, 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
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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.