Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church - The Diigo Meta page

• 25 Dec 22
  

  Ed Dodds

  Compendium of the Social Doctrine Church

• 08 Jan 22
  

  cleitner_

  "IV. "

  • 20.
  • God is seen as the origin of what exists, as the presence that guarantees to men and women organized in a society the basic conditions of life, placing at their disposal the goods that are necessary.
  • Moral existence is a response to the Lord's loving initiative
  • The Ten Commandments, which constitute an extraordinary path of life and indicate the surest way for living in freedom from slavery to sin, contain a privileged expression of the natural law. They “teach us the true humanity of man. They bring to light the essential duties, and therefore, indirectly, the fundamental rights inherent in the nature of the human person”[25]. They describe universal human morality.
  • aw of the sabbatical year (celebrated every seven years) and that of the jubilee year (celebrated every fifty years)
  • fallow
  • these laws call for the cancellation of debts and a general release of persons and goods: everyone is free to return to his family of origin and to regain possession of his birthright.
  • his legislation is designed to ensure that the salvific event of the Exodus and fidelity to the Covenant represents not only the founding principle of Israel's social, political and economic life, but also the principle for dealing with questions concerning economic poverty and social injustices.
  • The precepts of the sabbatical and jubilee years constitute a kind of social doctrine in miniature
  • solidarity
  • gratuitousness
  • In fact, God freely confers being and life on everything that exists. Man and woman, created in his image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:26-27), are for that very reason called to be the visible sign and the effective instrument of divine gratuitousness in the garden where God has placed them as cultivators and custodians of the goods of creation.
  • It is in the free action of God the Creator that we find the very meaning of creation, even if it has been distorted by the experience of sin.
  • Disobedience to God means hiding from his loving countenance and seeking to control one's life and action in the world.
  • Jesus, in other words, is the tangible and definitive manifestation of how God acts towards men and women.
  • Meditating on the gratuitousness and superabundance of the Father's divine gift of the Son, which Jesus taught and bore witness to by giving his life for us, the Apostle John grasps its profound meaning and its most logical consequence. “Beloved, if God so loves us, we also ought to love one another. No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 Jn 4:11-12).
  • Being a person in the image and likeness of God ... involves existing in a relationship, in relation to the other ‘I'”[36], because God himself, one and triune, is the communion of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
  • man can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself
  • The inner transformation of the human person, in his being progressively conformed to Christ, is the necessary prerequisite for a real transformation of his relationships with others.
  • It is necessary, then, to appeal to the spiritual and moral capacities of the human person and to the permanent need for his inner conversion, so as to obtain social changes that will really serve him. The acknowledged priority of the conversion of heart in no way eliminates but on the contrary imposes the obligation of bringing the appropriate remedies to institutions and living conditions when they are an inducement to sin, so that they conform to the norms of justice and advance the good rather than hinder it”[43].
  • It is not possible to love one's neighbour as oneself and to persevere in this conduct without the firm and constant determination to work for the good of all people and of each person, because we are all really responsible for everyone
  • For without the Creator, the creature would disappear”[49].
  • The human person, in himself and in his vocation, transcends the limits of the created universe, of society and of history: his ultimate end is God himself[50], who has revealed himself to men in order to invite them and receive them into communion with himself
  • The human person cannot and must not be manipulated by social, economic or political structures, because every person has the freedom to direct himself towards his ultimate end.
  • It follows from this, in particular, that the Church is not to be confused with the political community and is not bound to any political system
  • God, in Christ, redeems not only the individual person but also the social relations existing between men
  • The dynamics of this renewal must be firmly anchored in the unchangeable principles of the natural law, inscribed by God the Creator in each of his creatures
  • Mutual love, in fact, sharing in the infinite love of God, is humanity's authentic purpose, both historical and transcendent.
  • 87
  • 88.
  • 89.
  • 90.
  • 91.
  • 97.
  • 98.
  • Development that benefits everyone responds to the demands of justice on a global scale that guarantees worldwide peace and makes it possible to achieve a “complete humanism” [184] guided by spiritual values.
  • 105.
  • In Christ the Lord, the Church indicates and strives to be the first to embark upon the path of the human person[198], and she invites all people to recognize in everyone — near and far, known and unknown, and above all in the poor and the suffering — a brother or sister “for whom Christ died” (1 Cor 8:11; Rom 14:15)
  • 106.
  • 104.
  • every expression of society must be directed towards the human person.
  • The whole of the Church's social doctrine, in fact, develops from the principle that affirms the inviolable dignity of the human person
  • 107.
  • “man painstakingly searches for a better world, without working with equal zeal for the betterment of his own spirit”
  • 108.
  • Further, he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead
  • 109
  • The whole of man's life is a quest and a search for God.
  • This relationship with God can be ignored or even forgotten or dismissed, but it can never be eliminated.
  • The human being is a personal being created by God to be in relationship with him; man finds life and self-expression only in relationship, and tends naturally to God.
  • 110
  • In one's neighbour, whether man or woman, there is a reflection of God himself, the definitive goal and fulfilment of every person
  • 111
  • Indeed, the human couple can participate in God's act of creation:
  • 112
  • 113
  • their dominion over the world requires the exercise of responsibility, it is not a freedom of arbitrary and selfish exploitation.
  • All of creation in fact has value and is “good” (cf. Gen 1:4,10,12,18,21,25) in the sight of God, who is its author.
