Catholic social teaching

[2] According to Pope Benedict XVI, its purpose "is simply to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just ... [The church] has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice ... cannot prevail and prosper.

"[3] Pope Francis, according to Cardinal Walter Kasper, has made mercy "the key word of his pontificate ... (while) Scholastic theology has neglected this topic and turned it into a mere subordinate theme of justice.

[13][14] The church responded to historical conditions in medieval and early modern Europe with philosophical and theological teachings on social justice which considered the nature of humanity, society, economy, and politics.

[23] Rerum novarum begins by saying that "some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class ... so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the labouring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.

"[19] Leo wanted to reject the solutions offered by communism:[21] "[T]hose who deny these rights [private ownership] do not perceive that they are defrauding man of what his own labour has produced."

He declared a "most sacred law of nature"[27] that humans have the right to private ownership, inheritable property, and providing for their children "all that is needful to enable them to keep themselves decently";[27] the "main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected".

It went beyond the principle that "the interests of all, whether high or low, are equal",[31] to include a demand that "public administration must duly and solicitously provide for the welfare and the comfort of the working classes".

In it, he linked the establishment of world peace to the laying of a foundation consisting of proper rights and responsibilities between individuals, social groups, and states from the local to the international level.

They should endeavour, therefore, in the light of the Faith and with the strength of love, to ensure that the various institutions—whether economic, social, cultural or political in purpose—should be such as not to create obstacles, but rather to facilitate or render less arduous people's perfectioning of themselves both in the natural order as well as in the supernatural.

[42]Other conciliar documents, such as Dignitatis humanae (drafted largely by American Jesuit John Courtney Murray) also apply to the church's present-day social teachings on freedom.

Sharing the noblest aspirations of men and women and suffering when she sees them not satisfied, she wishes to help them attain their full flowing, and that is why she offers all people what she possesses as her characteristic attribute: a global vision of man and of the human race.

On one hand there is a growing moral sensitivity alert to the value of every individual as a human being without any distinction of race, nationality, religion, political opinion, or social class.

Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 encyclical Caritas in veritate added perspectives to social teaching (including the relationships with charity and truth), and suggested the need for a strong "world political authority" to deal with humanity's most-pressing challenges and problems.

"[48] Pope Benedict has criticized capitalism, characterizing it as a system which recognizes no duties or obligations towards human beings and crediting it with creating a destructive type of individualism which "encourages selfishness, as men are concerned exclusively with what they should receive from society and unconcerned with what they can or should contribute to it.

"[49] Catholic teaching recognizes the common good as a key requirement for prosperity; capitalism disregards it for the pursuit of profit, leading to exploitation and the erosion of moral limitations.

"[52] He affirmed "the right of states" to intervene in the economy to promote "the common good": While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few.

[53]Francis has warned about the "idolatry of money":[53] [S]ome people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world.

[53]In his second encyclical, Laudato si', Francis makes a "biting critique of consumerism and irresponsible development with a plea for swift and unified global action" to combat environmental degradation and climate change.

[54] According to Daniel Schwindt, "[S]ome writers seem to suggest (as is common among persons who've never taken the time to read the encyclicals themselves), that Pope Francis' Laudato Si represents some new venture on the part of the Church—a departure from its customary range of subject matter.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote, The order of creation demands that a priority be given to those human activities that do not cause irreversible damage to nature, but which instead are woven into the social, cultural, and religious fabric of the different communities.

"[61] Subsidiarity in Catholic social thought originated with Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler, Bishop of Mainz in the mid-to-late 19th century,[62] and was incorporated into Pope Pius XI's encyclical Quadragesimo anno: Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do.

In the Second Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes ("Joy and Hope"), "from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care.

"Today, in fact, given the means at the State's disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender 'today ... are very rare, if not practically non-existent.'

In 2007, the USCCB wrote: Catholic teaching about the dignity of life calls us ... to prevent genocide and attacks against noncombatants; to oppose racism; and to overcome poverty and suffering.

[91] All people have a right to participate in the economic, political, and cultural life of society[92] and, under the principle of subsidiarity, state functions should be carried out at the lowest practical level.

In a homily to government leaders and politicians, Pope John Paul II said:[97] Man's relationship with God is not one of fear, of slavery or oppression; rather, it is a relationship of serene trust born of a free choice motivated by love ... By his Law God does not intend to coerce man's will, but rather to set it free it from everything that could compromise its authentic dignity and its full realization.The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that every person has human rights.

[98] It lists some of these rights,[99] including the right to life from conception unto natural death,[100] to be treated as a person,[101] to socioeconomic and legal equality,[102] to political rights (such as to vote[103] and to free expression and association[104]), to follow one's conscience,[105] to criticism,[106] to civil disobedience,[107] to nonviolent and violent civil resistance,[108] to justice and peace,[109] to enjoy the goods of the earth,[110] to private property,[111] to access to transportation and employment,[112] to the fruits of one's labor (such as a just wage),[113] to contribute to society and economy,[114] to self-defense,[115] to regulate the production and sale of weapons,[116] to discontinue medical procedures,[117] to marriage and family,[118] to have children,[119] to basic needs (such as food, water, clothing, housing, medicine, liberty, assistance for the needy, and benefits),[120] to do good deeds and practice virtue,[121] to humane treatment for the dying and the dead,[122] to the protection of health and safety,[123] to immigrate,[124] to choose a job and state of life,[125] to reparation,[126] to the presumption of innocence and to respect and a good reputation,[127] to privacy,[128] to bodily integrity,[129] to rehab and a merciful punishment before being reinstated into society,[130] to know and live by the truth,[131] to publish and receive information,[132] to educate one's children,[133] to choose children's school,[134] to science and technology,[135] to the arts and entertainment (such as comedy),[136] to rest and leisure,[137] to one's culture,[138] to annulment and civil divorce,[139] and to freedom of religion[140] (such as to the public and private practice of all Catholic and non-Catholic religion,[141] to worship,[142] to not practice or belong to religion,[143] to conversion and make converts,[144] and to study the Catholic faith and receive baptism[145]).

"[149] This is reflected in the church's canon law: "The Christian faithful are also obliged to promote social justice and, mindful of the precept of the Lord, to assist the poor from their own resources.

[152] According to the church, this preferential option for the poor and vulnerable includes all who are marginalized: unborn children, persons with disabilities, the elderly and terminally ill, and victims of injustice and oppression.

[170] The Holy See has established the World Movement of Christian Workers as the church's organization for working men and women to advance Catholic social initiatives.