Church Teaching 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
Green Party of Ontario Civil Rights & Liberties
The party states that:
– although the province has made tremendous strides, there is still work to be done to make Ontario a place where everyone belongs. Still today, racialized communities, women, 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals, and people with disabilities face disproportionately more barriers in accessing quality health care, economic opportunities, and within the justice system.
– inequity has many faces. It comes in the form of unconscious bias and overt racism, gender based gaps in pay and opportunity, and neglect of those that must deal with physical and neurodiverse challenges.
– it is committed to building a more accessible and equitable Ontario.
Gender Equity
To prioritize gender equity, the party advocates:
– working with the federal government to ensure continued funding for universal access to high-quality, $10-a-day childcare in all communities, so women have more opportunity to re-enter the workforce.
– providing Early Childcare Educators, more than 95% of whom are women, with a fair wage of at least $25 per hour.
– immediately revoking Bill 124 to allow healthcare workers, including nurses (91% of whom are women), to negotiate fairly for the wage increases they deserve, and implementing the Pay Transparency Act.
– requiring that public corporations’ boards and executive level positions have an adequate proportion of women represented, with a goal to achieve gender parity.
– applying a gender-based analysis to all government legislation and programming to advise on how gender equity can be better achieved.
– supporting survivors of gender-based violence by increasing funding for Sexual Assault Centres, emergency shelters, transitional housing, and legal supports.
Racism
To eradicate systemic racism, the party advocates:
– fully funding the Anti-Racism Directorate, reversing the recent cuts.
– requiring anti-racism and anti-oppression training for all public sector employees and legislators, and requiring the Ontario Public Service to commit to eliminate racism and discrimination, conduct random external audits, data collection and reporting, and establish a safe harassment and discrimination reporting system for staff.
– passing the Our London Family Act to change the way we address Islamophobia in Ontario.
– ensuring Indigenous communities are served by Indigenous-led child welfare providers to address the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in provincial care.
– addressing the overrepresentation of Black children in provincial care by the development of frameworks to provide culturally appropriate services to Black children, youth and families, and identifying and addressing existing standards and structures that continue to harm Black families.
– providing annual reports on the number and proportion of Black and Indigenous children who are in care, and establishing an independent office to investigate claims of unfair treatment by case workers called in to assess a child’s circumstances.
2SLGBTQIA+ Communities
To support 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, the party advocates:
– creating a comprehensive strategy to ensure equitable, inclusive and affirming access to care and treatment for 2SLGBTQIA+ communities within our healthcare system and long-term care.
– expanding and improving to provincially funded healthcare services for 2SLGBTQIA+ Ontarians, including gender affirming procedures and transition medications.
– dedicating resources and funding to directly support 2SLGBTQIA+ youth groups.
– mandating standards to have safe, accessible, all-gender washrooms in all public spaces in Ontario.
Services and languages
To ensure equitable access to speakers of all languages, the party advocates:
– ensuring that interpreters, translators, or multilingual written materials are available in publicly funded services, and improving access to them.
– ensuring that all government announcements are signed in both ASL and LSQ.
– providing tools for nonprofits to have French language resources.
– creating incentives to increase the number of French-speaking individuals in teachers college programs.
Environmental rights
The party advocates:
– standing strong for environmental justice by strengthening and upholding the Environmental Bill of Rights, including requiring the Ministry of Environment to develop and report on a strategy to address environmental racism; establishing more strict monitoring and enforcement standards for air and water pollution in areas where communities are exposed to potential health risks from multiple industries
– strengthening environmental oversight and public consultation, including restoring the Office of the Environmental Commissioner; establishing and enforce industry sector standards for air and water pollution that protect health; restoring a robust environmental assessment process and reverse changes that allow for assessments to be “streamlined;” rapidly repeal of all recent changes that limited Conservation Authorities’ authority, and provision of stable funding mechanisms so Conservation Authorities can fulfil their mandates, including watershed level protections; and reversing changes in Bill 245 that merged all land use planning tribunals, including the Environmental Review Board, into the Ontario Land Tribunal, and reverse damaging changes to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT); and upholding the duty to obtain free, prior and informed consent from First Nations and Métis communities regarding decisions that may affect them.
Ontario Liberal Party Civil Rights & Liberties
As part of its plan for promoting public health care, the party advocates:
– working with experts, health care providers, patients and communities to ensure access to gender affirming care and breaking down barriers to accessing health care for all 2SLGBTQ+ Ontarians.
Ontario New Democratic Party Civil Rights & Liberties
Racial and religious discrimination
To fight racism and hate in Ontario, the party advocates:
– re-establishment of the Anti-Racism Secretariat to support communities to stamp out hate, the Secretariat to coordinate collection across government to ensure programs and services meet the province’s equity goals.
– creation of Anti-Racism Councils to advocate on behalf of racialized communities and provide information, advice and recommendations to the government, through the minister, on all ethnocultural matters, including anti-racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and education, human rights, immigration, settlement and cultural and linguistic diversity and heritage.
Civic Equity
The party has published no current statement regarding its policies concerning civic equity.
Prior to the last election, the party advocated:
To remove barriers to the services and programs people need, and foster safety and inclusiveness in provincial institutions and public spaces so that every can live with pride at every age and stage of their life, the party advocates:
– launching a 2SLGBTQIA+ Inclusion Action Plan to ensure that government services like health care, education, and long-term care are inclusive of and welcoming to 2SLGBTQIA+ Ontarians, including consulting broadly following the ‘nothing about us, without us’ approach.
