327 RESPECT FOR FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS

YOUCAT Lesson 327, March 28, 2015

The catechism for Catholic youth

327  How can the common good be promoted?

The common good follows wherever the fundamental rights of the person are respected and men can freely develop their intellectual and religious potential.  The common good implies that men can live in society with freedom, peace, and security.  In an age of globalization, the common good must also acquire a worldwide scope and allow for the rights and duties of all mankind.  [1907-1912, 1925, 1927]

Pope Francis greets an elderly woman in Madhu Sri Lanka in 2014. ….327

[During Pope Francis’ March 21, 2015 meeting with residents of Naples, Italy, Scampia neighborhood, an area of poverty and degradation, an immigrant woman from the Philippines asked the Pope to please remind the people that immigrants are children of God. 

      “Have we reached the point where that’s necessary?” the Pope asked the crowd.  “Are migrants second-class humans?  They are like us, children of God,”  he said.  “What is more, they are reminders that this world is not the permanent home of anyone,” and that, “we are all migrants (moving) toward another homeland.  We are all children of God, beloved children, desired children, saved children.  Think about that!,” he said --text taken from March 26, 2015 Superior (WI) Catholic Herald weekly publication]

The common good is best served where the good of the individual person and of the smaller units of society (for instance, the family) is central.  The individual and the smaller social unit need to be protected and promoted by the stronger power of State institutions.

 The common good is the good that is shared by all in common.  It includes “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily”  (Gaudium et spes).

“We must obey God rather than men.”  Acts of the Apostles 5:29

1907-1912, 1925, 1927

ARTICLE 2
PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL LIFE

II. THE COMMON GOOD

1907 First, the common good presupposes respect for the person as such. In the name of the common good, public authorities are bound to respect the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person. Society should permit each of its members to fulfill his vocation. In particular, the common good resides in the conditions for the exercise of the natural freedoms indispensable for the development of the human vocation, such as "the right to act according to a sound norm of conscience and to safeguard . . . privacy, and rightful freedom also in matters of religion."( Gaudium et Spes 26 § 2. )²⁷ --Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

1908 Second, the common good requires the social well-being and development of the group itself. Development is the epitome of all social duties. Certainly, it is the proper function of authority to arbitrate, in the name of the common good, between various particular interests; but it should make accessible to each what is needed to lead a truly human life: food, clothing, health, work, education and culture, suitable information, the right to establish a family, and so on.( Compare Gaudium et Spes 26 § 2.)²⁸ –CCC

1909 Finally, the common good requires peace, that is, the stability and security of a just order. It presupposes that authority should ensure by morally acceptable means the security of society and its members. It is the basis of the right to legitimate personal and collective defense. –CCC

1910 Each human community possesses a common good which permits it to be recognized as such; it is in the political community that its most complete realization is found. It is the role of the state to defend and promote the common good of civil society, its citizens, and intermediate bodies. –CCC

1911 Human interdependence is increasing and gradually spreading throughout the world. The unity of the human family, embracing people who enjoy equal natural dignity, implies a universal common good. This good calls for an organization of the community of nations able to "provide for the different needs of men; this will involve the sphere of social life to which belong questions of food, hygiene, education, . . . and certain situations arising here and there, as for example . . . alleviating the miseries of refugees dispersed throughout the world, and assisting migrants and their families."( Gaudium et Spes 84 § 2.)²⁹ –CCC

1912 The common good is always oriented towards the progress of persons: "The order of things must be subordinate to the order of persons, and not the other way around."( Gaudium et Spes 26 § 3.)³⁰ This order is founded on truth, built up in justice, and animated by love. –CCC

IN BRIEF

1925 The common good consists of three essential elements: respect for and promotion of the fundamental rights of the person; prosperity, or the development of the spiritual and temporal goods of society; the peace and security of the group and of its members. –CCC

1927 It is the role of the state to defend and promote the common good of civil society. The common good of the whole human family calls for an organization of society on the international level. --CCC