  • 114.
  • When he listens to the deep aspirations of his heart, no person can fail to make his own the words of truth expressed by Saint Augustine: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you”[221].
  • 115.
  • By this gesture, man tries to break through his limits as a creature, challenging God, his sole Lord and the source of his life. It is a sin of disobedience (cf. Rom 5:19) that separates man from God[222].
  • At the root of personal and social divisions, which in differing degrees offend the value and dignity of the human person, there is a wound which is present in man's inmost self. “In the light of faith we call it sin: beginning with original sin, which all of us bear from birth as an inheritance from our first parents, to the sin which each one of us commits when we abuse our own freedom
  • 116
  • Man's rupture with God leads tragically to divisions between brothers.
  • 117.
  • Every sin is personal under a certain aspect; under another, every sin is social, insofar as and because it also has social consequences. In its true sense, sin is always an act of the person, because it is the free act of an individual person and not properly speaking of a group or community. The character of social sin can unquestionably be ascribed to every sin, taking into account the fact that “by virtue of human solidarity which is as mysterious and intangible as it is real and concrete, each individual's sin in some way affects others”[
  • At the bottom of every situation of sin there is always the individual who sins.
  • 118.
  • Social too is every sin against the rights of the human person, starting with the right to life, including that of life in the womb, and every sin against the physical integrity of the individual; every sin against the freedom of others, especially against the supreme freedom to believe in God and worship him; and every sin against the dignity and honour of one's neighbour. Every sin against the common good and its demands, in the whole broad area of rights and duties of citizens, is also social sin.
  • 119
  • The actions and attitudes opposed to the will of God and the good of neighbour, as well as the structures arising from such behaviour, appear to fall into two categories today: “on the one hand, the all-consuming desire for profit, and on the other, the thirst for power, with the intention of imposing one's will upon others. In order to characterize better each of these attitudes, one can add the expression: ‘at any price”'[230].
  • “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 Jn 1:8). This doctrine encourages men and women not to remain in guilt and not to take guilt lightly, continuously seeking scapegoats in other people and justification in the environment, in heredity, in institutions, in structures and in relationships.
  • According to the New Testament, all creation, together indeed with all humanity, awaits the Redeemer: subjected to futility, creation reaches out full of hope, with groans and birth pangs, longing to be freed from decay (cf. Rom 8:18-22).
  • “For God has willed that man remain ‘under the control of his own decisions' (Sir 15:14), so that he can seek his Creator spontaneously, and come freely to utter and blissful perfection through loyalty to Him. Hence man's dignity demands that he act according to a knowing and free choice that is personally motivated and prompted from within, neither under blind internal impulse nor by mere external pressure”[252].
  • freedom not only allows man suitably to modify the state of things outside of himself, but it also determines the growth of his being as a person
  • 136.
  • But his freedom is not unlimited: it must halt before the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil', for it is called to accept the moral law given by God. In fact, human freedom finds its authentic and complete fulfilment precisely in the acceptance of that law”
  • 137
  • By deviating from the moral law man violates his own freedom, becomes imprisoned within himself, disrupts neighbourly fellowship and rebels against divine truth”[259]. Removing injustices promotes human freedom and dignity: nonetheless, “the first thing to be done is to appeal to the spiritual and moral capacities of the individual and to the permanent need for inner conversion, if one is to achieve the economic and social changes that will truly be at the service of man”[260].
  • In the exercise of their freedom, men and women perform morally good acts that are constructive for the person and for society when they are obedient to truth, that is, when they do not presume to be the creators and absolute masters of truth or of ethical norms[261].
  • 138.
  • 139.
  • 135.
  • The exercise of freedom implies a reference to a natural moral law, of a universal character, that precedes and unites all rights and duties[265]. The natural law “is nothing other than the light of intellect infused within us by God. Thanks to this, we know what must be done and what must be avoided.
  • 140.
  • The natural law expresses the dignity of the person and lays the foundations of the person's fundamental duties[269].
  • 141
  • Its precepts, however, are not clearly and immediately perceived by everyone.
  • 142.
  • If the perception of the universality of the moral law is dimmed, people cannot build a true and lasting communion with others, because when a correspondence between truth and good is lacking, “whether culpably or not, our acts damage the communion of persons, to the detriment of each”[276]. Only freedom rooted in a common nature, in fact, can make all men responsible and enable them to justify public morality.
  • Human freedom needs therefore to be liberated. Christ, by the power of his Paschal Mystery, frees man from his disordered love of self[279], which is the source of his contempt for his neighbour and of those relationships marked by domination of others.
  • 143.
  • 149.
  • Social life therefore is not exterior to man: he can only grow and realize his vocation in relation with others”[298].
  • 150.
  • It is out of love for one's own good and for that of others that people come together in stable groups with the purpose of attaining a common good.
  • The different human societies also must establish among themselves relationships of solidarity, communication and cooperation, in the service of man and the common good[300].
  • 151.
  • In fact, the common good depends on a healthy social pluralism.
  • To promote the participation of the greatest number in the life of a society, the creation of voluntary associations and institutions must be encouraged ‘on both national and international levels, which relate to economic and social goals, to cultural and recreational activities, to sport, to various professions, and to political affairs'.
  • This dignity must be respected in its specific characteristics and must be safeguarded against any attempt to undermine it.
