July 2010

“a clearly discernible body of official teachings on

the social order, in its economic and political
dimensions.”
Catholicism (MCBrien, pp. 912-913)

It is about building a just society and living lives of

holiness amidst the challenges of modern
society.

It is a balance between the dignity of the human

person and the common good.
It comes from scripture, official documents and
the tradition of the church.

Catholic social teaching is an essential part of

the Catholic faith.
Issues
 Too few people control production
 Concentrated wealth promotes greed
 Inhuman and unjust working conditions
 Socialism rejects private property and
promotes class warfare
 Public authorities are neglecting worker and
the poor
Responses
 Seek more equitable distribution of property
and goods
 Distinguish just ownership from just use
 Require employers to pay wages adequate to
support workers and families; challenge the
rich to give to the poor
 Protect workers’ right to organize to seek just
wages and working conditions
 Recognize that all have a right to own
property and that private property must
serve the common good
 Organize the state to protect
rights, especially those of worker and
families, and to provide for the poor
 Recognize church’s role in teaching social
principles and bringing classes together in
complementary social roles.
 1931 - Pius XI Quadragesimo Anno: On
Reconstructing the Social Order
 1961 - John XIII Mater Et Magistra:
Christianity and Social Progress
 1963-John XXIII Pacem In Terris: Peace on
Earth 1965 - Vatican Council Gaudium Et
Spes: The Church in the Modern World
 1967 - Paul VI Populorum Progressio: On the
Development of Peoples
 1971 - Paul VI Octogesima Adveniens: A Call
to Action
 1971 - Synod of Bishops - Justice in the World
 1975 - Paul VI Evangelii Nuntiandi:
Evangelization in the Modern World
 1979 - John Paul II Redemptor Hominis:
Redeemer of Humankind
 1981 - John Paul II Laborem Excercens: On
Human Work
 1986 - National Conference of Catholic
Bishops Economic Justice for All: Catholic
Social Teaching and the US Economy
 1987 - John Paul II Sollecitudo Rei Socialis:
The Social concerns of the Church
 1991 - John Paul II Centesimus Annus: The
100th Year
 Deus Caritas Est – On Christian Love-God is
Love, January 25, 2006
 Spe Slvi – Saved by Hope, November
30, 2007
 Caritas In Veritate – Charity in Truth, June 29
2009
 Life and Dignity of the Principle of -
Human Person  Human Dignity
 Call to Family, Community &  Respect for Human Life
Participation  Association
 Rights and Responsibilities  Participation
 Option for the poor and  Preferential Protection for
vulnerable the poor and vulnerable
 The Dignity of Work and  Stewardship
Rights of Workers  Subsidiarity
 Solidarity  Human Equality
 Care for God’s Creation  Common Good
 Our belief in the sanctity of human life and the
inherent dignity of the human person is the
foundation of all the principles of our social
teaching.
 Every person is created in the image of God. Every
person is precious.
 All social laws, practices, and institutions must
protect, not undermine, human life and dignity –
from conception through natural death.
 Life is more than viability
 Pastoral Constitution on the Church, no 27
“All offenses against life, such as
murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, and willful
suicide: all violations of the integrity of the human
person… all offenses against human dignity, such as
subhuman living conditions, arbitrary
imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, th
e selling of women and children, degrading working
conditions where men are treated as mere tools for
profit rather than free and responsible persons: all
these and the like are criminal: They poison
civilization … and militate against the honor of the
Creator.”
 Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of Life, no 3
“Every individual, precisely by reason of the
mystery of the Word of God who was made
flesh, is entrusted to the maternal care of the
Church. Therefore every threat to human
dignity and life must necessarily be felt in the
Church’s very heart…”
The principle of life and dignity is the
foundation of all other themes and principles
of Catholic social teaching.
None of them would have value or credibility
without this principle.
 We are social beings. We realize our dignity and
human potential in our families and communities.
The family is the basic cell of society; it must be
supported.
 How we organize our society – in economics and
politics, and law and policy – directly affects human
dignity and the capacity of individuals to grow in
community.
 Government has the mission of protecting human
life, promoting the common good of all people, and
defending the right and duty of all to participate in
social life.
 Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1913-1915
It is necessary that all participate, each
according to his position and role, in
promoting the common good. This
obligation is inherent in the dignity of the
human person. Participation is achieved,
first of all, by taking charge of the areas for
which one assumes personal responsibility.
Second Vatican Council
One must pay tribute to those nations whose
systems permit the largest possible number
of citizens to take part in public life in a
climate of genuine freedom…
 Pope John Paul II, 100th Anniversary of Rerum
Novarum
It is necessary to go back to seeing the family as the
sanctuary of life. The family is indeed sacred: it is
the place in which life - the gift of God – can be
properly welcomed and protected against the many
attacks to which it is exposed, and can develop in
accordance with what constitutes authentic human
growth.
 The Catholic tradition teaches that human dignity
can be protected and a healthy community can be
achieved only if human rights are protected and
responsibilities are met.
 The church upholds both personal responsibility
and social rights. The right to life is fundamental
and includes a right to
food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, and
essential social services. Every person has the right
to raise a family and the duty to support them.
 Human dignity demands
religious and political
freedom and the duty to
exercise these rights for
the common good of all
persons.
 Rerum Novarum – Pope Leo XIII
It is not right for either the citizen or the family
to be absorbed by the state; it is proper that
the individual and the family should be
permitted to retain their freedom of
action, so far as this is possible without
jeopardizing the common good and without
injuring anyone.
 On Christianity and Social Progress – Pope
John XXIII
[The State] has also the duty to protect the
rights of all its people, and particularly of it’s
weaker members, the workers, women and
children. It can never be right for the state to
shirk its obligations to work actively for the
betterment of the condition of [workers].
 Catholic teaching proclaims that a basic
moral test is how our most vulnerable
members are faring
 The Church does not pit one social group
against another but instead follow the
example of our Lord, who identified himself
with the poor and the vulnerable. Giving
priority concern to the poor and the
vulnerable strengthens the health of the
whole society.
 The human life and dignity of the poor are
most at risk. The poor have the first claim on
our personal and social resources.
The prime purpose of this special commitment to the
poor is to enable them to become active
participants in the life of society. It is to enable all
persons to share in and contribute to the common
good. The “option for the poor,” therefore, is not an
adversarial slogan that pits one group or class
against another. Rather it states that the
deprivation and powerlessness of the poor wounds
the whole community. The extent of their suffering
is a measure of how far we all are from being a true
community of persons. These wounds will be
healed only by greater solidarity with the poor and
among the poor themselves.
 Social structures
 Graced social structures are those which promote
life, enhance human dignity, encourage the
development of community, and reinforce caring
behavior.
 Sinful social structures destroy life, violate human
dignity, facilitate selfishness and
greed, perpetuate inequality, and fragment the
human community.
 Work is more than a way to make a living; it is
a form of continuing participation in God’s
creation
 Workers have the right to decent work, just
wages, safe working
conditions, unionization, disability
protection, retirement security, and
economic initiative
 The economy exits for the human person;
the human person does not exist for the
economy. Labor has priority over capital.
 The values of the Church supporting the
forming and joining unions and worker
associations of their choosing are at the heart
of Rerum Novarum and other encyclicals on
economic justice.
 Pope John Paul II
From his viewpoint, work, whether manual or
intellectual, is related to participation in God’s
plan for salvation. Whenever a person works
– even the most ordinary, everyday activity –
that work is sharing of God’s activity.
 Through this premise of the sacredness of
human work, Catholic social teaching
contributes a moral voice to such issues of
economic justice of wages, working
conditions, relations between employees and
employers, the rights of workers to form
unions and professional associations, and the
duty of workers to develop their skills.
Economic Justice for
All

