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Catholic Social Teaching
CST covers all spheres of life – the economic, political, personal and spiritual. With human dignity at its centre, a holistic approach to development, founded on the principles of CST, is what Pope Paul VI called ‘authentic development’.
Dignity of the human person
Every human being is created in the image and likeness of God and therefore has inherent dignity. No human being should have their dignity or freedom compromised. The dignity of every person, independent of ethnicity, creed, gender, sexuality, age or ability, is the foundation of CST.
How it guides our work: Poverty, hunger, oppression and injustice make it impossible to live a life commensurate with this dignity. All our programs are people-centred with empowerment at their heart. People are never treated as commodities nor as mere recipients of aid.
The common good
Every person should have sufficient access to the goods and resources of society so that they can completely and easily live fulfilling lives. The rights of the individual to personal possessions and community resources must be balanced with the needs of the disadvantaged and dispossessed. The common good is reached when we work together to improve the wellbeing of people in our society and the wider world.
How it guides our work: Priority is given to development programs which involve collaboration with all relevant sectors of the community to promote the common good. It will also involve coordination of resources, planning and action across agencies and organisations.
Subsidiarity and participation
All people have the right to participate in decisions that affect their lives. Subsidiarity requires that decisions are made by the people closest and most affected by the issues and concerns of the community.
How it guides our work: Caritas Australia works with local communities to support, promote and develop their capacity in decision-making so they can better respond to their own needs.
Solidarity
Everyone belongs to one human family, regardless of their national, religious, ethnic, economic, political and ideological differences. Everyone has an obligation to promote the rights and development of all peoples across communities, nations, and the world, irrespective of national boundaries.
We are called by the principle of solidarity to take the parable of the Good Samaritan to heart (Luke 10:29-37), and to express this understanding in how we live and interact with others.
How it guides our work: Caritas Australia expresses solidarity by reaching out to those who are most marginalised. We are committed to long-term engagement and sustainability..
Preferential option for the poor
Caring for the poor is everyone’s responsibility. Preferential care should be shown to poor and vulnerable people, whose needs and rights are given special attention in God’s eyes.
Jesus taught that God asks each of us what we are doing to help the poor and needy: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).
How it guides our work: Reaching the poorest and most marginalised people often requires greater effort in discovering where they are to be found. This sometimes means additional resources of time and money.
Economic justice
Economic life is not meant solely for profit, but rather in service of the entire human community. Everyone capable should be involved in economic activity and should be able to draw from work, the means for providing for themselves and their family.
How it guides our work: Caritas Australia’s programs focus on the development of the whole person and increasing the wellbeing of communities.
Stewardship of Creation
We must all respect, care for and share the resources of the earth, which are vital for the common good of people. Care for animals and the environment is a common and universal duty, and ecological problems call for a change of mentality and the adoption of new lifestyles.
How it guides our work: Our development programs are attentive to environmental concerns and seek to promote care for the earth and its resources.
Promotion of peace
All Peace requires respect for and the development of human life, which in turn involves the safeguarding of the goods, dignity and freedom of people. Peace is the fruit of justice and is dependent upon right order among human beings.
How it guides our work: Caritas Australia’s programs promote justice, collaboration and respect for people’s differences.
Catholic social teaching is a body of thought on social issues that has been developed by the Church over the past hundred years. It reflects Gospel values of love, peace, justice, compassion, reconciliation, service and community in the context of modern social problems.
Catholic social teaching is continually developed through observation, analysis and action, and is there to guide us in the responses we make to the social problems of our ever-changing world.
We can trace the beginnings of Catholic social teaching back to 1891 when Pope Leo XIII wrote the encyclical Rerum Novarum. In this document, Pope Leo set out some basic guiding principles and Christian values that should influence the way societies and countries operate. It talked about the right, for example, to work, to own private property, to receive a just wage, and to organise into workers’ associations.
