LIFE AND DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON

“You are holy, for you are God’s temple and God dwells in you.” (1 Corinthians 3:16)

The first theme of Catholic Social Teaching is “Life and Dignity of the Human Person.” This is foundational. Unless we uphold up the life and dignity of the human person, no other aspect of the social teaching of the Church has merit. Human life is sacred and must be held so by all. Because life is sacred all persons must be treated with the dignity they deserve because they are created in the image and likeness of God. (Genesis 1:26-31). As St. John Paul II says in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, THE GOSPLE OF LIFE, “the Second Vatican Council, in a passage which retains all its relevance today, forcefully condemned a number of crimes and attacks against human life…I repeat that condemnation in the name of the whole Church, certain that I am interpreting the genuine sentiment of every upright conscience: ‘Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator.’” (Evangelium Vitae #3).

The sacredness of life begins with the right to life which belongs to each person once conceived in the womb. Therefore, abortion, in all its forms, is always wrong and always grave matter. There simply is no justification for taking the innocent life in the womb. Abortion is no more a woman’s right than killing a five-year-old child is a mother or father’s right. Each person has the right to life from conception to natural death. This includes a denunciation of all forms of suicide and euthanasia. One does not have a right to take one’s own life any more than one has a right to take another’s life. That right belongs to God alone. Nor does one have the right to assist in a suicide even in terminally ill persons. One has a right to medications to ease pain but not to medications specifically administered to cause death. There simply is not such thing as a “right to die.” Death is an unavoidable event but it’s time is not to be under the control of any individual or group of individuals. “We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church #2280)

The right to life is also extended to those who may have denied that right to others. The Catechism states; “Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically non-existent.”  (CCC #2267) Pope Francis has moved Church teaching further along by declaring the death penalty “contrary to the Gospel.” In a speech to cardinals, bishops, priests, nuns, catechists, and ambassadors from many countries on the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the Catechism Pope Francis stated, “however grave the crime that may be committed, the death penalty is inadmissible because it attacks the inviolability and the dignity of the person.”

To be continued…