Endowing central governments with power is an irreversible process. Every central government of every known, practising political system has tended to take more and more power: some until the governmental shadow is omnipresent in everyone's life.
2. The complex circumstances of our day make it necessary for public authority to intervene more often in social, economic and cultural matters in order to bring about favourable conditions which will give more effective help to citizens and groups in their free pursuit of man's total well-being. The relations, however, between socialization[7] and the autonomy and development of the person can be understood in different ways according to various regions and the evolution of peoples. But when the exercise of rights is restricted temporarily for the common good, freedom should be restored immediately upon change of circumstances. Moreover, it is inhuman for public authority to fall back on dictatorial systems or totalitarian methods which violate the rights of the person or social groups. (Second Vatican Council. Gaudium et Spes, 1965).