Rights and Responsibilities
Every human has a fundamental right to such basic elements as food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, education and employment. Only by achieving these and implementing them on a collective scale, this principle states, can society fully promote human dignity. We cannot split our focus, the Church says, between promoting only personal responsibility or collective human rights. Both are necessary; one cannot exist without the other. We must not only be responsible for ourselves or for our families. We must also promote a society where the right to life and to material well being in accordance with human decency is made available and attainable to all.
“It is agreed that in our time the common good is chiefly guaranteed when personal rights and duties are maintained. The chief concern of civil authorities must therefore be to ensure that these rights are acknowledged, respected, coordinated with other rights, defended and promoted, so that in this way everyone may more easily carry out their duties. For 'to safeguard the inviolable rights of the human person, and to facilitate the fulfillment of each one's duties, should be the chief duty of every public authority.'”