RELIGIOUS AND HUMAN PROMOTION.

(Plenaria of the Sacred Congregation for Religious and for Secular Institutes, 25-28 April 1978).

INTRODUCTION

Importance and urgency of appropriate involvement of religious in integral human promotion

-- The evangelical demands of religious life find an incentive for renewal in the "signs of the times." The Church, in her mission to contemporary society, needs to study carefully the emerging phenomena that characterize our times. These indicate the areas of choice for evangelization and human promotion.

The teaching of the Magisterium, in fact, increasingly clarifies the profound links between the Gospel requirements of the Church's mission and the widespread commitment to the advancement of people and the creation of a worthy society.

Evangelization, for the Church, means bringing the Good News into all strata of humanity and through it transforming humanity itself from within: its criteria of discernment, its determinant values, its sources of inspiration, its designs for living, opening them up to a total vision of humanity (1).