  • Its indissoluble character and its value of communion remain even when children, although greatly desired, do not arrive to complete conjugal life.
  • Intimately united to the Church by virtue of the sacrament that makes it a “domestic Church” or a “little Church”, the Christian family is called therefore “to be a sign of unity for the world and in this way to exercise its prophetic role by bearing witness to the Kingdom and peace of Christ, towards which the whole world is journeying”[489].
  • Conjugal charity, which flows from the very charity of Christ
  • offering each other mutual help on the path to holiness
  • By their very lives they are called to bear witness to and proclaim the religious meaning of marriage, which modern society has ever greater difficulty recognizing, especially as it accepts relativistic perspectives of the natural foundation itself of the institution of marriage.
  • To love means to give and to receive something which can be neither bought nor sold, but only given freely and mutually
  • Love causes man to find fulfilment through the sincere gift of self
  • The existence of families living this way exposes the failings and contradictions of a society that is for the most part, even if not exclusively, based on efficiency and functionality
  • By constructing daily a network of interpersonal relationships, both internal and external, the family is instead “the first and irreplaceable school of social life, and example and stimulus for the broader community relationships marked by respect, justice, dialogue and love”
  • In short, it is not just a question of doing something for older people, but also of accepting them in a realistic way as partners in shared projects — at the level of thought, dialogue and action”
  • The human being is made for love and cannot live without love.
  • In a society that tends more and more to relativize and trivialize the very experience of love and sexuality, exalting its fleeting aspects and obscuring its fundamental values, it is more urgent than ever to proclaim and bear witness that the truth of conjugal love and sexuality exist where there is a full and total gift of persons, with the characteristics of unity and fidelity
  • the Church does not tire of repeating her teaching: “Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity.
  • it is obligatory that positive law be conformed to the natural law, according to which sexual identity is indispensable, because it is the objective condition for forming a couple in marriage
  • The responsibility for protecting and promoting the family as a fundamental natural institution, precisely in consideration of its vital and essential aspects, falls to the whole of society
  • The introduction of divorce into civil legislation has fuelled a relativistic vision of the marriage bond and is broadly manifested as it becomes “truly a plague on society
  • Couples who preserve and develop the value of indissolubilit
  • perform
  • a ‘sign
  • of the unfailing fidelity with which God and Jesus Christ love each and every human being
  • Marriage is not a simple agreement to live together but a relationship with a social dimension that is unique with regard to all other relationships, since the family — attending as it does to caring for and educating children — is the principal instrument for making each person grow in an integral manner and integrating him positively into social life.
  • 239
  • Parents have the duty and right to impart a religious education and moral formation to their children
  • Parents have the right to choose the formative tools that respond to their convictions and to seek those means that will help them best to fulfil their duty as educators, in the spiritual and religious sphere also.
  • The refusal to provide public economic support to non-public schools that need assistance and that render a service to civil society is to be considered an injustice. “Whenever the State lays claim to an educational monopoly, it oversteps its rights and offends justice ... The State cannot without injustice merely tolerate so-called private schools. Such schools render a public service and therefore have a right to financial assistance”[549].
  • Being first of all instruments of solidarity and justice, unions may not misuse the tools of contention; because of what they are called to do, they must overcome the temptation of believing that all workers should be union-members, they must be capable of self-regulation and be able to evaluate the consequences that their decisions will have on the common good.
  • CHAPTER SEVEN
  • a. Man, poverty and riches
  • On the other hand, economic goods and riches are not in themselves condemned so much as their misuse.
  • usury
  • Those who recognize their own poverty before God, regardless of their situation in life, receive particular attention from him: when the poor man seeks, the Lord answers; when he cries out, the Lord listens.
  • In this, man is called to render justice to the poor, releasing the oppressed, consoling the afflicted, actively seeking a new social order in which adequate solutions to material poverty are offered and in which the forces thwarting the attempts of the weakest to free themselves from conditions of misery and slavery are more effectively controlled.
  • Good administration of the gifts received, and of material goods also, is a work of justice towards oneself and towards others.
  • What has been received should be used properly, preserved and increased, as suggested by the parable of the talents
  • Christ is ‘the firstborn of all creation,' and that ‘all things were created through him' and for him
  • any type of improper accumulation is immoral, because it openly contradicts the universal destination assigned to all goods by the Creator.
  • Christian salvation is an integral liberation of man, which means being freed not only from need but also in respect to possessions.
  • “For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith”
  • Riches fulfil their function of service to man when they are destined to produce benefits for others and for society.
  • Wealth, explains Saint Basil, is like water that issues forth from the fountain: the greater the frequency with which it is drawn, the purer it is, while it becomes foul if the fountain remains unused.
  • The rich man — Saint Gregory the Great will later say — is only an administrator of what he possesses; giving what is required to the needy is a task that is to be performed with humility because the goods do not belong to the one who distributes them. He who retains riches only for himself is not innocent; giving to those in need means paying a debt.
  • The economy, in fact, whether on a scientific or practical level, has not been entrusted with the purpose of fulfilling man or of bringing about proper human coexistence. Its task, rather, is partial: the production, distribution and consumption of material goods and services.
