Rights And Responsibilities

Rights and Responsibilities
Human dignity can be protected and a healthy community can be achieved only if human rights are protected and responsibilities are met. Every person has a fundamental right to life and a right to those things required for human decency – starting with food, shelter and clothing, employment, health care, and education. Corresponding to these rights are duties and responsibilities -- to one another, to our families, and to the larger society.
Role of Government
The state has a positive moral function. It is an instrument to promote human dignity, protect human rights, and build the common good. All people have a right and a responsibility to participate in political institutions so that government can achieve its proper goals.
Questions:
1. What are every humans fundamental rights?
• Food
• Shelter
• Clothing
• Employment
• Health care
• Education
2. What is the role of the Government in maintaining human rights?
• It has to promote human dignity
• Protect human rights
• Bold the common good
3. Who is responsible for assisting the government to achieve its goals
• All the people of Australian have the right and responsibility to participate, to help the government achieve its goals.

Promotion of Peace and Disarmament/Participation/Global Solidarity and Development

Promotion of Peace and Disarmament
Catholic teaching promotes peace as a positive, action-oriented concept. In the words of Pope John Paul II, "Peace is not just the absence of war. It involves mutual respect and confidence between peoples and nations. It involves collaboration and binding agreements.” There is a close relationship in Catholic teaching between peace and justice. Peace is the fruit of justice and is dependent upon right order among human beings.

Participation
All people have a right to participate in the economic, political, and cultural life of society. It is a fundamental demand of justice and a requirement for human dignity that all people be assured a minimum level of participation in the community. It is wrong for a person or a group to be excluded unfairly or to be unable to participate in society

Global Solidarity and Development
We are one human family. Our responsibilities to each other cross national, racial, economic and ideological differences. We are called to work globally for justice. Authentic development must be full human development. It must respect and promote personal, social, economic, and political rights, including the rights of nations and of peoples. It must avoid the extremists of underdevelopment on the one hand, and "superdevelopment" on the other.

Questions:
1. What is the Catholic teaching regarding the requirement to maintaining peace?
The catholic teaching regarding the requirements to maintaining peace is that peace is the fruit of justice and is dependent upon order among human beings. To maintain peace everyone has to understand the mutual respect and confidence between people and nations. It also involves collaboration and binding agreements
2. Why is it wrong to exclude people from participating in society?
It is wrong to exclude people from participating in society as it is a requirement of human dignity and a fundamental demand of justice.
3. What are our global responsibilities to each other?
Our global responsibilities to each other are to work globally for justice. We must respect and promote personal, social, economic, and political rights, including the rights of nations and their people.

Economic Justice and Stewardship of Gods's Creation

Economic Justice
The economy must serve people, not the other way around. All workers have a right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, and to safe working conditions. They also have a fundamental right to organize and join unions. People have a right to economic initiative and private property, but these rights have limits. No one is allowed to amass excessive wealth when others lack the basic necessities of life.

Stewardship of God's Creation
The goods of the earth are gifts from God, and they are intended by God for the benefit of everyone. There is a "social mortgage" that guides our use of the world's goods, and we have a responsibility to care for these goods as stewards and trustees, not as mere consumers and users. How we treat the environment is a measure of our stewardship, a sign of our respect for the Creator.

Questions:
1. What are the rights of the worker?
• The rights of the worker are to have productive work, to decent and fair wages, and to safe working conditions. Also to organize or join a union.
2. What is a union?
• A union is a group that looks after all the workers.
3. What should people’s economic limitations be?
• People’s economic limitations should be that everyone has a right to the basic necessities of life.
4. Who are god’s gifts intended for?
• God’s gifts are intended for everyone.
5. What is meant in this context by: Social Mortgage, Steward and Trustee?
• Social Mortgage, Steward and Trustee in this text means that we owe ourselves and everyone to looking after this world, and try to make sure that we don’t harm this planet and use it wisely.
6. What is one measure of our stewardship?
• One measure of our stewardship is how much respect we give to the Creator and how we treat his gifts to us.

Common Good And Community

Common Good and community
The human person is both sacred and social. We realize our dignity and rights in relationship with others, in community. Human beings grow and achieve fulfilment in community. Human dignity can only be realized and protected in the context of relationships with the wider society.

Option for the Poor
The moral test of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. The poor have the most urgent moral claim on the conscience of the nation. We are called to look at public policy decisions in terms of how they affect the poor.

The option for the poor is an essential part of society's effort to achieve the common good. A healthy community can be achieved only if its members give special attention to those with special needs, to those who are poor and on the margins of society
Questions
1. Give an example of a community that you are part of.
• I’m a part of a tennis group.
2. How is this community both Sacred and Social
• This group is scared as we all enjoy palying together and the sport and just have fun with each other and at the same time learn new skills.
3. What is the major test of a moral society?
• The major test of a moral society is how it treats its most vulnerable member’s; the poor.
4. In what way does our community look after the poor?
• At mass we have the poor donation, that we donate, and we also have the Matthew Talbot Hostel, in which volunteers travel in the vans that travel around the city at night giving the poor cookies and coffee. We have the St Vincent De Paul Society in which people donate their clothes and possessions that they don’t want anymore, that get passed onto the poor.

Human Dignity

Social Justice
Social Justice concerns itself with our responsibility to ensure that all people are given a ‘fair go’.
Some issues that social justice aims to cover to are;
• Poverty
• Child labour
• Refugees
• Homelessness
• Hunger
Dignity of the Human Person
Belief in the inherent dignity of the human person is the foundation of all Catholic social teaching. Human life is scared, and the dignity of the human person is the starting point for a moral vision for society. This principle is grounded in the idea that the person is made in the image of god. The person is the clearest reflection of God among us.
Moral: Right and wrong.
Questions:
1. List the five issues social justice aims to cover.
• Poverty
• Child labour
• Refugees
• Homelessness
• Hunger

2. In your own words explain what is meant by human dignity.
• Human dignity is a person’s self respect, pride, self worth and being valued as a human being equally.

3. What is meant by a moral vision for society?
• Is means that we all have the choice to do right or wrong in society, and as a community we know what is right and wrong. It also means that the society understand how treat people.

4. Which of the 5 social justice issues relates to human dignity?
• Refugees- as they get sent to concentration camps and get treated like strangers. This relates to human dignity as it destroys the refugees self respect in society and we are taking away their freedom.