Civil Rights & Liberties

Every member of society is imbued with a number of rights.  With them come responsibilities.

In Catholic terms, a “right” has been defined as a subjective moral power, residing in the person posing it, “to do, hold, or extract something,” which functions through appeal to another’s will through the other’s intellect.  It is to be distinguished from might, i.e. the physical force or power to take something away from another. – Fr John Hardon, SJ, Modern Catholic Dictionary

Man’s history of sin begins when he no longer acknowledges the Lord as his Creator and himself wishes to be the one who determines, with complete independence, what is good and what is evil. “You will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5): this was the first temptation, and it is echoed in all the other temptations to which man is more easily inclined to yield as a result of the original Fall.  – Pope Saint John Paul II, Veritatis splendor

The demands of the common good… are strictly connected to respect for and the integral promotion of the person and his fundamental rights. These demands concern above all the commitment to peace, the organization of the State’s powers, a sound juridical system, the protection of the environment, and the provision of essential services to all, some of which are at the same time human rights: food, housing, work, education and access to culture, transportation, basic health care, the freedom of communication and expression, and the protection of religious freedom.  Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 164-166

Racism & Discrimination
The unity of the human family is not yet becoming a reality. This is due to obstacles originating in materialistic and nationalistic ideologies that contradict the values of the person integrally considered in all his various dimensions, material and spiritual, individual and community.    In particular, any theory or form whatsoever of racism and racial discrimination is morally unacceptable. -433, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

Conscience & Religion
The Catholic Church emphasizes, among other rights, the right to religious freedom. Emphasis is given to the paramount value of the right to religious freedom: “all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits”.  The respect of this right is an indicative sign of “man’s authentic progress in any regime, in any society, system or milieu.” -320, 321 Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

With euthanasia and medically-assisted death and abortion legalized, it is critical that healthcare providers whose deepest moral convictions tell them that such procedures are wrong, not be forced to participate. Catholic teaching says workers should be safeguarded from suffering any affront to conscience or personal dignity.

It is a grave duty of conscience to avoid cooperating, even formally, with practices contrary to the Law of God.

Freedom of Speech:  truth, the press & the media
Information is among the principal instruments of democratic participation. Participation without an understanding of the situation of the political community, the facts and the proposed solutions to problems is unthinkable.

It is necessary to guarantee a real pluralism in the dissemination of information, ensuring that there are many forms and instruments of information and communications.   Special attention must be given to the phenomenon of the news media being controlled by just a few people or groups. This has dangerous effects for the entire democratic system…    The media must be used to build up and sustain the human community in its different sectors: economic, political, cultural, educational and religious.   Society has a right to information based on truth, freedom, justice and solidarity. The essential question is whether the current information system is contributing to the betterment of the human person; that is, does it make people more spiritually mature, more aware of the dignity of their humanity, more responsible or more open to others, in particular to the neediest and the weakest.

A further aspect of great importance is that new technologies must respect legitimate cultural differences.  In the world of the media the intrinsic difficulties of communications are often exacerbated by ideology, the desire for profit and political control, rivalry and conflicts between groups, and other social evils. Moral values and principles apply also to the media….  414-416, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

Gender Equity
The feminine genius is needed in all expressions in the life of society. The first indispensable step in this direction is the concrete possibility of access to professional formation.  The persistence of many forms of discrimination offensive to the dignity and vocation of women is due to a long series of conditioning that penalizes women, who have seen themselves relegated to the margins of society and even reduced to servitude…   An urgent need to recognize effectively the rights of women in the workplace is seen especially under the aspects of pay, insurance and social security.  –295, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

Property
Private property and other forms of private control of goods “assure a person a highly necessary sphere for the exercise of his personal and family autonomy and ought to be considered as an extension of human freedom … stimulating exercise of responsibility, it constitutes one of the conditions for civil liberty.”  -171, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

The Church’s social doctrine requires that ownership of goods be equally accessible to all, so that all may become, at least in some measure, owners.   The world exists for everyone, because all of us were born with the same dignity. Diff1erences of colour, religion, talent, place of birth or residence, and so many others, cannot be used to justify the privileges of some over the rights of all. As a community, we have an obligation to ensure that every person lives with dignity and has sufficient opportunities for his or her integral development. -176, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

Not to share our wealth with the poor is to rob them and take away their livelihood. The riches we possess are not our own, but theirs as well… Other rights having to do with the goods necessary for the integral fulfilment of persons, including that of private property or any other type of property, should in no way hinder [this right], but should actively facilitate its implementation.  Fratelli tutti, -188-120

Human Rights

The Church recognizes a number of Human Rights, including:
– the right to life, an integral part of which is the right of the child to develop in the mother’s womb from the moment of conception
– the right to live in a united family and in a moral environment conducive to the growth of the child’s personality
– the right to develop one’s intelligence and freedom in seeking and knowing the truth
– the right to share in the work which makes wise use of the earth’s material resources, and to derive from that work the means to support oneself and one’s dependents
– and the right freely to establish a family, to have and to rear children through the responsible exercise of one’s sexuality.

The Church also emphases rights to adequate housing; clean water, and secure, nutritious food; education and access to culture, transportation, basic health care.
– 151-166 Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

Individual Responsibilities

“In human society to one man’s right there corresponds a duty in all other persons: the duty, namely, of acknowledging and respecting the right in question.”  “Those, therefore, who claim their own rights, yet altogether forget or neglect to carry out their respective duties, are people who build with one hand and destroy with the other. -156 Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

Subsidiarity
Subsidiarity is the principle that each element of society should serve its proper purpose, and support others in serving theirs, the over-arching goal being to encourage and enable the authentic human development of the individual.

One consequence of this principle is that each individual, and smaller groups of people, should be allowed and expected to make for themselves all the decisions that can responsibly be left to them, rather than to larger groups or greater authorities.  A premise of this principle is that we are each responsible for our own salvation, within the limits of the gifts and the challenges with which God has endowed us.  This is one of the fundamental social teachings of the Church, since it helps to ensure that each individual is empowered to find his or her own way to God.

Families, Individuals, and Civil Society
It is impossible to promote the dignity of the person without showing concern for the family, groups, associations, local territorial realities; in short, for that aggregate of economic, social, cultural, sports-oriented, recreational, professional and political expressions to which people spontaneously give life and which make it possible for them to achieve effective social growth.  This is the realm of civil society… This network of relationships strengthens the social fabric and constitutes the basis of a true community of persons, making possible the recognition of higher forms of social activity.

The political community is established to be of service to civil society, from which it originates… This vision is challenged by political ideologies of an individualistic nature and those of a totalitarian character, which tend to absorb civil society into the sphere of the State.  The political community and civil society are not equal in the hierarchy of ends. The political community is essentially at the service of civil society and, in the final analysis, the persons and groups of which civil society is composed.

The State must provide an adequate legal framework for social subjects to engage freely in their different activities and it must be ready to intervene, when necessary and with respect for the principle of subsidiarity, so that the interplay between free associations and democratic life may be directed to the common good.  -185, 417, 418 Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

Subsidiary governments: provinces, municipalities, territories, & Aboriginals
The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to various forms of centralization, bureaucratization, and welfare assistance, and to the unjustified and excessive presence of the State in public mechanisms…  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.  -185, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church