  • The growth of wealth, seen in the availability of goods and services, and the moral demands of an equitable distribution of these must inspire man and society as a whole to practise the essential virtue of solidarity,[694] in order to combat, in a spirit of justice and charity, those “structures of sin” [695] where ever they may be found and which generate and perpetuate poverty, underdevelopment and degradation. These structures are built and strengthened by numerous concrete acts of human selfishness.
  • When practised morally, economic activity is therefore service mutually rendered by the production of goods and services that are useful for the growth of each person, and it becomes an opportunity for every individual to embody solidarity and live the vocation of “communion with others for which God created him”
  • In this sense, the Church's social Magisterium warns against the treachery hidden within a development that is only quantitative, for the “excessive availability of every kind of material goods for the benefit of certain social groups, easily makes people slaves of ‘possession' and of immediate gratification ... This is the so-called civilization of ‘consumption' or ‘consumerism' “
  • In this way, the role of disciplined and creative human work and, as an essential part of that work, initiative and entrepreneurial ability becomes increasingly evident and decisive”.[705] At the basis of this teaching we can see the belief that “man's principal resource is man himself. His intelligence enables him to discover the earth's productive potential and the many different ways in which human needs can be satisfied
  • businesses create wealth for all of society, not just for the owners but also for the other subjects involved in their activity.
  • create programmes of real cooperation among the different partners in labour.
  • It is essential that within a business the legitimate pursuit of profit should be in harmony with the irrenounceable protection of the dignity of the people who work at different levels in the same company.
  • “Those whose usurious and avaricious dealings lead to the hunger and death of their brethren in the human family indirectly commit homicide, which is imputable to them”.
  • It is also their precise duty to respect concretely the human dignity of those who work within the company.
  • These workers constitute “the firm's most valuable asset” [720] and the decisive factor of production.
  • 346
  • I am thinking here for example about the right to food and drinkable water, to housing and security, to self-determination and independence – which are still far from being guaranteed and realized”.[755]
  • A sense of alienation and loss of their own humanity has made people feel reduced to the role of cogs in the machinery of production and consumption and they find no way to affirm their own dignity as persons made in the image and likeness of God”
  • The life of man, just like the social life of the community, must not be reduced to its materialistic dimension, even if material goods are extremely necessary both for mere survival and for improving the quality of life. “An increased sense of God and increased self-awareness are fundamental to any full development of human society”.
  • Submission, not passive but “for the sake of conscience” (Rom 13:5), to legitimate authority responds to the order established by God
  • The Apostle certainly does not intend to legitimize every authority so much as to help Christians to “take thought for what is noble in the sight of all” (Rom 12:17), including their relations with the authorities, insofar as the authorities are at the service of God for the good of the person (cf. Rom 13:4; 1 Tim 2:1-2; Tit 3:1) and “to execute [God's] wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom 13:4).
  • It concerns free and responsible obedience to an authority that causes justice to be respected, ensuring the common good.
  • God is the one Father, and Christ the one Teacher, of all mankind, and all people are brothers and sisters. Sovereignty belongs to God.
  • They should behave as ministers of divine providence”.[773]
  • Only in relation to the Transcendent and to others does the human person reach the total and complete fulfilment of himself. This means that for the human person, a naturally social and political being, “social life is not something added on” [776] but is part of an essential and indelible dimension.
  • Positive law must guarantee that fundamental human needs are met.
  • Justice requires that everyone should be able to enjoy their own goods and rights; this can be considered the minimum measure of love.
  • 396
  • On the one hand, encouraging the re-insertion of the condemned person into society; on the other, fostering a justice that reconciles, a justice capable of restoring harmony in social relationships disrupted by the criminal act committed.
  • is
  • B. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE POLITICAL COMMUNITY
  • In the definitive witness of love that God has made manifest in the cross of Christ, all the barriers of enmity have already been torn down (cf. Eph 2:12-18), and for those who live a new life in Christ, racial and cultural differences are no longer causes of division (cf. Rom 10:12; Gal 3:26-28; Col 3:11).
  • n the democratic system, political authority is accountable to the people.
  • peoples tend to unite not only because of various forms of organization, politics, economic plans or in the name of an abstract ideological internationalism, but because they freely seek to cooperate, aware “that they are living members of the whole human family”
  • The unity of the human family has always existed, because its members are human beings all equal by virtue of their natural dignity. Hence there will always exist the objective need to promote, in sufficient measure, the universal common good, which is the common good of the entire human family”
  • It is necessary to guarantee a real pluralism in this delicate area of social life, ensuring that there are many forms and instruments of information and communications. It is likewise necessary t
  • In this perspective, special attention should be given to the fact that there is still no international agreement that adequately addresses “the rights of nations”,[893] the preparation of which could profitably deal with questions concerning justice and freedom in today's world.
  • Juridical and theological reflection, firmly based on natural law, has formulated “universal principles which are prior to and superior to the internal law of States”,[899] such as the unity of the human race, the equal dignity of every people, the rejection of war as a means for resolving disputes, the obligation to cooperate for attaining the common good and the need to be faithful to agreements undertaken (pacta sunt servanda).
