CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING: Sacredness and Dignity of the Human Person

“This teaching rests on one basic principle: individual human beings are the foundation, the cause and the end of every social institution. That is necessarily so, for men are by nature social beings.”

—St. John XXIII, Mater et Magistra, # 219 (Mother and Teacher, on Christianity and social progress)

Where in your own life have you seen human dignity forgotten, ignored or cast aside? What kind of action or event or social structure has the capacity to rob a person of that which God has given? Maybe you’ve traveled, worked or served overseas—been to Tanzania or Niger; maybe Lebanon, Nicaragua or Cambodia. Maybe you’ve worked here in the United States, on a Native American reservation, in a low-income neighborhood in one of the big cities or in a shelter or clinic.

In places such as these, some attacks on human dignity are obvious, while others fly under the radar: Families forced to live in the slums, addicts deemed too far gone to be welcomed back into society, communities considered inferior to more “developed” communities in other parts of the world. But human dignity is not a commodity to be earned, given, bought or sold. Dignity is inherent. It’s a gift to be contemplated, protected, upheld—often in ways that may surprise us.