Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Living Justice: sec 1 & 7


The Dignity of Every Person and Human Rights
            There is no culture or religion that does not in some way express the value of human life.  The Catholic Church has actively promoted human dignity both in individual moral choices and in the ethical practices of entire societies.  The main point the Church makes in how all humans are made in the image and likeness of God.  In their own ways, all humans reflect the image of God in their rational minds and in their physical bodies.  This means they are all entitled to be treated with the greatest of respect and dignity.  The text almost mentions how humans deserve the care and attention that belong to beings of inestimable worth.  This means that all people, no matter who you are or where you come from, deserve to be treated with inalienable respect as children of God.  The Catholic Church is amazing as staying with a consistent ethic of life because they boldly promote pro-life on multiple controversial issues, advocating respect for all human life.  It is also important to remember to express equality because the race for income, wealth, and status does not take place on a level playing field because opportunities are never evenly distributed.

Colonialism and Economic Development
            As a result of the Catholic Churches persistence on equality the Church is entering a long and complex process to bring fairer treatment for less-developed nations.  The text states that the focus is on formal patterns of colonization, while other observers express concern about less obvious but equally malevolent practices described as neo-colonialism or neo-imperialism.  Some regions of the world suffer serious unfair disadvantages.  Even after gaining political independence the nation does not know what to do with it because the economies of these lands have been warped by prolonged experiences of dependency and domination.  Since these nations have experienced patterns of inequality for so long, the terms social sin or structural evil have been applied to them in recent Catholic ethical thought.  Besides, the exploration of the Europeans into the New World, like Africa and Asia, the priests, preachers, and missionaries that traveled with the explorers sought to spread Christianity to indigenous peoples where ever they went.

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