  • This participation, which is to be public, has to be genuinely representative and not skewed in favour of special interest groups when the media are a money-making venture
  • In short, “international law must ensure that the law of the more powerful does not prevail”.[
  • Civil society is in fact multifaceted and irregular; it does not lack its ambiguities and contradictions. It is also the arena where different interests clash with one another, with the risk that the stronger will prevail over the weaker.
  • The public authority of the world community is not intended to limit the sphere of action of the public authority of the individual political community, much less to take its place. On the contrary, its purpose is to create, on a world basis, an environment in which the public authorities of each political community, their citizens and intermediate associations can carry out their tasks, fulfil their duties and exercise their rights with greater security”
  • V. INTERNATIONAL C
  • The Church is organized in ways that are suitable to meet the spiritual needs of the faithful, while the different political communities give rise to relationships and institutions that are at the service of everything that is part of the temporal common good.
  • It may seem that underdevelopment is impossible to eliminate, as though it were a death sentence, especially considering the fact that it is not only the result of erroneous human choices but also the consequence of “economic, financial and social mechanisms”[926] and “structures of sin”[927] that prevent the full development of men and peoples.
  • For her part, the Church has no particular area of competence concerning the structures of the political community: “The Church respects the legitimate autonomy of the democratic order and is not entitled to express preferences for this or that institutional or constitutional solution”,[868] nor does it belong to her to enter into questions of the merit of political programmes, except as concerns their religious or moral implications.
  • the right to development is based on the following principles: unity of origin and a shared destiny of the human family; equality between every person and between every community based on human dignity; the universal destination of the goods of the earth; the notion of development in its entirety; and the centrality of the human person and solidarity.
  • The fight against poverty finds a strong motivation in the option or preferential love of the Church for the poor.
  • The poor should be seen “not as a problem, but as people who can become the principal builders of a new and more human future for everyone”.
  • At the international level there are the fluctuation of exchange rates, financial speculation and economic neo-colonialism; within individual debtor countries there is corruption, poor administration of public monies or the improper utilization of loans received.
  • CHAPTER TEN
  • The Council Fathers also emphasize the fact that “the greater man's power becomes, the farther his individual and community responsibility extends”[951]
  • we know that this potential is not neutral: it can be used either for man's progress or for his degradation”[958].
  • Peace is threatened when man is not given all that is due him as a human person, when his dignity is not respected and when civil life is not directed to the common good.
  • can flourish only when all recognize that everyone is responsible for promoting it
  • the fruit of “that harmony structured into human society by its Divine Founder and which must be actualized by men as they aspire for ever greater justice
  • Violence destroys what it claims to defend: the dignity, the life, the freedom of human beings”
  • War is a “scourge” [1035] and is never an appropriate way to resolve problems that arise between nations, “it has never been and it will never be”,[1036] because it creates new and still more complicated conflicts.[1037] When it erupts, war becomes an “unnecessary massacre”,[1038] an “adventure without return”[1039] that compromises humanity's present and threatens its future.
  • States do not always possess adequate means to provide effectively for their own defence, from this derives the need and importance of international and regional organizations
  • To be licit, the use of force must correspond to certain strict conditions: “the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave and certain; all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; there must be serious prospects of success; the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.
  • Every member of the armed forces is morally obliged to resist orders that call for perpetrating crimes against the law of nations and the universal principles of this law.[1056] Military personnel remain fully responsible for the acts they commit in violation of the rights of individuals and peoples, or of the norms of international humanitarian law. Such acts cannot be justified by claiming obedience to the orders of superiors.
  • It seems just that laws should make humane provision for the case of conscientious objectors who refuse to carry arms, provided they accept some other form of community service”
  • Far too often, the civilian population is hit and at times even becomes a target of war.
  • In some cases, they are brutally massacred or taken from their homes and land by forced transfers, under the guise of “ethnic cleansing”,[1058] which is always unacceptable.
  • Concern for refugees must lead us to reaffirm and highlight universally recognized human rights, and to ask that the effective recognition of these rights be guaranteed to refugees”
  • Sanctions must never be used as a means for the direct punishment of an entire population: it is not licit that entire populations, and above all their most vulnerable members, be made to suffer because of such sanctions. Economic sanctions in particular are an instrument to be used with great discernment and must be subjected to strict legal and ethical criteria.
  • The Church's social teaching proposes the goal of “general, balanced and controlled disarmament”.[1067] The enormous increase in arms represents a grave threat to stability and peace.
  • The arms race does not ensure peace. Far from eliminating the causes of war, it risks aggravating them”
  • Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation”
  • The position of States that apply severe controls on the international transfer of heavy arms while they never, or only very rarely, restrict the sale and trafficking of small arms and light weapons is an unacceptable contradiction. It is indispensable and urgent that Governments adopt appropriate measures to control the production, stockpiling, sale and trafficking of such arms
  • in order to stop their growing proliferation, in large part among groups of combatants that are not part of the military forces of a State.
  • It is th

