The rights of the person

The Catholic social teaching is centred on the human person, especially in promoting human rights and dignity. Besides the Church, there are other organisations equally engaged in promoting human rights. The question is, what is the basis of human rights? Is it a matter of human decision though political declarations or legislations?

“The human person’s position in society is compromised by sin that damages relationships—in particular, the social sin which is a structure of injustice that gives rise to forms of relationships contrary to the plan of God for human society. ” (CNS photo/Paul Jeffrey)

In this article we are going to explore the foundation of human dignity and rights, and also put in its proper perspective the meaning of the centrality of the human person in society.

Every person is created in the image of God in which lies his inalienable dignity. That is why in her social teaching, centred on the human person, the Church calls all people to recognise in every person a brother or sister, despite whatever differences there might be. A human person is the centre of every sector and expression of society. From there we draw the consequences.

Firstly, a human person is the subject and never a mere object of society, and so “every expression of society must be directed towards the human person” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 106).

Unfortunately, not every person is conscious of this truth, leave alone respecting human dignity even by those who know it. In her role as prophet, the Church warns society against tendencies that risk distorting and violating this dignity of the human person. There are lessons from history.

“History attests that it is from the fabric of social relationships that arise some of the best possibilities for ennobling the human person, but it is also there that lie in wait the most loathsome rejections of human dignity” (CSDC, 107).

The human person’s position in society is compromised by sin that damages relationships—in particular, the social sin which is a structure of injustice that gives rise to forms of relationships contrary to the plan of God for human society.

God intends that there be peace, justice and freedom between individuals, groups and peoples. Such structures of sin risk polluting the entire world where injustice and all sorts of social evil are accepted as normal (CSDC, 119).

“Every political, economic, social, scientific and cultural programme must be inspired by the awareness of the primacy of each human being over society” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2235). Hence, a person cannot be reduced to a means for carrying out economic, social or political projects.

When we talk about rights, some people will think of declarations or legislations regarding human rights, countries that are signatory and those that are not. This betrays the mentality that human rights are a matter of human decision. Yet, promotion of human rights is nothing more than a mere recognition and response to the demands of the dignity that already properly belongs to a human person.

Of course, we cannot ignore the great revolution in the universal Declaration of Human Rights by United Nations on December 10, 1948, which is “a true milestone on the path of humanity’s moral progress”, as John Paul II told the UN general assembly in 1979.

However, it is also important to bear in mind what Pope John XXIII said in his 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris: “The ultimate source of human rights is not found in the mere will of a human being, in the reality of the state, in public powers, but in man himself and in God his creator”. These rights are universal, inviolable, and inalienable.

A true recognition of a human person’s dignity and centrality should also take into account man’s deference to his Creator.

There are two errors to beware of: firstly, the tendency to absolutise man as if his life depended on himself, and secondly, to consider man as a simple tool whose value depends on his function in the system (CSDC 125).

The human person as corporeal is “linked to this world by his body, and he is a spiritual being open to transcendence and to the discovery of more penetrating truths of mind” (CSDC 129). Just like society can dehumanise a human person, one can also dehumanise oneself by forgetting one’s constitutive relation with God, “a relationship that exists in itself…The whole of man’s life is a quest and a search for God.

This relationship with God can be ignored or even forgotten or dismissed, but it can never be eliminated because the human person has a capacity for God.

Therefore the human person should use the things of the world without forgetting his fundamental relationship with God. As St Augustine puts it in his Confession: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

The dignity and rights that one expects others to respect oblige him with the same duty towards others. Hence, rights go with duty.

Here, I find no better words to conclude the article than the words of John XXIII in his Pacem in Terris: “In human society to one man’s rights there corresponds a duty in all other persons.” And he adds, “those, therefore, who claim their own rights, yet altogether forget or neglect to carry out their respective duties, are people who build with one hand and destroy with the other.”