Catholic Social Teaching Themes

• The presentation discusses the themes of the Catholic Social Teachings.
• The objectives are to identify and discuss the basic concepts and principles of the Catholic Social Teachings, and to reflect on the relevance of the values of these teachings.

Human Dignity

• The person is sacred and made in the image of God.
• The foundational principle of all Catholic Social Teaching is the sanctity of human life and the inherent dignity of the human person.
• Human life must be valued infinitely above material possessions.
• War, the death penalty, racism, and discrimination must almost always be opposed.
• Pope Francis stated that people have a dignity, which is priceless and worth far more than things.
• Pope Francis's Evangilii Gaudium states there is a 'throw away' culture that exploits and oppresses, which makes the excluded the outcast and the leftovers.
• Pope Francis's Laudato si discusses the failure to acknowledge the worth of a poor person, human embryo, or a person with disabilities which makes it hard to hear the cry of nature itself; everything is connected.
• St. John Paul II's Centesimus Annus "Human persons are willed by God; they are imprinted with God's image. Their dignity does not come from the work they do, but from the persons they are".

Call to Family, Community and Participation

• The person is not only sacred but also social.
• How our society is organized in economics and politics, in law and policy, directly affects human dignity and the capacity of individuals to grow in community.
• Marriage and the family are the central social institutions that must be supported and strengthened.
• People are required to participate in society, seeking together the common good and well-being of all, mainly the poor and vulnerable.
• Genesis 2:18: "It is not good for man to be alone"
• God did not create man as a solitary being.
• Companionship produces the primary form of interpersonal communion.
• A person's innermost nature is a social being; unless he relates himself to others, he can neither live nor develop his potential.
• Marriage and the Family institutions must be supported and strengthened.
• St. John Paul II's Centesimus Annus states that the first and fundamental structure for a "human ecology" is the family founded on marriage, in which the mutual gift of self between husband and wife create an environment where children can be born and develop their potentialities, become aware of their dignity and prepare to face their unique and individual destiny.
• Every person has a fundamental right to life and those things required for human decency.
• Corresponding to rights are duties and responsibilities to one another, families, and to the larger society.

Rights and Responsibilities

• Rights and responsibilities are correlated to one another and to the same person.
• Man has the right to live, bodily integrity, and the means necessary for the proper development of life, particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and social services.
• Claiming one's rights but ignoring one's duties is like building a house with one hand and tearing it down with the other.

Preferential Option for the Poor

• Love of preference for the poor embraces the immense multitudes of the hungry, needy, homeless, those without health care and those without hope of a better future.
• The poor should be preferential because it is in the poor that we can see Jesus Christ.
• It is among the poor where Jesus Christ was born and lived.
• Everyone has the right to possess a sufficient amount of the earth's goods for themselves and their family.
• People in extreme necessity are entitled to take what they need from the riches of others.
• "Feed the people dying of hunger, because if you do not feed them you are killing them".
• St. Ambrose stated that giving to the poor is actually giving them back what is theirs, what was meant to be for the common use of everyone: the earth belongs to everyone, not only the rich.

Dignity of Work

• Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God's creation.
• Rights of workers are based on the nature of the human person and on his transcendent dignity.
• Work itself has dignity.
• Deuteronomy 24:14-15: "Do not withhold wages from your workers, for their livelihood depends on them."
• Only man can work, and when done by man, it is then we put dignity into work.

Solidarity

• Solidarity highlights the intrinsic social nature of the human person.
• Highlights equality of all in dignity and rights.
• Highlights the common path of individuals and peoples towards an ever more committed unity.

Care for God's Creation

• Man, created in God's image, received a mandate to subject to himself the earth and all that it contains, and to govern the world with justice and holiness.

Presentation on the themes of the Catholic Social Teachings. Objectives include identifying and discussing the basic concepts and principles, and to reflect on the relevance of the values of these teachings. Foundational principle is the sanctity of human life and the inherent dignity of the human person.