Through Scripture, Experience and Reason, the Church has developed a series of principles, which it applies to moral and political questions. Some of these questions are very old, but new ones arise all the time. The central Idea which our Church and School’s Catholic Social Teaching is based upon is known in Latin as Imago Dei. In English this translates to ‘Image of God.’ This is shorthand for the words from the Book of Genesis (1:27) where God is described to have “created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) What does this mean? We are not God – but we are made in His image, which means that something about us is Divine. There is an immortal part of us that the Church believes will live on when the body dies. We have many words for this immortal part – The Soul, Consciousness, Identity, Psyche, Spirit – all of these are talking around the same thing. There is a sense of self which we all have and which we can’t deny the existence of, but which we also can’t easily explain, because it seems to be invisible and somehow different from the rest of us.
The Church teaches that this Divine part of us is what gives us inherent dignity. Dignity gives you rights and freedoms: it is the justification for our modern Human Rights Accord. It is how we know that we are all equal – because we were made that way. It is important to say that this Dignity comes from God. If it was something human beings had invented then it would, like all of our inventions, come to end. Because it is from God it is unchangeable and eternal. Human beings should not interfere with it or deny its existence: instead they should work to make sure it is recognised everywhere and in everyone.
From Cathod – “Modern Catholic Social Teaching is said to have originated in 1891 with the encyclical letter, Rerum Novarum. Since then, a wealth of teaching continues to give new life to the Scriptures and shape the Church’s response to our modern world. Pope Francis continues to add to Catholic Social Teaching with his own encyclicals, including Laudato Si’ (2015) and Fratelli Tutti (2020). From these Catholic Social Teaching documents and encyclicals we derive core principles. There is no fixed or official list of principles.”
St Anselm’s is guided by Catholic Social Teaching, which is applied specifically to our school through the Eight Edmund Rice Essentials (See Edmund Rice Essentials). The general principles of Catholic Teaching that have emerged from the overarching revelation of Image Dei might be listed as follows:
- Human Dignity – Every human being is made in the image of likeness of God.
- The Common Good (Rights and Responsibility) – The gifts of Creation, natural, spiritual, social and political; these are the property of every human being, and should be shared ‘in common.’
- Solidarity – Each member of the human family belongs to each other.
- Peace – this refers to personal and international peace; we recall the example of Christ when we condemn violence as an unnatural and sinful part of the human experience.
- Participation and Family – We recall here the two spheres of social life, in work and the family. Work must exist to uplift humanity, not to enslave it, and the family must be maintained as the central core of civilization.
- Care for Creation – this reminds us that man has been given stewardship of Creation, and that caring for it is his responsibility.
- The Option for the Poor – this reminds us of the preference that God gives to the poor and vulnerable in scripture; a preference that we should mirror.
