The 7 Themes of Catholic Social Teaching: Life and Dignity of the Human Person
“The glory of God is the human person fully alive; and the glory of the human person consists in beholding God” (St. Irenaeus).
In his October 16, 2021 address to the World Meeting of Popular Movements, Pope Francis expressed his disappointment that Catholic social teaching is sometimes relegated to nice but empty rhetoric:
“It sometimes surprises me that every time I speak of these [Catholic social teaching] principles, some people are astonished, and then the Holy Father gets labeled with a series of epithets that are used to reduce any reflection to mere discrediting adjectives. It doesn’t anger me, it saddens me. It is part of the post-truth plot that seeks to nullify any humanistic search for an alternative to capitalist globalisation, it is part of the throwaway culture, and it is part of the technocratic paradigm.”
Catholic social teaching is about more than advocating for social justice and more than being nice to others. It is about living the radical life of an authentic Christian with the aim of transforming the world into the Kingdom of God (Luke 11:2; Matthew 6:10). To the pope’s point, a culture that splashes red paint on sidewalks, vandalizes churches, and villainizes pregnancy help centers in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade while touting “my body, my choice” clearly demonstrates the condition of the human heart—a heart entirely turned in upon itself, incurvatus in se.
“Incurvatus in se” is the terminology St. Augustine used to describe sin, because sin is always selfish. It is always a turning away from God and toward oneself. The healing balm to sin is metanoia, turning away from a life of selfishness and sin and toward a life lived through, with, and in God, living out the twofold command to love God and love neighbor, which are part and parcel of one another.
To that end, in this series, I will provide an overview of each of the seven themes of Catholic social teaching (CST) and a brief discussion on its practical implications for Catholic businesswomen.
The Roots of Catholic Social Teaching
CST begins where Scripture does: God’s creation of all things, reaching its apex in the human person. Accordingly, the first theme of CST is the life and dignity of the human person. In Genesis, with respect to God’s creation of the human person, we read, “Then God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness … God created mankind in his image … male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27).
Because it was created in the image of a God that is a triune communion of love (1 John 4:8), the human person is a thoroughly relational being, made for relationship with one another, and such intimate relationship with its Creator so as to share in his divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-4).
With the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and global capitalism, Pope Leo XIII observed a poverty in human dignity and an overabundance of greed and corruption in our world. In response, he wrote what would become the Church’s first encyclical on CST, “Rerum Novarum.” It is the duty of the wealthy and owners of production, he wrote, “not to look upon their work people as their bondsmen, but to respect in every man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian character.”
Pope Leo drew from God’s command in Genesis to the whole human family to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28) in order to highlight the equality of persons: “In this respect all men are equal; there is here no difference between rich and poor, master and servant, ruler and ruled … No man may with impunity outrage that human dignity which God Himself treats with great reverence.”
You may recognize echoes of St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, where he wrote that “[the Son of Man] emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Phlippians 2:7-8).
This is the heart of the Gospel, and what Pope Leo told us is that the Incarnation of the Son of God so radically leveled the playing field of human life that any distinction between haves and have-nots no longer holds.
Saintly Exemplars
Pope Leo is known as the founder of CST; however, as Anthony Esolen pointed out in his book “Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching,” “[Leo] would have been appalled by the credit. He intended nothing other than to apply to current concerns what Jesus taught His Apostles and what they handed down to their successors. He intended to teach nothing new.”
Indeed, living out CST is about bringing the Gospels and the Beatitudes to bear on society. Two saints come readily to my mind as exemplifying what it means to recognize, validate, and reverence the dignity of the human person: St. Damien of Molokai and St. Teresa of Calcutta.
In dressing the leaking wounds of leper patients whom he lived with as an exile on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, Damien communicated to them, “I see you, I love you, you are not alone, you are not forgotten.” Mother Teresa, cradling an armless Indian baby orphan and smiling at him from ear to ear, expressed the same boundless love.
This love is the very love of Christ, who preferred the crown of thorns over one glittering with jewels. In their time and place, St. Damien and Mother Teresa exemplified for us in a radical way what it means to respond to Jesus’ command to act upon the needs of the least of these (Matthew 25:40).
Practical Implications for Catholic Businesswomen
However, we do not need to travel to an island of Hawaii or to the streets of India to bring the full force of the Gospels to transform the world. We are called to serve where we are. So, what does it look like for a Catholic businesswoman to bring the first principle of CST to the workplace? Pope Leo provides key insights here, as most of his observations in “Rerum Novarum” hold true today. As he wrote, “To misuse men as though they were things in the pursuit of gain, or to value them solely for their physical powers—that is truly shameful and inhuman” (20).
This first principle of CST thus calls us to remember that our colleagues, clients, and suppliers are human persons created in the image of God with families, cultures, and hobbies, and are therefore to be treated as the utterly unique reflection of God’s life that they are.
The acronym “IEP” is helpful here, standing for intention, energy, and presence. For example, when we receive an email lacking decision-critical information, rather than assume the sender is lazy or has something against us, let’s pick up the phone with the intention to communicate clearly the importance of the information, with energy that is positive and supportive. By talking in this way, we create an environment of greater presence that allows for tone, volume, and flow and minimizes noise.
The principle of human dignity is listed first among the seven themes of CST for a reason. In a very real way, it forms the basis of the other six, their core, and their source of coherence. When we recognize that humans are created in the image of God, we realize that each and every single person, without exception, is a gift from God and a reflection of God’s life, which is eternally perfect communion. Each one of God’s images is likewise an invitation to communion among the human family and in God.
Our business roles are a vehicle through which we share in the Christian mission to reconcile all things to Christ. So, it is incumbent upon us to consciously move away from transactional exchanges with others and strive toward Eucharistic encounters that value, reverence, and affirm the inherent human dignity of all. Our encounters with each other are opportunities to receive and to give the gift of self, which encompasses not only the objective (such as a task) but also the subjective of the human person. The seven themes of CST help us to embrace and live out this mission in its entirety.
Vanessa Crescio is an accountant with Lipic’s Engagement. She earned an MBA from the University of Notre Dame, an MTS from Newman University, and worked in the real estate and banking industries prior to serving in business roles at the parish and archdiocesan levels. She is interested in thinking through co-responsibility in the Church and developing lay pastoral leadership programs to form Catholic leaders to serve the Church with not only their knowledge, skills, and abilities but with the servant heart of Christ. Read more of her writing at FRESHImage, and follow her on Instagram.