YOUCAT Lesson 435,
YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth
435 Is it permissible to
“buy” and “sell” human beings?
No human being, not even parts of a human being, may be
turned into commodities, nor may a person make himself a commodity. Man belongs to God and has been endowed by
him with freedom and dignity. Buying and
selling people, as is common practice nowadays, and not only in prostitution,
is a profoundly reprehensible act. [2414]
Trafficking in organs for transplantation and in embryos for
the biotech industry or in children for purposes of adoption, the recruiting of
child soldiers, prostitution—the age-old injustice of trafficking in human
beings and slavery is reappearing everywhere.
People are deprived of their freedom, their dignity, and their right of
self-determination, even of their lives.
Others reduce them to objects with which their owner can make a
profit. Human trafficking in the strict
sense should be distinguished from dealings between sports teams. Here, too, there is talk about “buying” and ”selling”
players, but of course these are transactions that presuppose the athletes’
free consent.
“As we witness the cruelties of a capitalism that degrades
man to the level of merchandise…we have gained a new appreciation of what Jesus
meant when he warned of riches, of the man-destroying divinity Mammon, which
grips large parts of the world in a cruel stranglehold.” Pope Benedict XVI, “Jesus of Nazareth”
“Approximately 12.3 million people live enslaved in forced
labor. Approximately 2.4 million of them
are victims of human trafficking. Total
profits: approximately 10 billion U.S. dollars.” Estimates of the International Organization
of Labor for the year 2005. ….. 435
[2414]
Respect for the goods
of others
2414 The seventh commandment
forbids acts or enterprises that for any reason - selfish or ideological,
commercial, or totalitarian - lead to the enslavement of human beings, to their being bought,
sold and exchanged like merchandise, in disregard for their personal dignity.
It is a sin against the dignity of persons and their fundamental rights to
reduce them by violence to their productive value or to a source of profit. St.
Paul directed a Christian master to treat his Christian slave "no longer
as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, . . . both in
the flesh and in the Lord." (Philemon 1:16.)194 –Catechism of the Catholic
Church, Second Edition
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