EVANGELII GAUDIUM - page 145

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enjoyment of everyone. It follows that Christian
conversion demands reviewing especially those
areas and aspects of life “related to the social or-
der and the pursuit of the common good”.149
183. Consequently, no one can demand that re-
ligion should be relegated to the inner sanctum
of personal life, without influence on societal and
national life, without concern for the soundness
of civil institutions, without a right to offer an
opinion on events affecting society. Who would
claim to lock up in a church and silence the mes-
sage of Saint Francis of Assisi or Blessed Teresa
of Calcutta? They themselves would have found
this unacceptable. An authentic faith – which is
never comfortable or completely personal – al-
ways involves a deep desire to change the world,
to transmit values, to leave this earth somehow
better that we found it. We love this magnificent
planet on which God has put us, and we love
the human family which dwells here, with all its
tragedies and struggles, its hopes and aspirations,
its strengths and weaknesses. The earth is our
common home and all of us are brothers and
sisters. If indeed “the just ordering of society
and of the state is a central responsibility of pol-
itics”, the Church “cannot and must not remain
on the sidelines in the fight for justice”.150 All
149 J ohn P aul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation
Ecclesia in America (22 January 1999), 27: AAS 91 (1999), 762.
150 B enedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est (25
December 2005), 28: AAS 98 (2006), 239-240.