CSDC 125

The human person may never be thought of only as an absolute individual being, built up by himself and on himself, as if his characteristic traits depended on no one else but himself. Nor can the person be thought of as a mere cell of an organism that is inclined at most to grant it recognition in its functional role within the overall system. Reductionist conceptions of the full truth of men and women have already been the object of the Church's social concern many times, and she has not failed to raise her voice against these, as against other drastically reductive perspectives, taking care to proclaim instead that “individuals do not feel themselves isolated units, like grains of sand, but united by the very force of their nature and by their internal destiny, into an organic, harmonious mutual relationship”²³⁴ Pius XII, Encyclical Letter Summi Pontificatus: AAS 31AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 31 (1939) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1939), 463.. She has affirmed instead that man cannot be understood “simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism”²³⁵ John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 13: AAS 83AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 83 (1991) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1991), 809., and is therefore attentive that the affirmation of the primacy of the person is not seen as corresponding to an individualistic or mass vision.