Human Rights - Digging Deeper>

Rights and Responsibilities
Every human right has a corresponding responsibility for self and for the other.

Pope: Defend and Promote Right to Freedom
Message to Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences
VATICAN CITY, May 4, 2011 (VIS) - Today was made public the Pope's message to Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, and the members of that institution at the closure of their seventeenth plenary assembly held in Rome from 29 April to 3 May on the theme: "Universal Rights in a World of Diversity: The Case of Religious Freedom".

The Inconvenient Memoirs of Cardinal Biffi
Including "The Ideology of Homosexuality"
The new edition of his autobiography is being released in bookstores on November 18, 2010. With a hundred extra pages, and many surprises: on the postcouncil, the Jews, women, chastity, homosexuality. Sandy Magister reports from Rome

Relativism - The New Face of Intolerance
"Today relativism predominates. It seems that whoever is not a relativist is someone who is intolerant. To think that one can understand the essential truth is already seen as something intolerant."

Human Trafficking Facts -- 2010
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 14, 2010 -- Compiled by the U.S. Department of State

US Bishops Set Record Straight on Healthcare Bill
Note Way Forward -- Clarify Misconceptions
WASHINGTON, May 25, 2010—The U.S. bishops called for steps to protect the lives of the most vulnerable particularly the unborn, provide fairness for immigrants, and guarantee conscience protections for individual and institutions in a statement on health care reform issued on May 21.

Manhattan Declaration: Turning Point in History
New Ecumenical Moment
In his Lenten message for this year, Pope Benedict XVI focuses on the theme of justice. He reminds us that there can be no true justice without God, that is, without human beings recognizing their need for God and that only God can give us what we ultimately need.

Roots of Discrimination
The Universal Nature of the Human Being
John Paul II, in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, refers to “the great anthropocentric shift in philosophy,” in which Descartes redefines the human being in terms of consciousness. Referring to St. Thomas Aquinas, John Paul reiterates that “it is not thought which determines existence, but existence, ‘esse,’ which determines thought!” In other words, it is man who thinks, not thinking that is man.

Holy See: Realism Is Base of Human Rights
Archbishop Addresses UN on Universal Declaration
GENEVA, Switzerland, DEC. 17, 2008 - Defense of human rights must be based in an objective knowledge of human nature, lest terminology be reinterpreted at the service of private desires or ideologies, says a Holy See representative.

Holy See: Base of Human Rights Is . . . Being Human
Rights Do Not Come From the Group One Belongs To
The UN Must Affirm Rights of Every Person
GENEVA, MARCH 17, 2008 - It is important to clarify and identify the source and foundation of human rights, since experience and cultural traditions often affect the understanding of this concept, the Holy See affirmed.

Professor Notes Gaps in Basic Concepts About Person
Course Aims to Reveal Treasure of Magisterium
Editor's note: This article illuminates the root cause of conflicts over the protection of human life from conception to natural death, and over the meaning and purpose of marriage, family and human sexuality. The root is a fundamental difference in understanding of what it means to be a human person. It points out the importance of understanding Catholic social teaching and Christian anthropology to develop a fuller understanding of who we are and what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God, who is a community of three persons in a relationship of love. Helping people develop this understanding is a key part of the mission of Catholics for the Common Good.