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• 12 Apr 14
  

  Tim Parks
  • The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to certain forms of  centralization, bureaucratization, and welfare assistance and to the unjustified  and excessive presence of the State in public mechanisms. “By intervening  directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance  State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public  agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by  concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous  increase in spending”[400]. An absent or insufficient recognition of  private initiative — in economic matters also — and the failure to recognize its  public function, contribute to the undermining of the principle of subsidiarity,  as monopolies do as well.
• 28 Nov 13
  

  Dom TM

  d.social.justice catholic

  • God, in Christ, redeems  not only the individual person but also the social relations existing between  men. As the Apostle Paul teaches, life in Christ  makes the human person's identity and social sense — with their concrete  consequences on the historical and social planes — emerge fully and in a new  manner: “For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God, through faith. For as  many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither  Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you  are all one in Christ” (Gal 3:26-28). In this perspective, Church  communities, brought together by the message of Jesus Christ and gathered in the  Holy Spirit round the Risen Lord (cf. Mt 18:20, 28:19-20; Lk  24:46-49), offer themselves as places of communion, witness and mission, and as  catalysts for the redemption and transformation of social relationships.
  • The transformation of  social relationships that responds to the demands of the Kingdom of God is not  fixed within concrete boundaries once and for all. Rather, it is a task  entrusted to the Christian community, which is to develop it and carry it out  through reflection and practices inspired by the Gospel.
• 08 Jul 13
  

  amyargenal
• 04 Jul 13
  

  Chris Williams

  Justice Religion Theology Catholic

• 07 Oct 12
  

  Ryan Wiles

  catholicism CST 'Catholic Social Teaching

• 31 Aug 12
  

  Amanda Stueve

  catholicism compendiumofsocialdoctrine

  • Moral existence is a response to the Lord's  loving initiative. It is the acknowledgment and homage given to God and a  worship of thanksgiving. It is cooperation with the plan God pursues in  history”[24].
  • The Ten Commandments
  • These principles become the focus of the Prophets' preaching,  which seeks to internalize them. God's Spirit,  poured into the human heart — the Prophets proclaim — will make these same  sentiments of justice and solidarity, which reside in the Lord's heart, take  root in you
  • Then God's will,  articulated in the Decalogue given on Sinai, will be able to take root  creatively in man's innermost being. This process of internalization  gives rise to greater depth and realism in social action, making possible the  progressive universalization of attitudes of justice and solidarity, which  the people of the Covenant are called to have towards all men and women of every  people and nation.
  • The love that inspires  Jesus' ministry among men is the love that he has experienced in his intimate  union with the Father

  3 more annotations...

• 12 Aug 12
  

  emdiesus Diego

  religione community organizing

• 03 May 12
  

  Brian Jackson

  ARR catholicism

• 21 Aug 11
  

  cdegroot
  • Ecclesial
  • Ecclesial
  • time,  to whom she offers the legacy of her social doctrine, according to that style of  dialogue by which God himself, in his only-begotten Son made man, “addresses men  as his friends (cf. Ex 33:11; Jn 15:14-15) and move

  1 more annotation...

• 04 Jul 11
  

  Bede Library

  reference catholic Religion christianity vatican

• 12 May 11
  

  MN Books

  church religious doctrine

• 04 Apr 11
  

  Cindy Ellis

  education catholic catholicism

• 26 Jun 10
  

  waynebuck

  Collection of the Church's teachings on society and economics.

