Catholic Social Doctrine

The Church has been at the forefront of human rights issues since the very beginning, and much of the current work from the Vatican emanates from the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, whose president is Mary Ann Glendon, and Vatican Information Service noted a meeting with the Holy Father today.

An excerpt.

“VATICAN CITY, 4 MAY 2009 (VIS) - Benedict XVI today received members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences at the end of their fifteenth plenary meeting. The president of the academy is Mary Ann Glendon.

“Speaking English, the Pope noted how the academy, "after studying work, democracy, globalisation, solidarity and subsidiarity in relation to the social teaching of the Church, ... has chosen to return to the central question of the dignity of the human person and human rights, a point of encounter between the doctrine of the Church and contemporary society".

"The Church has always affirmed that fundamental rights, above and beyond the different ways in which they are formulated and the different degrees of importance they may have in various cultural contexts, are to be upheld and accorded universal recognition because they are inherent in the very nature of man, who is created in the image and likeness of God", said the Holy Father. For this reason "they share a common nature that binds them together and calls for universal respect". Thus the Church has always "taught that the ethical and political order that governs relationships between persons finds its origin in the very structure of man's being".

“The modern period, with its "heightened awareness of human rights as such and of their universality, ... helped shape the idea that the message of Christ - because it proclaims that God loves every man and woman and that every human being is called to love God freely - demonstrates that everyone, independently of his or her social and cultural condition, by nature deserves freedom".

“In the wake of the "vast suffering caused by two terrible world wars and the unspeakable crimes perpetrated by totalitarian ideologies" last century, "the international community acquired a new system of international law based on human rights" and, like Paul VI and John Paul II, "forcefully referred to the right to life and the right to freedom of conscience and religion as being at the centre of those rights that spring from human nature itself.”