The Churches Stance On Social Order Essay

, Research Paper

The Churches Stance for social order.

Every day human interdependence grows more tightly drawn and spreads

by degrees over the whole world. As a result the common good, that is,

the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and

their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their

own fulfillment, today takes on an increasingly universal complexion and

consequently involves rights and duties with respect to the whole human

race. Every social group must take account of the needs and legitimate

aspirations of other groups, and even of the general welfare of the

entire human family.

At the same time, however, there is a growing awareness of the exalted

dignity proper to the human person, since he stands above all things, and

his rights and duties are universal and inviolable. Therefore, there must

be made available to all men everything necessary for leading a life

truly human, such as food, clothing, and shelter; the right to choose a

state of life freely and to found a family, the right to education, to

employment, to a good reputation, to respect, to appropriate information,

to activity in accord with the upright norm of one’s own conscience, to

protection of privacy and to rightful freedom, even in matters religious.

Hence, the social order and its development must invariably work to the

benefit of the human person if the disposition of affairs is to be

subordinate to the personal realm and not contrariwise, as the Lord

indicated when He said that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for

the Sabbath.

This social order requires constant improvement. It must be founded on

truth, built on justice and animated by love; in freedom it should grow

every day toward a more humane balance. An improvement in attitudes

and abundant changes in society will have to take place if these objectives are to be gained.