We reach out to others

The Catholic community's life of mutual support doesn't just apply to Catholics. It naturally extends out to the wider community.

This can happen on a personal level wherever Catholics show hospitality and friendship to their non-Catholic friends. It also happens in a more structured way through Catholic organisations, such as:

• Catholic hospitals
• Schools
• Counselling services
• AIDS clinics
• Missionary and relief agencies
• Organisations that care for the poor and homeless

As well as a compassionate face, there is a confrontative edge to the way the Catholic Church reaches out to the wider society. Wherever people are oppressed by circumstances such as war, unjust social conditions or political persecution, the Church accepts a responsibility to work for peace and justice.

Explicitly or implicitly, a Christian influence is often at work in broader movements of social and political change.