OdinLiamWright:
posted via
www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_en.html
39. The first and fundamental structure for "human ecology" is the family, in which man receives his first formative ideas about truth and goodness, and learns what it means to love and to be loved, and thus what it actually means to be a person. Here we mean the family founded on marriage, in which the mutual gift of self by husband and wife creates an environment in which children can be born and develop their potentialities, become aware of their dignity and prepare to face their unique and individual destiny. But it often happens that people are discouraged from creating the proper conditions for human reproduction and are led to consider themselves and their lives as a series of sensations to be experienced rather than as a work to be accomplished. The result is a lack of freedom, which causes a person to reject a commitment to enter into a stable relationship with another person and to bring children into the world, or which leads people to consider children as one of the many "things" which an individual can have or not have, according to taste, and which compete with other possibilities.
OdinLiamWright:
Human ingenuity seems to be directed more towards limiting, suppressing or destroying the sources of life — including recourse to abortion, which unfortunately is so widespread in the world — than towards defending and opening up the possibilities of life. The Encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis denounced systematic anti-childbearing campaigns which, on the basis of a distorted view of the demographic problem and in a climate of "absolute lack of respect for the freedom of choice of the parties involved", often subject them "to intolerable pressures ... in order to force them to submit to this new form of oppression".78 These policies are extending their field of action by the use of new techniques, to the point of poisoni
OdinLiamWright:
These criticisms are directed not so much against an economic system as against an ethical and cultural system. The economy in fact is only one aspect and one dimension of the whole of human activity. If economic life is absolutized, if the production and consumption of goods become the centre of social life and society's only value, not subject to any other value, the reason is to be found not so much in the economic system itself as in the fact that the entire socio-cultural system, by ignoring the ethical and religious dimension, has been weakened, and ends by limiting itself to the production of goods and services alone.79
OdinLiamWright:
All of this can be summed up by repeating once more that economic freedom is only one element of human freedom. When it becomes autonomous, when man is seen more as a producer or consumer of goods than as a subject who produces and consumes in order to live, then economic freedom loses its necessary relationship to the human person and ends up by alienating and oppressing him.80
OdinLiamWright:
Mindful of the principle of subsidiarity, good governance is one of the prerequisites in the fight against poverty. It is in service of the common good. For good governance to be successful there must be new partnerships that promote investment in people and in infrastructures and that will facilitate participation of citizens in decisions that affect their lives. Valued in this context is the democratic system inasmuch as it strives to ensure the possibility of participation of citizens in making political choices and having a voice in governing. This is a process referred to by Pope John Paul II as the "subjectivity of society" which is based on "the creation of structures of participation and shared responsibility",12 both key to good governance. Governance can be said to be good when the potential of the human being is channeled towards creative participation in government and in society. In the context of the international community, good governance requires that all states, including the poorest and the smallest, have access to the decision-making bodies which determine policy and promote international cooperation.
OdinLiamWright:
It must be recognized that juridical, economic and technical measures are not sufficient to solve the problems that hamper sustainable development. Many of these problems are issues of an ethical and moral nature, which call for a profound change in modern civilization's typical patterns of consumption and production, particularly in the industrialized countries. In order to achieve this change, "we must encourage and support the ‘ecological conversion’. (...) At stake, then, is not only a ‘physical’ ecology that is concerned to safeguard the habitat of the various living beings, but also a ‘human ecology’,4 which rests primarily on ensuring and safeguarding moral conditions in the actions of the human being in the human environment".5
OdinLiamWright:
Since the 1992 Rio Conference, widespread discussion and debate have taken place within the international community on Sustainable Development. This is a concept that has entered already into the soil of history, a soil that must be tilled to allow the roots of sustainable development to grow deeply so that it bears fruit that will nourish all of humanity.
OdinLiamWright:
Trafficking in human beings, drugs, small arms and light weapons constitutes a shocking offence against human dignity, and is a very grave violation of fundamental human rights. Who can deny that the majority of victims of trafficking are the poorest and most defenceless of our brothers and sisters?
OdinLiamWright:
posted via
www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/pccs/documents/rc_pc_pccs_doc_20020228_church-internet_en.html
2. As the Church understands it, the history of human communication is something like a long journey, bringing humanity “from the pride-driven project of Babel and the collapse into confusion and mutual incomprehension to which it gave rise (cf. Gen 11:1-9), to Pentecost and the gift of tongues: a restoration of communication, centered on Jesus, through the action of the Holy Spirit”.6 In the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, “communication among men found its highest ideal and supreme example in God who had become man and brother”.7
OdinLiamWright:
posted via
www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/pccs/index.htm
As the Church understands it, the history of human communication is something like a long journey, bringing humanity “from the pride-driven project of Babel and the collapse into confusion and mutual incomprehension to which it gave rise (cf. Gen 11:1-9), to Pentecost and the gift of tongues: a restoration of communication, centered on Jesus, through the action of the Holy Spirit”.6 In the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, “communication among men found its highest ideal and supreme example in God who had become man and brother”.7
OdinLiamWright:
No doubt, in the formative path delineated in this document certain limitations will be noted. But we are persuaded that even if it be so, a benevolent and attentive reader will find it sufficiently stimulating and apt to impress on the whole educative work of seminaries a direction which more closely conforms to the intentions of Vatican Council II and to the spiritual needs of our time. We hope, then, that our document will be well received, and that its message will be put into practice in all institutes of priestly formation for the benefit of candidates for the priesthood and of the whole Church.
OdinLiamWright:
Emphasize quality, emphasize efficiency, emphasize even better grooming and cleanliness and good appearance - but please do not suggest that a possession is going to make one person better than another person.
frank:
This new space, however, is very real indeed, and it is most important that there will not be space in it, in so far as is possible, for the tragic divisions and discrimination, the selfishness, the prejudices and the injustices that have soiled so much of human history. Such things should be remembered only to prevent their recurrence.
karen:
