But first We must speak of man’s rights. Man has the right to live. He has the right to bodily integrity and to the means necessary for the proper development of life, particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and, finally, the necessary social services. In consequence, he has the right to be looked after in the event of illhealth; disability stemming from his work; widowhood; old age; enforced unemployment; or whenever through no fault of his own he is deprived of the means of livelihood.
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Clearly, we have our work cut out for us.
4 Comments
I’ve always found John XXIII’s encyclical to be one of my favorite in terms of Catholic social justice. What I find as odd in the West is how readily many Catholics shirk off or ignore these consistent justice teachings. The right to health care is an interesting one.
Hi Charlie,
Out of curiosity I googled the phrase, “no social justice without economic justice,” and it returned only a handful of results.
It needs to be said, apparently.
A Holiday Thought…
Aren’t humans amazing Animals? They kill wildlife – birds, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice and foxes by the million in order to protect their domestic animals and their feed.
Then they kill domestic animals by the billion and eat them. This in turn kills people by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative – and fatal – - health conditions like heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, and cancer.
So then humans spend billions of dollars torturing and killing millions of more animals to look for cures for these diseases.
Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals.
Meanwhile, few people recognize the absurdity of humans, who kill so easily and violently, and once a year send out cards praying for “Peace on Earth.”
~Revised Preface to Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm by C. David Coates~
Seeing as how I’ve been a vegetarian for the past 35 years, I’m mostly in agreement with the message expressed in Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm.
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