List of Issues Catholic Social Teaching

Comprehensive List of Catholic Social Teaching Issues

Here is a list of issues that the Catholic Church as a whole is concerned about. Often Popes speak on such matters on a global platform. In the U.S. it’s Cardinals, Archbishops, Pastors, Priests, Deacons, and Laypeople. Yes, laypeople. We who believe the Bible as the Word of God, and as followers of Jesus, are required to care for each other and our earthly home as we journey towards our eternal life in heaven.

Capital Punishment

“Capital punishment violates the dignity of the human person, who is made in the image and likeness of God. Even those who do evil never shed their intrinsic dignity”.

Read more here

Economic Justice

“All economic life should be shaped by moral principles. Economic choices and institutions must be judged by how they protect or undermine the life and dignity of the human person, support the family and serve the common good. A fundamental moral measure of any economy is how the poor and vulnerable are faring. The economy exists for the person, not the person for the economy.” - Principles of Catholic Social Teaching - Read more here

Education System

“It is the proper function of authority, in the name of the common good, to make accessible to each what is needed to lead a truly human life: food, clothing, health, work, education, culture, suitable information, the right to establish a family and so on.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church - Read more here

Environment

“Increased temperatures, rising sea levels and changes in rainfall are impacts of climate change, and they affect people living in poverty the worst – even though these people contribute the least to climate change. In many poor countries, these impacts of climate change have led to increasingly limited access to water, reduced crop yields, more widespread disease, increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters and conflict over declining resources – making the lives of the world’s poorest people even more precarious.” - Read more here

Gender Inequality

“Men and women have been created, which is to say, willed by God: in perfect equality as human persons; and in their respective beings as men and women. Being a man or woman is a reality which is good: men and women possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God. Men and women have one and the same dignity "in the image of God" and reflect the Creator's wisdom and goodness.” Catechism of the Catholic Church – Read more here

Gun Violence

“As bishops, we support measures that control the sale and use of firearms and make them safer — especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children or anyone other than the owner — and we reiterate our call for sensible regulation of handguns and believe that in the long run and with few exceptions — i.e. police officers, military use — handguns should eventually be eliminated from our society.” Read more here

Health Care

“Every human being has a right to life, the fundamental right that makes all other rights possible, and a right to access to those things required for human decency—food and shelter, education and employment, health care and housing, freedom of religion and family life.” Read more here

Housing

“The Catholic bishops believe decent, safe, and affordable housing is a human right. Catholic teaching supports the right to private property, but recognizes that communities and the government have an obligation to ensure the housing needs of all are met, especially poor and vulnerable people and their families. At a time of rising homelessness and when many workers’ wages are stagnant and living expenses are rising, it is important to ensure housing security.” Read more here

Human Trafficking

“Whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator.” The Catholic Bishops of the World at the Second Vatican Council. Read more here

Hunger

“The drama of hunger in the world calls Christians who pray sincerely to exercise responsibility toward their brothers & sisters, both in their personal behavior and in their solidarity with the human family. The petition of the Lord's Prayer cannot be isolated from the parables of the poor man Lazarus and of the Last Judgment. - Catechism of the Catholic Church. Read more here

Immigration

“Persons have the right to migrate to support themselves and their families. The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of security and the means of livelihood which he or she cannot find in his or her country of origin.” Catechism of the Catholic Church. Read more here

Labor

“Catholic social teaching supports the rights of workers to choose whether to organize, join a union, and bargain collectively, and to exercise these rights without reprisal…workers, owners, employers and unions should work together to create decent jobs, build a more just economy, and advance the common good.” Read more here

Minimum Wage

“All people have the right to economic initiative, to productive work, to just wages and benefits, to decent working conditions, as well as to organize and join unions or other associations.” National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Read more here

Poverty

“The superfluous wealth of rich countries should be placed at the service of poor nations. The rule, which up to now held good for the benefit of those nearest to us, must today be applied to all the needy of this world. Besides, the rich will be the first to benefit as a result. Otherwise their continued greed will certainly call down upon them the judgment of God and the wrath of the poor, with consequences no one can foretell.”

The Catholic Bishops of the World at the Second Vatican Council, Read more here

Racism

“The equality of all people rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it: Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God’s design.” - Catechism of the Catholic Church. Read more here

Refugees

“Justice will never be fully attained unless people see in the poor person, who is asking for help in order to survive, not an annoyance or a burden, but an opportunity for showing kindness and a chance for greater enrichment.” - Pope John Paul II. Read more here

Religious Intolerance

“The glorification of hatred is predicated on a foundation of fear-induced ignorance, venomous to haters and those they believe they hate.” – Aberjhani (Author) – Read more here

U.S. Budget

“Life-saving, poverty-focused international assistance that fights hunger, disease and poverty makes up less than 1% of the US Federal Budget. These programs include: agriculture assistance for subsistence farmers, vaccines for preventable diseases, assistance to orphans and vulnerable children, disaster assistance, peacekeeping forces to protect innocent civilians in troubled areas and support to migrants and refugees fleeing conflict or persecution.” = US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)

Fellowship for

Social Justice