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Overview of Contents
Catholic social teaching can be described as a framework or vision by which to evaluate human relationships. It provides a set of principles for reflection, criteria for judgment, and directions for action. Its core elements include the following:
- The world is God’s creation. Made in God’s image, women and men are called to put all things in right order, in relationships with the creator, with all sisters and brothers, and with the natural environment.
- As God’s gift, human life has inherent dignity or sacredness. This principle is the basis of fundamental human rights, beginning with the right to life.
- Solidarity is a primary social principle. In accordance with the creator’s will, human beings are born social, through the co-operation of their parents with God’s plan. Each person’s growth in strength and knowledge comes through relations with others. No one is or can be “self-made”. Interrelationships and interdependencies are societal requirements, not individual options.
- The principle of subsidiarity balances power between the individual and the community. Decisions in society should be taken at the lowest competent level, to protect individual and minority rights, including the right to participate creatively in making decisions.
- Jesus showed special love for the people who are most dependent and in need of others– the sick, the poor, children, prisoners. This fact is the basis of the social principle that all Christian life must be marked by a “preferential option for the poor.”
- Human work is a participation in God’s creation. Work has value because of who does the work (a co-creator) and what work is (co-creation).
- Lay Catholics – those not ordained – are particularly and primarily called to seek holiness by engaging in building up a just society, “a civilization of love,” marked by caring, sharing and sparing.
From these main social principles, others can be derived, including those of the common good, private property, the right to assemble and to participate, the just wage, and others.
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