PRINCIPLES OF CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING
Human Dignity
Every single person is created in the image of God. Therefore they are invaluable and worthy of respect as a member of the human family. The dignity of the person grants them inalienable rights – political, legal, social, and economic rights. This is the most important principle because it is from our dignity as human persons that all other rights and responsibilities flow.
Human Equality
Equality of all people comes from their inherent human dignity. Differences in talents are part of God’s plan, but social, cultural, and economic discrimination is not.
Respect for Human Life
All people, through every stage of life, have inherent dignity and a right to life that is consistent with that dignity. Human life at every stage is precious and therefore worthy of protection and respect.
The Principle of Association
The human person is not only sacred but also social. The way we organise society directly affects human dignity and the capacity of individuals to develop. People achieve fulfilment by association with others – in families and other social institutions. As the centrepiece of society, the family must be protected, and its stability never undermined.
The Principle of Participation
People have a right and a duty to participate in society, seeking together the well being of all, especially the poor and vulnerable. Everyone has the right not to be shut out from participating in those institutions necessary for human fulfilment, such as work, education, and political participation.
The Principle of the Common Good
Individual rights are always experienced within the context of promotion of the common good. The common good is about respecting the rights and responsibilities of all people. The individual does not have unfettered rights at the expense of others, but nor are individual rights to be subordinated to the needs of the group.
The Principle of Solidarity
We are one human family. Our responsibilities to each other transcend national, racial, economic and ideological differences. We are called to work globally for justice. The principle of solidarity requires of us that we not concern ourselves solely with our own individual lives. We need to be aware of what is going on in the world around us.
Preferential Protection for the Poor and Vulnerable
Our Catholic tradition instructs us to put the needs of the poor and vulnerable first. The good of society as a whole requires it. It is especially important we look at public policy decisions in terms of how they affect the poor.
The Principle of Stewardship
We have a responsibility to care for the gifts God has given us. This includes the environment, our personal talents and other resources.
The Universal Destination of Goods
The earth and all it produces is intended for every person. Private ownership is acceptable, but there is also a responsibility to ensure all have enough to live in dignity. If we have more than we need, there is a social mortgage to pay to ensure others do not go without.
The Principle of Subsidiarity
No higher level of organisation (such as government) should perform any function that can best be handled at a lower level (such as families and local communities) by those who are closer to the issues or problems.
All Catholic social doctrine is based on the dignity of the human person. Man derives both his dignity and his social nature from the fact that he is made in the image and likeness of God. God is a community of loving relationships between the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. Man similarly seeks out loving relationships in his life on earth. As man by his very nature desires to live in loving community with others and with God, Catholic social doctrine seeks to support all that facilitates this endeavor, and seeks to eliminate all that hampers this endeavor. While the Catholic Church is primarily concerned with the salvation of souls and with one's eternal destiny, it is also genuinely concerned with man's earthly existence and his temporal welfare during his pilgrimage to his eternal home.
In 1891, in response to a growing disparity of wealth in many areas of the world, Pope Leo XIII wrote an encyclical letter that addressed the rights and duties of those with capital who employed laborers and the rights and duties of laborers toward those with greater wealth who employed them. This encyclical, called Rerum Novarum (hereafter RN), laid out fundamental principles for the relationship between "capital" and "labor," and also responded to both negative and positive methods that were being employed to deal with this problem. The negative methods were stirring up revolution and hatred toward the wealthier in society with an interest in redistributing their personal property, while the positive methods encouraged the wealthy to practice generosity and compassion through setting up private organizations to assist workers and their families in times of need. Pope Leo XIII believed that human society could only be saved and healed by a Christian life and Christian institutions, because they are ordered to man's true end and true good. Following are seven principles of Catholic social doctrine that were laid out in this encyclical. They are as applicable today as they were over a hundred years ago.