  Catholic_Church business_ethics

• 20 Apr 10
  

  Robert Vigliotti

  catholic social doctrine catholic church

• 26 Jan 10
  

  Ann Lusch

  compendium Catholic Social Teaching

  • people come to understand their own transcendent dignity,
  • hey  learn not to be satisfied with only themselves but to encounter their neighbour  in a network of relationships that are ever more authentically human.
  • Men and women who are made “new” by the love of God are able to change the rules  and the quality of relationships, transforming even social structures
  • Only love is capable of  radically transforming the relationships that men maintain among themselves
  • So many needy  brothers and sisters are waiting for help, s
  • human conscience, which senses that it is called to manage responsibly and  together with others the gift received. Proof of this is found in the  universal recognition of the golden rule, which expresses on the level of  human relations the injunction addressed by the Mystery to men and women:  “Whatever you wish that men should do to you, do so to them” (Mt 7:12)[23].
  • g — in  which God's love for man is made concrete
  • According to the Book of Exodus, the  Lord speaks these words to Moses: “I have seen the affliction of my people who  are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know  their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the  Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a  land flowing with milk and hon
  • The Ten Commandments,
  • “constitute the indispensable rules of all social life”[26].
  • the  Decalogue a commitment that concerns not only fidelity to the one true God, but  also the social relations among the people of the Covenant.
  • the right of the poor: “If  there is among you a poor man, one of your brethren, ... you shall not harden  your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your  hand to him, and lend him sufficient for his need”
  • “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you  shall not do him wrong. The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as  the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers  in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Lev 19:33-34
  • the law of the sabbatical year  (celebrated every seven years) and that of the jubilee  year (celebrated every fifty years
  • these laws call for the cancellation of debts and a general  release of persons and goods: everyone is free to return to his family of origin  and to regain possession of his birthright.
  • This legislation is designed to ensure that the salvific  event of the Exodus and fidelity to the Covenant represents not only the  founding principle of Israel's social, political and economic life, but also the  principle for dealing with questions concerning economic poverty and social  injustices.
  • These principles become the focus of the Prophets' preaching,  which seeks to internalize them.
  • God's Spirit,  poured into the human heart — the Prophets proclaim — will make these same  sentiments of justice and solidarity, which reside in the Lord's heart, take  root in you
  • Then God's will,  articulated in the Decalogue given on Sinai, will be able to take root  creatively in man's innermost being.
  • internalization
  • God freely confers being and life on everything that exists.
  • It is in the free action  of God the Creator that we find the very meaning of creation, even if it has  been distorted by the experience of sin.
  • Breaking the relation of communion with God causes
  • a rupture in the internal  unity of the human perso
  • It is in this original estrangement that are to be sought the deepest roots of  all the evils that afflict social relations between people, of all the  situations in economic and political life that attack the dignity of the person,  that assail justice and solidarity.
  • The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,  because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me  to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set  at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord”
  • “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). Jesus, in  other words, is the tangible and definitive manifestation of how God acts  towards men and women.
  • The love that inspires  Jesus' ministry among men is the love that he has experienced in his intimate  union with the Father.
  • Jesus announces the liberating mercy of God  to those whom he meets on his way, beginning with the poor, the marginalized,  the sinners
  • For Jesus, recognizing the Father's love means modelling his  actions on God's gratuitousness and mercy; it is these that generate new life.  It means becoming — by his very existence — the example and pattern of this for  his disciples.
  • Jesus' followers are called to live  like him
  • Saint Paul writes: “If God is for us, who is against  us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not  also give us all things with him?” (Rom 8:31-32)
  • God's gratuitous love  for humanity is revealed, before anything else, as love springing from the  Father
  • By his words and deeds, and fully and definitively by his  death and resurrection[30], Jesus  reveals to humanity that God is Father and that we are all called by grace to  become his children in the Spirit (
  •  and therefore brothers and sisters among ourselves.
  • “Beloved, if God  so loves us, we also ought to love one another. No man has ever seen God; if we  love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 Jn  4:11-12).
  • The commandment of  mutual love, which represents the law of life for God's people[32], must inspire, purify and elevate all human relationships in society and in  politics
  • “a new model of the unity of the human race, which  must ultimately inspire our solidarity.
  • This supreme model of unity,  which is a reflection of the intimate life of God, one God in three Persons, is  what we Christians mean by the word 'communion'”[35].
  • The revelation in Christ  of the mystery of God as Trinitarian love is at the same time the revelation of  the vocation of the human person to love.
  • eing a person in the  image and likeness of God ... involves existing in a relationship, in relation  to the other ‘I'”[36], because God himself, one and triune, is the  communion of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
  • Gaudium et Spes,
  • may all be  one
  • parallel between the union  existing among the divine Persons and the union of the children of God in truth  and love.
  • Human activity,  when it aims at promoting the integral dignity and vocation of the person, the  quality of living conditions and the meeting in solidarity of peoples and  nations, is in accordance with the plan of God, who does not fail to show his  love and providence to his children.
  • They tell us that  the creation of man and woman is a free and gratuitous act of God; that man and  woman, because they are free and intelligent, represent the “thou” created by  God and that only in relationship with him can they discover and fulfil the  authentic and complete meaning of their personal and social lives; th
  • salvation for all  people
  • the human person in all his dimensions: personal and social, spiritual  and corporeal, historical and transcendent
  • ts  completion, however, is in the future
  • requires their free response and acceptance.
  • It is not possible to  love one's neighbour as oneself and to persevere in this conduct without the  firm and constant determination to work for the good of all people and of each  person, because we are all really responsible for everyone
  • “a man is alienated if he refuses to transcend himself and to  live the experience of self-giving and of the formation of an authentic human  community oriented towards his final destiny, which is God. A society is  alienated if its forms of social organization, production and consumption make  it more difficult to offer this gift of self and to establish this solidarity  between people”[53].
  • Jesus Christ reveals to  us that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8) and he  teaches us that “the fundamental law of human perfection, and consequently of  the transformation of the world, is the new commandment of love.
  • In the nineteenth  century, events of an economic nature produced a dramatic social, political and  cultural impact.
  • In response to the first  great social question, Pope Leo XIII promulgated the first social Encyclical, Rerum  Novarum[
  • lists errors that  give rise to social ills, excludes socialism as a remedy and expounds with  precision and in contemporary terms “the Catholic doctrine on work, the right to  property, the principle of collaboration instead of class struggle as the  fundamental means for social change, the rights of the weak, the dignity of the  poor and the obligations of the rich, the perfecting of justice through charity,  on the right to form professional associations”[144].
  • Pope Pius XI published the  Encyclical  Quadragesimo Anno[152], commemorating the fortieth  anniversary of  Rerum Novarum.
  • principle of subsidiarity, a
  • Already on 29  June 1931 he had protested against the abuse of power by the totalitarian  fascist regime in Italy with the Encyclical  Non Abbiamo Bisogno[155].  He published the Encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, on the situation of the  Catholic Church under the German Reich, on 14 March 1937[156].  The text of  Mit Brennender Sorge was read from the pulpit of every  Catholic Church in Germany, after having been distributed in the greatest of  secrecy.
  • calling them to resistance until  such time that a true peace between Church and State would be restored. In 1938,  with the spreading of anti-Semitism, Pope Pius XI affirmed: “Spiritually we are  all Semites
  • With the Encyclical Letter  Divini Redemptoris[158],  on atheistic communism and Christian social doctrine, Pope Pius XI offered a  systematic criticism of communism, describing it as “intrinsically perverse”[159],  and indicated that the principal means for correcting the evils perpetrated

