Continued from last week
Rights and Responsibilities
The Catholic tradition teaches that human dignity can be protected and a healthy community can be achieved only if human rights are protected and responsibilities are met. Therefore, every person has a fundamental right to life and a right to those things that are required for a decent and respectable life. Corresponding to these rights are duties and responsibilities, to one another, to our families, and to the larger society.
Option for the poor and vulnerable
A basic moral test is how our most vulnerable members are faring. In a society marred by a wider gap between the rich and the poor, our tradition recalls the story of the Last Judgment (Mt. 25: 31-46), and instruct us to put the needs of the poor and the vulnerable first.
The dignity of work and the rights of workers
The economy must serve people, not the other way round. Work is more than a way of making a living; it is a way by which God gives us the privilege of participating in His continuing act of creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected: the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organisation and joining of unions, to private property, and to economic initiatives.
Solidarity of the human family
The human race is one human family, whatever our national, racial, ethnic, economic, and ideological differences may be. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they may be. T he command of love your neighbour as yourself has a global dimension, especially in a world that is becoming smaller and smaller as a result of technological development. At the core of the virtue of solidarity is the pursuit of justice and peace.
Pope Paul VI taught that “ If you want peace, work for justice.” The Gospel calls us to be peacemakers. Our love for all our sisters and brothers demands that we promote peace in a world surrounded by violence and conflict.
• Most Rev. (Dr.) Alfred Adewale Martins, Archbishop of the Metropolitan See of Lagos.