The dignity of the human person, as mentioned above, comes from the fact that man is created in the image and likeness of God. Each person has God's life, law and love deeply imprinted on his very nature. God, each person has the ability and desire to both give and receive life, law and love to others. The ability of man to practice virtues in regard to God and his fellow man gives him a value much higher than any other earthly creature. His ability to practice virtues like prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance allows him to bring to fulfillment the powers and gifts that he possesses; hopefully in loving communion with God and his fellow man.
Another part of man's dignity comes from the fact that he possesses free will. This can be either a blessing or a curse as far as living with others in society. Due to free will a person can either choose to serve God and his fellow man with his gifts and abilities, or use his gifts and abilities to get others to serve him. Hence, virtues that were meant to help man reach his intended end of eternal happiness can instead become perverted into vices that hinder man in reaching this end. With this complex tension between virtue and vice, good and evil, one can see that relationships between capital and labor, or employers and employees, can be quite complicated. One only has to look at the present situation in the U.S. economy regarding taxes, health care, welfare programs, banking, etc. to see that things can get extremely convoluted. Where generosity should be the guiding principle, sometimes greed is present instead in the taking of greater compensation for one's work than it is worth. Where self-sacrifice should be present, sometimes selfishness exists in the exploitation of workers. RN points out that capital and labor need each other and that both have a crucial role to play in upholding man's dignity. Capital provides the funds to provide man with food, clothing and shelter, while labor provides the manpower to make the capital from the resources that God has provided.
Each person should be treated with respect because he or she has an eternal soul with hope of living for eternity as a son or daughter of God in God's heavenly kingdom. This is the principal aspect of man being created in the image and likeness of God-that man has an immortal soul and the capacity to enter into an eternal union with God. Some practical applications in respecting man's dignity in the workplace are as follows: 1) one should be given time off of work to worship God, thus upholding man's dignity and keeping him connected with his Creator; b) one should have periods of rest and not be expected to work long hours that prevent one from getting adequate sleep; c) one should not be required to work in unsafe conditions where he is in danger of bodily harm; d) one should not be forced to work in immoral conditions that endanger his soul; e) an employer should pay a fair wage and an employee should give a full day's work for a full day's pay; f) states should not overtax earnings; g) a worker should be allowed time to fulfill family obligations. These guidelines maintain the respect and dignity of the person.
The common good, according to RN, is truly more about making man virtuous than granting man material comforts. Pope Leo XIII believed that the highest good a society could have was virtue. For if everyone in society was virtuous, then there would be just and fair laws, and no one would be without the means to live fairly well because Christian charity would cause others to provide for those who were needy. Rightly understood, the "common good" does not mean what is most materially good for the most number of people. Rather it means the good that is shared by all, which they hold in common. It is really more the moral and spiritual good that all members of society hold in common. Thinking of the biblical image of the Mystical Body of Christ is a good analogy to aid in understanding the concept of the common good.
In the Mystical Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:1-11; Eph. 1:18-23) each member of the body has an important role to contribute to the whole body. If each member of the body is healthy and contributing to the good of the whole, the body will be functional and accomplish that for which it was created. Members retain their diversity in a body (i.e., a brain cannot fulfill the function of a heart, which pumps oxygenated blood to the body, nor can a heart do the thinking and processing of electrical impulses, as a brain does), yet all the members form a single, united body. In the same way in civil society, those who labor at a trade provide an invaluable service to a society. They move the body of society in a sense. However, labor alone cannot keep society healthy and functional. There also needs to be those who hold and distribute capitallike bankers for instance-who provide the fuel for the workers' labor. To pit these two against each other is detrimental to both, as RN points out so well.
Pope Leo XIII states that if the needs of the common laborers are met, then they are more productive and those with capital benefit as well. He writes that to obtain profit and in the process cause another to be needy is morally wrong. Rather, when one is blessed with material wealth, one should use this to benefit as many others as possible. RN is quick to point out that no one should be forced to share his goods, however, as that would be stealing. Rather, all should be encouraged to practice the virtue of generosity. This Christian charity of almsgiving keeps the whole of society healthy and prevents those who are needy from becoming desperate and taking desperate or violent measures to provide for their needs. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (pars. 1907-1909) singles out three principal aspects of the common good: 1) respect for the human person and his rights; 2) social well-being and development; and 3) peace, which is "the stability and security of a just order."
