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In the face of the widespread injustice, inequalities and imbalances that keep
the majority of the world population in poverty and misery, and in view of
fostering in all nations and in the international community the justice and love
of Christ for the poor, the Second Vatican Council called for the creation of
some organ of the universal Church to be entrusted with the task of arousing the
Catholic community to promote the progress of areas in want and to foster
social justice among nations (Gaudium et Spes, no. 90).
In response to this call
Pope Paul VI, in 1967 established the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
through which the Church attends to issues related to justice, peace,
development and human rights. Since the proclamation of justice and peace is
an integral part of proclaiming the Gospel, this organ or similar organs were
also to be established in local and particular Churches.
This informed the
establishment of the Catholic Welfare Committee in the early 1960s which
became the Justice, Development and Peace Committee by the Catholic
Bishops' Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) in 1976.
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Vision of the Church...
Our faith demands that we design God's appeal to humanity through the signs
of the times to bear evangelical witness, to proclaim and promote Gospel values
and to denounce in society what is contrary to the dignity of the children of God.
Since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has continued to repeat that the
nature of evil which faces us with respect to the development of peoples is the
question of a moral evil, the fruit of many sins which lead to the structures of sin.
This is opposed to God's plan for humanity and must be overcome as a major
step towards an authentic liberation (cf. SRS 37; 46).
In this light, the Church always keeps in mind that the essential mission
entrusted to her by Christ is not one of political, economic or social order. It is a
religious one, to bring about the Kingdom of God within the Church and
Society. Such a mission gives new insights, produces new energies and imposes
new tasks on the Church that can contribute towards building up of a human
community according to the divine law (cf. GS 42).
By proclaiming the truth
about Christ, about herself and about man and woman, the Church makes her
primary and essential contribution to the solution of the urgent problem of
human and social development, liberation and peace. (cf. SRS no.41).
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