Catholic Social Teaching Definition

Catholic Social Teaching is that body of thought and action through experience and tradition that helps guide us to deeper understanding of the role of our faith values and how to live them in concrete social and historical situations.

Themes from Catholic Social Teaching

The following principles are drawn from many

documents. They are generally agreed on, but as

CST continues to develop, so will the principles

Dignity of the Rural Poor

Dignity of the Rural Poor

Mass for Sumilao Farmers

• Dignity of the Human Person• Common Good and Community• Option for the Poor• Global Solidarity and Development• Promotion of Peace and Disarmament• Stewardship of God’s Creation• Economic Justice• Role of Government and Subsidiarity• Participation• Rights and Responsibilities

Dignity of the Human Person

• Belief in the inherent dignity of the human person is the foundation of all Catholic social teaching. This principle is rooted in the idea that the person is made in the image of God.

Common Good and Community

• The human person is both sacred and social. We realize our dignity and rights in relationship with others, in community.

Option for the Poor

• The "option for the poor," states that the deprivation and powerlessness of the poor wounds the whole community. We are called to look at public policy decisions in terms of how they affect the poor.

Global Solidarity and Development

We are one human family. Ourresponsibilities to each other crossnational, racial, economic and ideologicaldifferences.We are called to work globally for justice.Authentic development must be fullHuman development.

Promotion of Peace and Disarmament

There is a close relationship in Catholicteaching between Peace and Justice.Peace is the fruit of justice.

Stewardship of God's Creation

The goods of the earth are gifts from God, and they are intended by God for the benefit of everyone. How we treat the environment is a measure of our stewardship, a sign of our respect for the Creator.

Economic Justice

• The economy must serve people, not the other way around. All workers have a right to productive work, to decent wages, and to organize and join unions.

When they

cannot, then

higher levels of

government must

intervene.

Role of Government and Subsidiarity The state is an

instrument to promote

human dignity, protect

human rights, and build

the common good.

Subsidiarity holds that

such functions of

government should be

performed at the lowest

level possible, as long

as they can be

performed adequately.

Participation • All people have a right to participate in the economic, political, and cultural life of society. It is wrong for a person or a group to be excluded unfairly or to be unable to participate in society.

Rights and Responsibilities

• Human dignity can be protected and a healthy community can be achieved only if human rights are protected and responsibilities are met.

• …The goal of the Church is to help reconcile and unify classes.

• A nation’s wealth originates from the labour of workers. People have a right to the fruits of their own labour but should use them to benefit all.

• ... Government and the law must support the common good … and give special consideration to the rights of the poor.

Pope Leo XIII produces Rerum Novarum in 1892

Pope Paul VI Encyclical Populorum Progressio in 1967

• Social conflicts now have a worldwide dimension. Responding to the teaching of Jesus, the Church must foster human progress. Our response to hunger, malnutrition, stunted physical and mental growth demands generosity, sacrifice and effort by the rich: a solidarity that costs.

• .

• Private property is not an absolute and unconditional right. It must be exercised for the common good. Public authority must ensure this. Industry is necessary, but structures of capitalism – profit, competition, and absolute private ownership – are unfortunate.

Pope Paul VI

Medellin(1968):

We choose the

side of the poor

and oppressed.

Latin American Bishops Conference (CELAM) in 1968

We must reach out to them through evangelization and lay participation from which base com-munities will emerge

• Puebla (1977)• We see the need for conversion on the part of the

whole Church to a preferential option for the poor, an option aimed at their integral liberation.[1] We support the communal church, with the full participation of base communities. We more clearly and fully commit the church to the service of the poor and to the preferential option for the poor and oppressed.

• We take a stronger stand for human rights. [2]

• [1] Calling out the prophetic tradition: a Jubilee of Social Teaching from the CCCB, p.21

• [2] Edward L. Cleary, O.P. Crisis and Change: the Church in Latin America today, Orbis, 1985

CELAM in 1977

• God’s glory is revealed in the natural world, yet we humans are presently destroying creation … the ecological crisis is also a profoundly religious crisis. In destroying creation we are limiting our ability to know and love God.

• The common good should be conceived as the sustenance and flourishing of life for all beings and for future generations… a “new solidarity”…

• The preferential option for the poor can …include a preferential option for the earth…

Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. Pastoral Letter on the Christian

Ecological Imperative: “You love all that exists…”

October 4, 2003

Dignity of the Rural PoorManila 2007

The over-riding social concern of the Church of the Philippines hasbeen all these years centered on the inequitable distribution of thenation's wealth and the endemic social injustices that underpin thatevil.  We would like in this statement to focus our attention on thegreatest victim of our unjust economic order, the rural poor, and thediminishment of their dignity as people and as citizens. We cannot putit too strongly, but this diminishment is a negation of Christian loveand hence of the God who is love. (Cf. Jubilee of the Agricultural World Address of John Paul II, Nov. 11, 2000l also, Land and Agrarian

Reform,Pastoral Exhortation on Philippine Economy, no. 54, CBCP, 1998).

• Dignity of the Human Person• Common Good and Community• Option for the Poor• Global Solidarity and Development• Promotion of Peace and Disarmament• Stewardship of God’s Creation• Economic Justice• Role of Government and Subsidiarity• Participation• Rights and Responsibilities

Dignity of the Rural Poor

Social Teachings of the Church

WORLD

3. World’s Justice, peace and development;secular order

CULTURE

JUSTICE

CHURCH

GOSPEL

FAITH

Social Teachings

1. What should be (Rights & Duties; Common Good)

2. Human Dignity: Person “Gloria Dei Homo Vivens”

3. Faith & Justice towardsPeace and Development; integral Evangelization

1. What is

2. Actual Poverty:Material & spiritual

Social Problems

CHURCH WORLD

FAITH

SPIRITUALITY

THEOLOGY

RELIGION

PHILOSOPHY

JUSTICE

MORALS

CULTURE

SOCIETY

POLITICS

ECONOMICS HISTORY

Partisan

Politics

Separationof Churchand State

THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD:

Contextualizing the Involvement of Church Leaders and Laity

Role of Catholic

Laity