Bishop Emeritus Peter Cullinane has written a reflection exploring whether Christians sometimes underestimate their calling to help shape the society in which they live.
In Do We Underestimate Our Calling?, Bishop Peter begins by considering the influence of culture on the way people think, speak and act. Culture can provide a sense of order and belonging, but it can also cause attitudes and behaviours to become normalised without us recognising their influence. He points to examples including increasingly aggressive public discourse, the treatment of housing primarily as a commodity, the normalisation of war, and forms of individualism that place personal interests ahead of the common good.
Bishop Peter argues that Christians are called to engage critically with these influences rather than treating questions of society and politics as separate from their faith.
Our calling as Christians, he writes, involves recognising that the choices and systems shaping society have moral implications. Catholic social teaching, he says, does not provide specific social or economic policies, but offers moral guidance for how Christians think about these issues. At its heart is the dignity of every human person and the call to seek the common good.
Drawing on Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical The Grandeur of Humanity, Bishop Peter summarises several key principles of Catholic social teaching. These include the equal dignity of every person, the protection of human life, the responsibility to promote the common good, the universal destination of the earth’s goods, care for creation, hospitality towards migrants and refugees, and concern for those who are excluded or disadvantaged.
He also considers the implications of these principles in areas such as technology and artificial intelligence, employment, economic inequality and the use of natural resources. He highlights the principles of subsidiarity – allowing decisions to be made as close as possible to those affected by them – and solidarity, recognising that the future of each person is connected to the future of all.
Bishop Peter also reflects on the Christian call to peace. He emphasises that peace begins in the way people look at, listen to and speak about one another, and that genuine dialogue and negotiation are essential alternatives to conflict. “Do you want peace? Then do justice,” he writes.
The reflection concludes by returning to the deeper purpose of Christian life: recognising human dignity, responding to suffering with compassion, offering forgiveness, and continuing to grow towards the fullness of life in God.
Bishop Peter’s full reflection, Do We Underestimate Our Calling?, is available to read in full here.
You can read more of Bishop Peter’s writings here.