Subsidiarity is a very important principle in Catholic social doctrine. While RN does not use this term specifically, it refers to the basic principle. Subsidiarity is the principle that governments should not intervene in matters that can be taken care of or resolved by families or communities. States or governments should not replace the rights and responsibilities of families. Rather, those in authority in government should see themselves in a fatherly role of guidance and protection. They should only intervene when a family or community is unable or unwilling to fulfill their rights and duties in regard to its members. Government should be at the service of the family, not vice versa.
Larger governments should never remove from families or smaller local governments what they can do for themselves, because this removes their freedom and personal initiative. However, if a person, family or small community is totally without any means of providing for itself—perhaps due to illness, injury, drought, flood, hurricane, earthquake, etc—then the larger government should assist. Pope Leo XIII strongly emphasizes that socialism is fundamentally flawed because is seeks to replace the rights and duties of parents, families and communities with the supervision of the state. This destroys the family unit, which is the basic building block of society, where the virtues that build a productive, cohesive society are taught and practiced most successfully.
Participation is the principle that every person in a society should participate in building up society, while keeping in mind God's plan for the human person individually and communally. This principle is based on the belief that every person has been given gifts and talents by God to grow in virtue themselves and to aid others in growing in virtue. By using one's gifts and abilities, one can achieve his highest good and intended end, as well as help others to do the same. God wants man to participate in the world in which he lives. He wants man to participate in a life with the Blessed Trinity and with one's fellow man. This goes back to the human person's social nature; the fact that man was created for communion, not for isolation. Participation is a duty to be fulfilled by all, whereby one contributes to the cultural, economic, political and social life of the civil community to which he belongs.
Solidarity is the principle that all members of society have a responsibility to help the other members of their family, community or country with the needs and problems that they cannot remedy themselves. This includes protecting and caring for those who are weak, injured or unable to provide for themselves for one reason or another. States have a duty to prevent abuses of basic human rights and punish abuses when families and communities are unable or unwilling to take care of abuses on their own. The formation of Christian virtues like charity and generosity will help one to see others' needs, and give him the desire to act to fulfill those needs. However, sometimes laziness or selfishness keeps one from voluntarily practicing solidarity.
The state should not interfere in family, employer, or employee rights and duties in general (this is the principle of subsidiarity). Sometimes, however, the government does need to step in to stop evil situations like child abuse, exploitation of workers, dangerous working conditions, or unfair labor practices. The state should also protect its citizens from evil aggressors through police and military protection when necessary. If the principle of solidarity were truly practiced by family, extended family, neighborhoods, and church communities in interactions with those they know who are suffering from physical or spiritual need, there would not need to be the extensive (and often poorly managed) state welfare programs that are in existence in the U.S. today. RN states that the government can never be as effective as Christian charity in helping the poor.
The right of private property is explained extensively in RN. Pope Leo XIII states that private property represents the wages that one has rightfully earned, and that one needs private property to provide for the needs of one's family. This was especially true in 1891 when many grew food, raised animals for food or sale, or produced a marketable crop on their property. Pope Leo XIII rightly predicted that if private property was stolen from rightful owners and given to a state in the name of distributing the wealth more equitably, workers and the poor would suffer the most. This redistribution of property was being encouraged by those preaching socialist revolution. Pope Leo XIII's prediction was borne out after the Russian Revolution of the early 1900s, when a massive redistribution of land led to an economic crisis and famine that was largely responsible for the starvation of millions of Russians.
Ownership of private property is beneficial for the common good. This point is emphasized in RN. This encyclical points out that if one has ownership of land or other possessions, he will work harder to take care of them than someone who has no vested interest in the property. If a person works hard to acquire ownership of land, and then works hard to maintain the land and cause it to produce something valuable, then one has a certain rightful pride in this and will take better care of it than a stranger. It also is a matter of justice that one who labors to cultivate land and make it fruitful should be able to possess that which he has invested so much of himself in.