Calls us to
question -
Economic
arrangements
that leave
large numbers
of people
impoverished
 Every perspective on economic life that is
human, moral, and Christian must be shaped
by three questions:

 What does the economy do for people?

 What does it do to people?
 How do people participate in it?
Decisions must
be judged in
light of what
they do for the
poor, what they
do to the
poor, and what
they enable the
poor to do for
themselves.
 We are one human family, whatever our
national, racial, ethnic, economic, and ideological
differences.
 The Church speaks of a “universal” common good
that reaches beyond our nation’s borders to the
global community.
 Solidarity recognizes that the fates of peoples of
the earth are linked. Solidarity requires richer
nations to aid poorer ones, commands respect for
different cultures, demands justice in international
relationships, and calls on all nations to live in peace
with one another.
 Pope Paul VI, On the
Development of Peoples
This must be repeated;
what is superfluous in
richer regions must serve
the needs of the regions
in want. …Their avarice if
continued will call down
the punishment of God
and arouse the anger of
the poor…
 Pope John Paul II – On Social Concern
Interdependence must be transformed into
solidarity, based upon the principle that the
goods of creation are meant for all. That
which human industry produces through the
processing of raw materials, with the
contribution of work, must serve equally for
the good of all.
 Solidarity helps us to see the “other” –
whether a person, people or nation-not just
as some kind of instrument, with a work
capacity in physical strength to be exploited,
…but as our ”neighbor”, a helper to be made
a sharer, on par with ourselves, in the
banquet of life to which all are equally invited
by God.
Pope Benedict XVI – God Is Love
The Church is God’s family in the world. In this
family no one ought to go without the
necessities of life.
 USCCB – The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise
and Our Response
Because peace, like the kingdom of God itself, is both
a divine gift and a human work, the Church should
continually pray for the gift and share in the work.
We are called to be a Church at the service of
peace, precisely because peace is one manifestation
of God’s word and work in our midst.
 We show our respect for the Creator by our
stewardship of creation
 Good stewardship of the earth and of all its
creatures (including human beings) is a
complex challenge. Humans are part of
creation itself, and whatever we do to the
earth we ultimately do to ourselves
 We must live in harmony with the rest of
creation and preserve it for future
generations
Pope John Paul II – On Social Concern
The dominion granted to man by the Creator is
not an absolute power, nor can one speak of
freedom to “use and misuse,” or to dispose of
things as one pleases. The limitation
imposed from the beginning by the Creator
Himself…shows clearly enough that, when it
comes to the natural world, we are subject
not only to biological laws but also to moral
ones, which cannot be violated with
impunity.
USCCB – Renewing the Earth
At it’s core, the environmental crisis is a moral
challenge. It calls us to examine how we use
and share the goods of the earth, what we
pass on to future generations, and how we
live in harmony with God’s creation.
 Pope Benedict XVI – God Is Love
The Church’s deepest nature is expressed in her
three-fold responsibility: of proclaiming the
word of God, celebrating the sacraments, and
exercising the ministry of charity.
These duties presuppose each other and are
inseparable.
For the church, charity is not a kind of welfare
activity which could equally well be left to
others, but is a part of her nature, an
indispensable expression of her very being.