“It is of great importance to recall the common good, one of the cornerstones of the Church’s social teaching.” Pope Francis stressed this in his letter to an event – a “Dialogue on Common Good: Theory and Practice” – organized by the Pontifical Academy for Life and taking place on 14 November in the Vatican.

In addition, the Holy Father recalled, the common good is, “above all,” a “practice made up of fraternal acceptance and a shared search for truth and justice.” “In our world marked by so many conflicts and divisions, which are often the result of an inability to look beyond individual interests,” the Pope lamented. Moreover, he stressed, “We need solid economic theories that embrace and develop this theme in its specifics so that it can become an effective guiding principle in political decision-making” and “not merely a category often invoked in words, but disregarded in practice.”