Equality

"On the basis of this freedom which it has received and made concrete, the Church may and should be a community of fundamentally equal people. To be sure, we do not mean by this an egalitarianism that would put the multiplicity of gifts and ministries all on the same level; we mean rather that all members, whatever their differences among themselves, have the same fundamental rights. As advocate of Jesus Christ, it can never be the Church of a class, race, caste or officials. It is through a free decision that individuals have joined the community of faith or remain in it. Those who are unequal should be brought together here in a solidarity of love: rich and poor, high and low, educated and uneducated, white and non-white, men and women."—Why Priests, pages 30-31