  • fulfilment of the duties of justice at both the  interpersonal and social levels in relation to the common good, and the  institutionalization of professional and interprofessional groups.

     
  • One of the characteristics of Pope Pius XII's interventions  is the importance he gave to the relationship between morality and law
  • “Due to his sensitivity and intelligence in grasping the ‘signs  of the times', Pope Pius XII can be considered the immediate precursor of  Vatican Council II and of the social teaching of the Popes who followed him”
  • The 1960s bring promising  prospects: recovery after the devastation of the war, the beginning of  decolonization, and the first timid signs of a thaw in the relations  between the American and Soviet blocs.
  • This is the context within which Blessed  Pope John XXIII reads deeply into the “signs of the times”[163]. The  social question is becoming universal and involves all countries: together  with the labour question and the Industrial Revolution, there come to the fore  problems of agriculture, of developing regions, of increasing populations, and  those concerning the need for global economic cooperation
  • Subsidiarity is among  the most constant and characteristic directives of the Church's social doctrine  and has been present since the first great social encyclica
  • he necessity of  defending and promoting the original expressions of social life is emphasized by  the Church in the Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno,  in which the principle of subsidiarity is indicated as a most important  principle of “social philosophy
  • Just as it is gravely wrong to take from  individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and  give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a  grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher  association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do.
  • On the basis of this principle, all societies of a superior  order must adopt attitudes of help (“subsidium”)  — therefore of support, promotion, development — with respect to lower-order  societies.
  • Subsidiarity, understood in the positive sense as  economic, institutional or juridical assistance offered to lesser social  entities,
  • require the State to refrain from anything that would de facto restrict the  existential space of the smaller essential cells of society. Their initiative,  freedom and responsibility must not be supplanted.

  70 more annotations...

• 30 Jul 09
  

  Robert Letcher
  • 73. The Church's social  doctrine is therefore of a theological nature, specifically theological-moral,  “since it is a doctrine aimed at guiding people's behaviour”[103].
• 12 Apr 09
  

  Patrick Holland

  Read It Later

• 12 Feb 09
  

  T Lennon

  Bookmarks_Menu Social_Justice

• 14 Dec 08
  

  SR Paine
• 18 Jun 08
  

  T P

  Culture Faith

• 08 May 08
  

  Fay Pattison

  Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace; Pope John Paul II

  Religion vatican_documents catholic

• 17 Jan 08
  

  Michel Bauwens

  Vatican-Project P2P

• 12 Sep 07
  

  Joe Gilmore

  Array temp catholic

• 12 Aug 07
  

  Jim Homan

  School Stuff

• 14 Mar 07
  

  Paul Boire

  catholicism

• 15 Sep 06
  

  Daniel Gauthier

  social teaching

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