions. Paul VI forged the expression that has become classic: authentic development is that "of the whole man and of every man", that is, of all the dimensions of each person (body, intelligence, conscience, soul) and of all men without exclusion.[47]
"Development cannot be limited to mere economic growth. In order to be authentic, it must be complete: integral, that is, it has to promote the good of every man and of the whole man." — Paul VI, Populorum progressio, 14[48]
Ensuring the peace and security of a just order
Peace is the third element of the common good.[49] It is not the silence of arms obtained through fear, but "the tranquillity of order", in the Augustinian formula — an order founded on justice and nourished by charity. That is why social doctrine links the common good to questions of just war, justice and reconciliation.
A responsibility of all, not only of the State
The common good is not the exclusive business of rulers. It commits each person and each social body: families, associations, businesses, trade unions, Churches.[50] According to the principle of subsidiarity, each must contribute at his own level, and the State must not stifle this participation, but foster it.
Participation in the common good is even, for the Christian, a moral duty. To take no interest in the life of the city, out of comfort or contempt for politics, is an abdication. The Catholic is called to commit himself, to vote in conscience, to defend justice — not for a party, but for the good of all.
The proper role of political authority
While it belongs to all to serve the common good, it is nevertheless incumbent upon political authority to be its guardian and guarantor, since it has charge of the whole.[51] The political community exists precisely with a view to the common good: therein lies its full justification and meaning.[52] An authority that pursues its own interest, or that of a clan, against the common good, loses its moral legitimacy and slides into tyranny.
"Every human community needs an authority to govern it. […] It is in the political community that the common good finds its fullest realisation." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1910[53]
The universal common good
Pacem in terris and the interdependence of peoples
With the growth of interdependence among nations, the common good has taken on a worldwide dimension. John XXIII, in Pacem in terris (1963), speaks of a universal common good that transcends borders and calls for cooperation among peoples at the service of the whole human family.[54] The Catechism takes up this intuition: the unity of the human family, bringing together beings equal in dignity, implies a universal common good.[55]
"The growing interdependence and its progressive extension to the whole world mean that the common good […] is today taking on an increasingly universal scope, and consequently involves rights and duties concerning the whole human race." — Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et spes, 26[56]
Globalisation, ecology and global "commons"
This universal dimension illuminates the great contemporary challenges: globalisation, migration, and above all ecology. Pope Francis, in Laudato si', presents the climate and creation as a common good of all humanity, to be protected for present and future generations.[57] The safeguarding of creation and integral ecology are, in his eyes, direct requirements of the common good.
"The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all. […] The principle of the common good thus becomes a summons to solidarity and a preferential option for the poorest." — Pope Francis, Laudato si', 23 and 158[58]
The counterfeits of the common good
Because it is central, the common good is also the most falsified of principles. Modern ideologies have each mutilated it, retaining a fragment of truth at the price of a grave error.
| Counterfeit | The fragment of truth retained | The fundamental error |
|---|---|---|
| Totalitarianism | Society has a good of its own, superior to selfishness | Absorbs and sacrifices the person to the "whole" (State, class, race) |
| Liberal individualism | The person and his freedom are inviolable | Reduces the common good to the sum of private interests; denies the shared good |
| Utilitarianism | The well-being of the greatest number matters | Justifies the sacrifice of minorities; ignores the inviolable dignity of each one |
| Materialism | Material well-being is part of the common good | Reduces the common good to comfort alone; forgets the soul and the final end |
Totalitarianism: the "whole" that devours the person
Totalitarianism — whether communist, National Socialist or otherwise — always invokes a "higher good" (the nation, the race, the class, the revolution) to crush persons. It reverses the order willed by God: instead of society serving persons, persons are ground down for society.[59] The Church fought totalitarianisms precisely in the name of the true common good, which presupposes inviolable respect for the person. The experience of Solidarność in Poland was a striking illustration of this.
Liberal individualism: can the market stand in for the common good?
Conversely, absolute economic liberalism supposes that it suffices to free private interests for the good of all to result automatically, as if by an "invisible hand". John Paul II recognises the value of the market and of initiative, but firmly marks their limits: there are human needs that the market cannot satisfy, and a society of juxtaposed individuals, with no concern for the common good, disintegrates.[60]
"There are collective and qualitative needs which cannot be satisfied by market mechanisms. There are important human needs which escape its logic." — John Paul II, Centesimus annus, 40[61]
Utilitarianism and materialism
Utilitarianism measures the good by the quantity of pleasure or well-being produced; it can therefore justify sacrificing the weakest "for the greatest number". Catholic doctrine refuses this: no sum of collective happiness can legitimise an attack on the dignity of a single person.[62] Materialism, finally, reduces the common good to economic comfort, forgetting that man has a soul and an eternal destiny. Yet a people can be rich and profoundly unhappy, prosperous and spiritually dead.