– ensuring that diverse health care professionals from 2SLGBTQIA+ communities working in primary care are recruited and properly compensated.
– ensuring that all necessary medicines, are accessible to everyone who needs them, including all transition drugs and medication and those required to treat and prevent HIV.
– expanding shelter spaces for queer and trans youth and adults.
– supporting 2SLGBTQIA+ -owned businesses through diverse vendor strategies.
To eliminate inequities for women and ensure women have access to the same opportunities as men, the party advocates:
– applying a gender-based analysis plus (GBA+) system to ensure that all government programs, policies, and legislation are inclusive of all Ontarians.
– updating and enforcing the Pay Equity Act to address the gender wage gap and bring greater equity to corporate boards.
– repealing Bill 124, which surpresses wages in women-dominated caring sectors, and ending court fights against midwives.
– making contraception free, so that cost is not a barrier to individuals’ ability to make choices about their reproductive health.
– fighting gender-based violence and properly funding women’s shelter, including setting aside a portion of the 100,000 units of affordable housing it has proposed for women and their families escaping violence, and implementing the recommendations of the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee.
– increasing funding to Ontario’s sexual assault and rape crisis centres by 30 per cent.
– funding 10 days of paid leave for women escaping violence, with access to additional leave as needed without repercussions at work.
– providing additional funding and supports for more beds and staff to treat eating disorders, in response to the increase in eating disorders seen during the pandemic.
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario As of 23 February 2025, four days prior to the election it called, the party has published no comprehensive update or statement of its proposed policies.
The party states that as matters of principle it believes:
– that government should serve the people and that progress requires a competitive economy, which, accepting its social responsibilities, allows every individual freedom of opportunity and initiative and the peaceful enjoyment of the fruits of his or her own labour
– in freedoms of speech, worship and assembly, in loyalty to Canada and the Monarch of Canada and the in the rule of law
– in the ethical and accountable execution of the business of government.
– that social justice entails equality of opportunity, including fair and equal treatment for all Ontarians and the provision of support to those in need.
Civil Rights & Liberties
Prior to its current term in government the party stated that:
– to address systemic racism, it was making additional investments in key communities, including $1.6 million over two years to support the Anti‐Racism and Anti‐Hate Grant program, which will support community based anti‐racism initiatives focusing on anti‐Black racism, anti‐Indigenous racism, anti‐Semitism and Islamophobia and builds on a $60 million investment in the Black Youth Action Plan
At that time the party advocated:
– building a culture of respect with zero tolerance for those who abuse positions of authority
Housing
Prior to its current term in office, the party advocated:
– preserving rent control for existing tenants across the province
– increasing the supply of affordable housing across the GTA while protecting the Greenbelt in its entirety
In its 2024 Budget, the party states that:
– its Strengthening Accountability and Student Supports Act, 2024 would require colleges and universities to have mental health policies in place that should include clear and transparent information about programs and supports available to students, along with policies to address racism and hate, including but not limited to antisemitism and Islamophobia.
The party has published no further official statement concerning its positions on:
– civic duties or responsibilities of individuals.
– communities or civil society.
Points to Ponder Points to Ponder: Rights & Responsibilities; Subsidiarity
A conscience well formed by the social teachings of the Church will seriously consider the following questions:
Civic & Individual Rights & Responsibilities
It is clear that the nation and the provinces owe their citizens great respect for each of a broad range of human rights. But with rights come responsibilities. In fact, a right is nothing other than the flip side of an obligation (responsibility). And while individual citizens have rights, the civil community as a whole also has rights, which means that individual citizens have some fundamental obligations towards the civil community as a whole (the nation).
In that light, we can ask:
- What responsibilities do individuals have toward their communities, provinces, the nation, and the world? For example:
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- To what extent are citizens called to live sustainable lifestyles, for example by conserving energy, avoiding waste, and ensuring that they minimize any adverse impact on future generations?
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- What should citizens look to their governments for, to encourage sustainable consumer lifestyles and ensure that such lifestyles are affordable?
- To what extent are citizens called to:
- participate in society, for example through informed voting, continued engagement with candidates and elected representatives, and keeping up responsibly with the news?
- lend a hand to their neighbours, for example by volunteering at home or within the community, in addition to paying taxes?
- Can our governments do anything to enable or encourage citizens to contribute by volunteer service? For example, by offering tax credits to volunteer firefighters, to those who work with the homeless or visit the sick, or to other civic volunteers?
- Under what conditions, if any, is it morally right to require health care providers to participate in morally questionable practices such as abortion or assisted death, when it is contrary to their understanding of morality or their religious beliefs?
In addition to human and civil rights, many parties speak of things residents of Ontario and others “deserve.”
- How do the parties determine what citizens do or do not deserve? Do they apply predictable, objective criteria in making such determinations, or can such determinations sometimes seem arbitrary and unfair, or, in the context of elections, opportunistic? What criteria should be applied?
- As the list of our defined political rights expand, how do we reconcile conflicts between them?
Inter-Government Relations & and Civil Society
- Should the powers of the Federal government be expanded or reduced?
- Should the powers of the Provincial government be expanded or reduced?
- Is there too much government intervention in Canada or too little? Are Federal and Provincial governments fulfilling their obligations under the principle of subsidiarity to local governments and community groups by leaving to them all the decisions that responsibly can be left with them?
- Or, should the powers of government be redistributed in order to ensure that individuals, public interest groups, and service organizations have opportunities to employ their lives and talents in the service of others, and the common good?