CSDC 526

The Church's social doctrine provides the fundamental criteria for pastoral action in the area of social activity: proclaiming the Gospel; placing the Gospel message in the context of social realities; planning actions aimed at the renewal of these realities; and conforming them to the demands of Christian morality. A new evangelization of society requires first of all the proclamation of the Gospel: God saves every person and the whole person in Jesus Christ. It is this proclamation that reveals man to himself and that must become the principle for interpreting social realities. In proclaiming the Gospel, the social dimension is an essential and unavoidable but not the only dimension. It is a dimension that must reveal the unlimited possibilities of Christian salvation, even if it is not possible in time to conform social realities perfectly and definitively to the Gospel. No results attained, not even the most spectacular, can escape the limits of human freedom and the eschatological tension of every created reality¹¹¹⁷ Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 48: AAS 80AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 80 (1988) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1988), 583-584..