Two words that are joined together throughout the CDF’s 1986 Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation are “truth” and “justice.” The latter is often described as gesturing toward an ideal. But Christianity affirms the eventual reality of “a finally perfect justice for the living and the dead.” This is discussed in Paragraphs 59-60:
The final meeting with Christ
59. The transfiguration by the Risen Christ of the Church at the end of her pilgrimage in no way cancels out the personal destiny of each individual at the end of his or her life. All those found worthy before Christ’s tribunal for having, by the grace of God, made good use of their free will are to receive the reward of happiness.(80) They will be made like to God, for they will see him as he is.(81) The divine gift of eternal happiness is the exaltation of the greatest freedom which can be imagined.
Eschatological hope and the commitment for temporal liberation
60. This hope does not weaken commitment to the progress of the earthly city, but rather gives it meaning and strength. It is of course important to make a careful distinction between earthly progress and the growth of the Kingdom, which do not belong to the same order. Nonetheless, this distinction is not a separation; for man’s vocation to eternal life does not suppress but confirms his task of using the energies and means which he has received from the Creator for developing his temporal life.(82) Enlightened by the Lord’s Spirit, Christ’s Church can discern in the signs of the times the ones which advance liberation and those that are deceptive and illusory. She calls man and societies to overcome situations of sin and injustice and to establish the conditions for true freedom. She knows that we shall rediscover all these good things – human dignity, fraternal union and freedom – which are the result of efforts in harmony with God’s will, “washed clean of all stain, illumined and transfigured when Christ will hand over to the Father the eternal and universal kingdom”,(83) which is a Kingdom of freedom. The vigilant and active expectation of the coming of the Kingdom is also the expectation of a finally perfect justice for the living and the dead, for people of all times and places, a justice which Jesus Christ, installed as supreme Judge, will establish.(84) This promise, which surpasses all human possibilities, directly concerns our life in this world. For true justice must include everyone; it must bring the answer to the immense load of suffering borne by all the generations. In fact, without the resurrection of the dead and the Lord’s judgment, there is no justice in the full sense of the term. The promise of the resurrection is freely made to meet the desire for true justice dwelling in the human heart.
(80) Cf. 1 Cor 13, 12; 2 Cor 5, 10. (81) Cf. 1 Jn 3, 2. (82) Cf. Gaudium et Spes, 39, § 2. (83) Cf. ibid., 39, § 3. (84) Cf. Mt 24, 29-44. 46; Acts 10, 42; 2 Cor 5, 10.