Evangelium vitae proposes that the Church realize more fully the redemptive role envisioned by the Second Vatican Council: that of the Good Samaritan binding up the wounds of the person left near death by a culture that increasingly threatens the person struggling to be human. In his address to the last general meeting of the Council, Pope Paul VI summed up its work as a commitment by the Church to take upon itself the cause of each person struggling to fulfil his destiny in the midst of a multitude of threats to his dignity. We are, he said, "entirely on the side of man and in his service".

As was foreseen by the Council, Christians today confront a culture in the West whose understanding of the person, of reason, and of human action is radically different from much of the tradition which preceded it. The Enlightenment's critique of Christianity has subtly but nonetheless profoundly distorted Christianity's anthropology, vision of history and cultural premises. Its secularization of the Christian idea of reform (and of history) has resulted in a type of inversion of Christianity.

The Christian idea of reform focused primarily on the redemption of the individual human person and only secondarily on the relative perfectibility of political, social, economic and cultural structures. Instead, Modernity has sought the perfectibility of humanity through the realization of ideal political, social, economic and cultural structures. Of course, modernity also contained within itself the antithesis of this view in the radical individualism which has become prevalent throughout much of Europe and the United States.

Modern understanding of self replaced Christian vision

Post-modern philosophy, however, has cogently revealed modernity's faith in the inevitable moral progress of history as an illusion. From this perspective the problems of war, racism, genocide, environmental devastation, famine and poverty are regarded as endemic to the human condition and as incapable of resolution. This disillusionment has led to a profound pessimism in which even the capacity for hope seems threatened. That is why Auschwitz is so often held up as the symbol of modernity. As John Paul II writes In Evangelium vitae, "Faced with the countless grave threats to life present in the modern world, one could feel overwhelmed by sheer powerlessness: good can never be powerful enough to triumph over evill" (n. 29).

But this crisis in the self-identity of historical man now exists simultaneously with a crisis of personal man. The Enlightenment's proposal of an autonomous, rational individual as the criterion for modern culture is now regarded as myth. Kant's philosophy had for a time secured the persona of the autonomous, rational individual as the criterion of both personal and social integration. This rational individual was the source of social unity since, by choosing the moral good, the autonomous decision-maker was choosing for everyone similarly situated in society.

This modern understanding of the self had a sort of logic to it which displaced the Christian vision of the person but did not totally destroy it. From one vantage, it might be said that modernity was only a partial rejection of Christian anthropology since both understood the person as a self-possessed unity related to an objective order outside himself to which he was oriented in pursuit of the good. With Kant this source of unity was located inside the person but there remained two important links to the Christian tradition: personal actions were to be guided by universal maxims and human beings were to be treated as ends, never as means.

But, since Nietzsche, this reliance upon reason as the principle of personal integration has been increasingly abandoned. One result of this rejection of reason is that in contemporary society "truth claims" have become meaningless. Instead, what is now important is the recognition that all statements about truth or morality are nothing more than life-style choices representing a certain, cultural bias toward one set of narratives of human experience.

Contemporary man, for the first time, finds his freedom unhinged not only from the truth of an objective, external order but also from the truth of his inner self. This "deconstruction" of the core of the human self has diminished the possibility of authentic human communion and community. It has left the human person increasingly defenseless to accelerating threats from the anti-life culture of nihilism.

The internal collapse or "deconstruction" of modernity, both philosophically and culturally during the last quarter of this century, challenges the Church to undertake what Paul VI and John Paul II have described as a new evangelization. Three radical elements will pervade post-modern culture at the beginning of the third millennium: a rejection of the modern idea of progress as a moral principle, the rejection of an integrated concept of the rational self, and the resulting destabilization of personal relationships and social institutions. These developments will increasingly lead to ever greater threats against the dignity and integrity of the human person.

Kingdom of God is a person: Jesus Christ

The changes in culture and, more importantly, the changes in consciousness occurring with the entrance of post-modernism will be the central reality confronting the Church in the West. Evangelium vitae responds to this recently emergent way of thinking with a pastoral framework signaling a new engagement with contemporary culture. The old certainties have gone and no new ones have yet taken their place. Thus, the Church of the Good Samaritan is called to bring to society a new hope in the destiny of each human person, an integrated and authentic vision of human personhood which recognizes its great dignity, and finally the opportunity for human communion and community.

The challenge for Christianity in the present crisis is threefold. First, it is to recognize that its two-centuries old engagement with the "project" of modernity is drawing to an end through modernity's own internal disintegration. Much of the discourse of the "modern" past ought now to be abandoned. Second, the Church must avoid the threat of the Gospel message being reduced to simply of many "meta-narratives" of human experience, that is, simply one more ethical or value system presenting an ideological construction. Finally, it must present contemporary man with the opportunity to escape from the emerging culture of nihilism to regain his authentic personhood.

Thus, John Paul II writes in Redemptoris missio: "The kingdom of God is not a concept, a doctrine, or a programme subject to free interpretation, but it is before all else a person with the name of Jesus of Nazareth" (n. 18). It is only through an authentic communion with the author of personhood that the human being can hope to recapture what it means to be a human person.

The implications of this truth for the recovery of human reason, morality and authentic human personhood were set out in Veritatis splendor, and the very structure of the Encyclical may be seen as an exposition of this reality, beginning as it does with the encounter of Jesus with the rich young man. Such an encounter is central to Evangelium vitae and to its call for the People of God to become a "people of life and for life".

As John Paul II writes: "The Gospel of life is not simply a reflection, however new and profound, on human life.... The Gospel of life is something concrete and personal, for it consists in the proclamation of the very person of Jesus.... Through the words, the actions and the very person of Jesus, man is given the possibility of 'knowing' the complete truth concerning the value of human life" (n. 29).

The nearly universal embrace by Western culture of abortion, euthanasia, suicide and embryo manipulation can no longer be understood as a temporary deviation by basically healthy societies. Evangelium vitae responds to this "culture of death" with the realization that a comprehensive presentation of the Church's moral teaching on these issues is necessary but no longer sufficient for the depth of the present cultural crisis.

Encyclical calls man to his true identity

The increasingly dominant culture of death arises not merely from the rejection of certain moral truths but from an eclipse of the knowledge of the Creator which, in turn, has resulted in an eclipse of the knowledge and dignity of the human person. The human person, having lost the fundamental core of his identity, has found a diminished capacity for relationships with others. This diminished capacity has affected all his basic relationships including stability in marriage, family and society as well as the fundamental respect and protection afforded its weakest members.

Evangelium vitae seeks to rescue the human person from self-destruction by calling him to his true identity and greatness: "God has granted to man a dignity which Is near to divine. In every child which is born and In every person who lives or dies we see the image of God's glory ... an icon of Jesus Christ" (n. 84). From this beginning the People of God may go forward, not seeking to restore the past, but working to create, as "the people of life and for life" (n. 78) a new "civilization of love" (Letter to Families, n. 12) In which "the Gospel of life is to be celebrated above all In daily living, which should be filled with self-giving love for others" (Evengellurn vitae, n. 86).

Evangelium vitae holds out to us the promise that, like ancient Israel, postmodern culture may in its exodus "discover the preciousness of its life in the eyes of God". If so, then our age too will find, like Israel, that in this discovery is "the gift of an Identity, the recognition of an indestructible dignity and the beginning of a new history, in which the discovery of God and the discovery of self go hand in hand" (n. 31).