Universal destination of goods is the principle that God made the goods of the earth for the use of all men so that all would be fed, clothed and sheltered.RN states that Christian living should lead to temporal prosperity for all; not necessarily great temporal wealth for all, but adequate food and shelter for all. In order for this to be a reality, man must share the goods of the earth with all. Property rights and the right of free trade are only instruments for respecting the greater principle of the universal destination of goods. For example, private property can be taxed to assist in providing goods and services that are at the service of all, like police protection, the building of roads and public libraries, for example.
The fundamental principles of Catholic social doctrine that are set out inRerum Novarum are as important today as they were in 1891. Two more social encyclicals have been written [editor's note: prior to when this essay was written; Benedict XVI's social encyclical Caritas in veritate, was presented in 2009] to expound on these principles, and both were written in anniversary years of this important encyclical.
In 1931, Pope Pius XI wrote Quadragesimo Anno (On Social Reconstruction) and in 1991, Pope John Paul II wrote Centesimus Annus. A reading of these three encyclicals can give one an important foundation for knowing what each person's rights and responsibilities are as a member of society. It can also assist those who set government and workplace policies to know the best ways to serve the ultimate good of all while respecting the dignity of each and every human person. As RN points out, socialism, which promotes class warfare between the wealthy and the poor, is never a good answer to social and economic problems. Neither is unbridled capitalism that promotes materialism and greed.
Christian social doctrine and Christian morality are the best answers to the problems of human society that beset man today. This is because they keep greed and power-mongering in check by inspiring generosity and a spirit of service to the less fortunate. Christian life discourages vice and encourages virtue. Christianity discourages vices like laziness, lust and pride, which can destroy both large and small incomes, ruin families and end hopes of eternal beatitude. Christianity encourages virtues like prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, which can help build a society where there is hope of both temporal well-being and eternal happiness.
Sin
Is defined as, "Any thought, word, or deed against the Law of God."
There two types of sin:
Mortal sin: A mortal sin is a transgression of the moral law in a serious matter, committed with clear advertence to the grievous nature of the act and with full deliberation and consent on the part of the will. It is called mortal since it deprives the soul of its supernatural life of sanctifying grace. It deserves eternal punishment (2 Thes 1:9), since the offence is a deliberate act of rebellion against the infinite majesty of God.
Venial sin: An offence against the law of God less grievous than mortal sin, not depriving the soul of sanctifying grace. A sin is venial either when the matter is not grave, or when, given grave matter, either full advertence to its gravity on the part of the intellect or full consent on the part of the will is wanting. Venial sins can be remitted by prayer or other good works.
he Catholic conscience…
The Catholic view of religious freedom that underlay religious education for children and adults in Australia, and in the whole Church, up until Vatican II was based on the idea of the Catholic conscience.
In the teaching of the Church, the 'Catholic conscience' possessed the fullness of religious freedom because religious freedom was rooted in objective and absolute truth. The true and the good were objectively proposed by the eternal law of God and authentically declared by the Church.
In this understanding of conscience, religious freedom was the requirement of the dignity of the human person, as rational and moral beings humans were properly dignified by adhering to what was true and good.
The good person therefore was the one who lived according to those higher norms that were objectively true, and these norms were found in all the teachings of the Catholic Church.
On the other hand a sincere but erroneous person, who was acting according to higher norms, but norms that were not objectively true or that were objectively wrong, had internal freedom. They could not be forced to act in accordance with Church teaching but they were still wrong.
The sincere but erroneous were, in charity to be tolerated though they had no right to public expression of their beliefs in witness, worship or teaching, or, in Catholic states, to their ethical choices if they conflicted with Catholic teaching. For example, many of the laws established in the Republic of Ireland against divorce, contraception and inter-faith adoptions in the time from the 1920s until well after the Vatican Council discriminated against non-Catholics but were deemed good laws by the Catholic Church under this view of religious freedom.
