Heavenly Agents of Earthly Change

Living the Challenge of Vatican II

One of the last documents to come out of Vatican II was the pastoral constitution On the "Church in the Modern World" ("Gaudium et Spes"). Similar to many of the other council documents, "Gaudium et Spes" set the Church on a new course.

But Gaudium et Spes still set itself apart because it was the first time that the Council Fathers spoke directly to the peo­ple of the world and not just to each other or to the Catholic population. So in this article, we want to look at Gaudium et Spes to see what the Church’s message to the world is—and what the Church’s message to all of us is as well.

A Big, Broad Church. Gaudium et Spes marked a dramatic shift of focus, a shift that the Council Fathers pointed to in the very first words of the document:

The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the…