The common good in Christian life
Political charity: loving the common good
For the Christian, working for the common good is not only a civic duty: it is an act of charity. The Catholic tradition speaks of political charity or "social charity": to love one's neighbour concretely is not only to help him individually, but to build just structures in which his dignity is respected.[63] It is in this sense that Pius XI could present commitment to the city as one of the highest forms of charity.[64]
Caritas in veritate: to love is to will the common good
Benedict XVI gave this idea its densest formula. To love someone is to desire his good and to work to obtain it; yet, alongside the individual good, there is a good linked to life in society: the common good.[65]
"The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbours, the more effectively we love them. […] To desire the common good and to strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity." — Benedict XVI, Caritas in veritate, 7[66]
These words tear the common good away from the coldness of an administrative concept: it is a path of love. Committing oneself to justice, to the poor, to good laws, is loving one's neighbour "on the scale of the city".
Each one's participation: a duty and a grace
No one is exempt from contributing to the common good. According to his talents, his state of life and his responsibilities, each one participates in it: through honest work, through fiscal honesty, through service, through voting in conscience, through prayer for those in authority. This participation is a duty of justice, but also a place of sanctification: in seeking the good of all, the Christian conforms himself to Christ who "came not to be served but to serve".[67]
The ultimate common good: the communion of saints
Finally, faith lifts our gaze. The temporal common good, necessary as it is, is not man's final end. It is ordered, as a foretaste and a preparation, to the common good par excellence: God himself, possessed in common by all the blessed in the communion of saints.[68] Heaven is the perfect city, where the good of each is the good of all, without rivalry or lack — the fullness of what every earthly society obscurely seeks.
"The common good is fully realised […] when it is ordered, in truth and justice, to the ultimate end which is God." — synthesis of social doctrine[69]
Thus, working for the common good here below is never a purely profane task: it is preparing, within history, the image of the heavenly Jerusalem where God will be "all in all".[70]
To go further
On the sibling principles of social doctrine:
On the applications of the common good:
- Rerum novarum and social doctrine
- Political authority according to the Church
- Political charity
- What does the Church say about politics?
- Private property according to the Church
On the counterfeits of the common good:
Notes and References
Second Vatican Council, pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes, 7 December 1965, § 26, § 1 (definition of the common good); cf. § 74 on the political community and the common good. Official text on Vatican.va.
1 6 8 36 56Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1906: repeats the definition of Gaudium et spes 26, § 1. The common good "concerns the life of all".
2 7Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, § 160: the permanent principles of social doctrine are the dignity of the human person, the common good, subsidiarity and solidarity.
3 29Saint Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics I, 2): bonum commune divinius est quam bonum unius. Cf. Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 47, a. 10; Sententia libri Ethicorum, I, lect. 2.
4 24Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1905: in accordance with man's social nature, the good of each one is necessarily related to the common good.
5Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2004, § 164: meaning and principal applications of the common good; repeats the conciliar definition.
9Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1912: the common good is always ordered to the progress of persons; the order of things must be subordinated to the order of persons, and not the reverse (cf. Gaudium et spes 26).
10 68 69Jacques Maritain, The Person and the Common Good, University of Notre Dame Press, 1947 (first edition; French original La personne et le bien commun, Desclée de Brouwer, 1947). The passage is rendered above in paraphrase: the exact French text, with its page and chapter in that edition, could not be collated in session (no complete free edition accessible, no public scan). Verified English reference text, trans. J. J. FitzGerald, "The Person and the Common Good", The Review of Politics, vol. 8, no. 4 (Oct. 1946), p. 437: "The common good of the city is neither the mere collection of private goods, nor the proper good of a whole which, like the species with respect to its individuals or the hive with respect to its bees, relates the parts to itself alone and sacrifices them to itself. It is the good human life of the multitude, of a multitude of persons; it is their communion in good living."
11 13 14On the Catholic critique of totalitarianism in the name of the common good and the dignity of the person: Pius XI, encyclicals Mit brennender Sorge (14 March 1937) and Divini Redemptoris (19 March 1937); Catechism, § 1881 and § 1929. See the article The Church and totalitarianisms.
12 59Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1907: first element of the common good — respect for the person and his fundamental and inalienable rights.
15 16 46Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1908: second element — the social well-being and development of the group (food, clothing, health, work, education, culture, information, founding a family).
17Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1909: third element — peace, that is, the stability and security of a just order, grounding the right to legitimate defence.