The person who recognized no norms other than his or her own subjective imperatives was in bad conscience and possessed neither rectitude nor truth and therefore had no rights to religious freedom. Wrong had no rights.
In the 1950s this fixed view of freedom was the official teaching of the Catholic Church. It was a teaching that had developed over centuries but in the first half of the twentieth century its proponents argued that progress within the tradition had finished with Pope Leo XIII, who died in 1903, and that Catholic doctrine on this matter had reached its final and definitive mode of conception and statement.
Ecclesiastical authority was claiming that nothing new need be said on this topic ever again in the whole future of humankind.
Teaching had become ideology in the destructive sense; it was a fixed view of meaning where information was being expressed in a way that justified one sectional interest while it concealed the suppression of other meanings and misrepresented other interests.
This kind of ideology quickly leads to corruption.
The dignity of the person…
In 1963 Pope John XXIII's encyclical letter Pacem in Terris – Peace on the earth, changed this view. He said, among other things:
The aspirations of the minds of men, about which we have been speaking, also give clear witness to the fact that in these our days men are becoming more and more conscious of their dignity. For this reason they feel the impulse to participate in the process of government and also demand that their own inviolable rights be guaranteed by the order of public law. [#279]
John XXIII spelled out what this dignity demands:
The dignity of the human person requires that a man should act on his own judgment and with his own freedom. Wherefore in community life there is good reason why it should be chiefly on his own deliberate initiative that a man should exercise his rights, fulfil his duties, and co-operate with others in the endless variety of necessary social tasks. What matters is that a man should make his own decisions and act on his own judgement out of a sense of duty. He is not to act as one compelled by external coercion or instigation. In view of all this, it is clear that a society of men which is maintained solely by force must be considered inhuman. [#265]
New teachings…
John contributed two things that were new to Catholic teaching. The first was that, as long as our conscience is formed by higher norms, and not just by our own subjective imperatives, it is 'among the rights of man, that he should be able to worship God in accord with the norm approved by his conscience and to profess his religion privately and publicly'. [# 260]
And he made it clear that in order that the conscience possesses the status of personal and civil right it is not even required that the norms that form it should be true.
'Since all men are equal in their dignity', John affirmed, 'no one has the power to force another to act out of inner conviction. Only God can do this, since He alone scrutinizes and judges the secret counsels of the heart'. Not only was John asserting the role of conscience here, he was also acknowledging the contemporary human consciousness.
He thus demonstrated the development of doctrine, and the inadequacy of using a reproductive approach to religious education.
Possibly the most startling of John's contributions was that, unlike the popes before him, he added freedom as coequally essential to truth, justice and love when he described the spiritual forces that sustain human society.
John affirmed that the human quality of society depends on the freedom of the people. Truth, justice and love assure the stability of society; but freedom is the dynamism of social progress toward fuller humanity in communal living.
Freedom is a political end demanded by justice and is also the political method by which the people achieve their highest political good, which is their unity as a people. In Pacem in Terris John XXIII affirmed religious freedom as a civil and human right both personally and corporately, a right immune from restriction by any legal or extralegal force.
The Second Vatican Council documents took the same attitude to freedom as Pacem in Terris. Three of the Vatican Council documents are particularly relevant in a consideration of the role of freedom in Catholic thought. These are Gaudium et spes – The Church in the Modern World, Gravissimum educationis – On Christian Education, and Dignitatis humanae – On Religious Freedom.
For example Dignitatis humanae declares that religious freedom is a human right both for the person and for the group. John Courtney Murray in his introduction to the document in the Abbott edition of the Vatican Documents, commented on Dignitatis humanae, 'it must be admitted that the Church is late in acknowledging the validity of the principle'.
Late or not, the Church changed its teaching!
Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
Be enlightened !
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