So, where is the program for a new society? Where is the blueprint for God's kingdom on earth?

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church has devoted 255 pages to outlining the principles of Catholic social teaching and how they generally apply to issues, ranging from the family to the environment to global poverty.

Joe Comuzzi lived all his life in Thunder Bay, Ont., raising four children along with his wife Janet and serving as a businessman and then a lawyer. He was involved in a variety of community activities ranging from little league baseball coach to serving on the board of St. Joseph Hospital.

As a youth, Karol Wojtyla was an actor. He was largely uninvolved in the political trials facing the Polish nation under Nazi occupation. The future pope took a longer-term view. He believed the way to change society is to change its culture.

As this series of articles nears the end of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, one questions lingers. Who is going to do all this stuff?

Sean O'Sullivan made history in 1972 when he was elected at age 20 as, at that time, Canada's youngest-ever member of Parliament. By his own account, O'Sullivan was a combative sort who mostly made his mark battling other members of his Progressive Conservative Party.

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church tends to approach most topics in its 255 pages of text in a cool, dispassionate manner. In places, it appears to be written more for academics than for the average layperson whose task it is to implement Church social teaching.

The Catholic Church has been one of the world's most outspoken opponents of war and also one of the strongest advocates of disarmament. It's a simple truth that if there were no weapons, there would be no wars. At the very least, the battles among peoples would be fought with sticks and rocks rather than with AK-47s and cruise missiles.

Pope John Paul II was rarely, if ever, more outspoken than in the months leading up to and then following the start of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In a Jan. 16, 1991 prayer, the pope called the war an "adventure without return."

Dictionaries tend to define the word "peace" negatively. Peace is an absence of war, an absence of conflict. Inner peace is an absence of inner turmoil.

Hunting and gathering societies were likely the societies that walked most lightly upon the earth. People got their food by gathering the produce of the trees and fields and flowers and by killing animals as they needed them to eat.