18 49Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, § 166: the requirements of the common good flow from the social conditions of each age and are closely linked to respect for and the integral promotion of the person and his fundamental rights.
19Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§ 1929-1933: social justice and respect for the human person; each one must consider his neighbour as "another self". Cf. § 1881 on the person as the principle, subject and end of all social institutions.
20 62Aristotle, Politics, I, 1, 1252a (every community is constituted with a view to a good); Nicomachean Ethics, I, 2, 1094b (the good of the city, more beautiful and more divine than that of the individual). Reference translations: Ross/Urmson, Oxford.
21 22Saint Augustine, The City of God (De civitate Dei), book XIX, ch. 24: definition of a people as an assemblage of rational beings united by agreement in the objects of their love. Cf. also book XIX, ch. 13 on peace as "the tranquillity of order".
23Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 90, a. 4: definition of law as "an ordination of reason for the common good, promulgated by him who has the care of the community" (ordinatio rationis ad bonum commune, ab eo qui curam communitatis habet, promulgata). Cf. q. 90, a. 2: law is related first and foremost to the common good.
25 26Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 21, a. 4, ad 3: man is not ordered to the political community in his entirety and with all that he has (homo non ordinatur ad communitatem politicam secundum se totum et secundum omnia sua). The key anti-totalitarian text.
27 28John Paul II, encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis, 30 December 1987, § 38: solidarity as the firm and persevering determination to work for the common good, that is, for the good of all and of each individual. Official text on Vatican.va.
30 31Leo XIII, encyclical Rerum novarum, 15 May 1891: private property and wages ordered to the common good, the protective role of the State towards the weak. Official text on Vatican.va. See the article Rerum novarum.
32Pius XI, encyclical Quadragesimo anno, 15 May 1931, notably §§ 57-58 (social justice and the common good) and §§ 79-80 (principle of subsidiarity). Official text on Vatican.va.
33John XXIII, encyclical Mater et magistra, 15 May 1961, § 65: the common good "embraces the sum of those conditions of social life which enable men to achieve their integral development". Official text on Vatican.va.
34John XXIII, encyclical Pacem in terris, 11 April 1963, §§ 132-141: the universal common good and the requirement of a public authority at the service of the whole human family, with respect for subsidiarity. Official text on Vatican.va.
35 54Paul VI, encyclical Populorum progressio, 26 March 1967, § 14: development, to be authentic, must be integral, that is, promote "the whole man and every man". Official text on Vatican.va.
37 47 48John Paul II, encyclical Centesimus annus, 1 May 1991: §§ 30-31 (social mortgage on property), § 40 (limits of the market, needs the market cannot satisfy), § 47 (rule of law at the service of the common good). Official text on Vatican.va.
38 44 60 61Benedict XVI, encyclical Caritas in veritate, 29 June 2009, §§ 6-7: to love one's neighbour is to desire and work for his good; alongside the individual good there exists a common good, whose pursuit is a requirement of justice and charity. Official text on Vatican.va.
39 63 65 66Pope Francis, encyclical Laudato si', 24 May 2015, § 23 (the climate as a common good) and §§ 156-158 (the common good, a central principle of social ethics, and the preferential option for the poor). Official text on Vatican.va.
40 57 58Pope Francis, encyclical Fratelli tutti, 3 October 2020: social friendship and universal fraternity as the extended horizon of the common good; critique of individualism and "every man for himself". Official text on Vatican.va.
41In continuity with his predecessors, Leo XIV re-reads in 2026 social doctrine — and the principle of the common good — in the face of contemporary transformations of work and technology, on the 135th anniversary of Rerum novarum. Cf. the article Rerum novarum and social doctrine.
42Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, §§ 171-184: the universal destination of goods and private property; the right of property is subordinated to the principle of the universal destination of goods. Cf. John Paul II, Centesimus annus, §§ 30-31.
43 45Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, § 167: the common good commits the responsibility of all; each one, in his place, contributes to realising it.
50Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1910: every human community possesses a common good; it is in the political community that it finds its fullest realisation.
51 53Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, § 168: responsibility for realising the common good belongs especially to the State, since the common good is the reason for the existence of political authority.
52Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1911: human interdependence extending to the whole earth, the common good takes on a universal dimension, involving rights and duties concerning the whole human race.
55Maxim traditionally attributed to Pius XI: "politics is the field of the broadest charity, political charity". It sums up the doctrine of social charity developed notably in Quadragesimo anno (1931) and taken up by the later Magisterium (cf. Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, § 207).
64Gospel according to Saint Mark, 10:45: "For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Cf. Matthew 20:28.
67First Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, 15:28: "that God may be everything to every one" (ut sit Deus omnia in omnibus). The biblical image of the heavenly city as the perfect common good.
70