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Rights & Responsibilities-- for St. Vincent's Parish Bulletin by: Dennis Wells In 2004, we marked the 215 th anniversary of the full ratification of the Bill of Rights, the first 10 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The framers of our early government insisted that our Constitution was meaningless without a statement of the protection of basic rights. We, in the U.S.A. have a deep cultural respect for the protection of individual rights. Similarly, much of Catholic social teaching is concerned with the protection of human rights. As we noted earlier, modern Catholic social teaching’s first document, Rerum Novarum, was a response to human rights abuses after the Industrial Revolution. Because Capitalism requires a concentration of property (capital) in the hands of a minority – or else it won’t work – the Marxist response was to deny everyone the right to own property. In both scenarios the average worker is denied ownership of the fruits of his/her labor -- the laborer receives a (usually) small percentage of the revenue generated by his/her own labor; someone else reaps the profits. This "someone" is the owner of the capital resources required for the industry to operate. This "someone" might be:
In any case, the owner or "corporate person" calls the shots and the individual worker is exploited for the financial gain of the larger controlling interest. Again, both Capitalism and Socialism fall a good deal short of the ideal. John Paul II’s Sollicitudo Rei Socialis reiterated Catholic social teaching’s tradition of supporting the individual ownership of property but declared that private property is held under a “social mortgage” – we have social responsibilities that accompany our rights. We, in the United States, do not like to have responsibilities attached to our Bill of Rights. We like our rights to be left alone, just the way they are, thank you. Catholic social teaching tells us that if we truly believe what we have said about human dignity and about the necessity of community, then we must recognize that our intrinsic rights carry intrinsic responsibilities. A fancy name for the principle behind this is “the universal destination of goods” – we believe that God created the world for all and that no one has an exclusive claim to the goods of the earth over anyone else. We are all destined to, or “entitled” to, the goods of the earth. While the notion of “entitlement” bears some negative connotations, it is this principle of the universal destination of goods that drove the U.S. Bishops and then Pius XI to publish letters such as Quadragesimo Anno: OnSocial Reconstruction. These letters place demands upon governments to establish and maintain a “living wage”, social insurance, child labor laws, public housing, etc. Just as we have individual and collective rights, we have individual and collective responsibilities. The principle of the universal destination of goods and our fundamental belief in the dignity of the human person, fulfilled in community, lead us to the next 3 themes that we will look at: The Preferential Option for the Poor, The Dignity of Human Labor, and Solidarity. By protecting the rights of all individuals and by fulfilling our responsibilities to one another, we work to create a truly just society. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Index, Catholic Social Teaching: Overview; 1)Human life & dignity, 2)Call to family, community/ participation, 3)Rights/Responsibilities, 4)Option for the poor/vulnerable, 5)Dignity of human labor, 6)Solidarity, 7)Stewardship of Creation; Summary: Catholic Social Teaching Look here for more links on Catholic Social Teaching |
Parish Mission Statement We, the people of St. Vincent's Parish in the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Missouri, are committed to following Christ, evangelizer of the poor. We do this through: |