QUOTATION: Human Rights

Human rights are not granted by political systems. They are “pre-political.” They exist before government and, in fact, must be honored, served, and secured by government, not because the leaders of government say so, but because to fail to do so undermines the very purpose of government.

--Fr. Frank Pavone, Abolishing Abortion

QUOTATION: Rights

What God endows, no human being – no judge, no court, no legislator and no executive – can take away. And when governments assume the power to define rights, repression always follows.

--Archbishop Charles Chaput, “The First Freedom - Religious Liberty as the Foundation of Human Liberty”

QUOTATION: Christ as Citizen

When Christ is denied all rights of citizenship, those same rights are denied to men; and when the "death of God' is proclaimed, the "death of man" is being planned as well.

--Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, (Pope St. John Paul II), Sign of Contradiction, 1977

QUOTATION: Living in Solidarity

A genuinely human society flourishes when individuals dedicate the exercise of their freedom to the defense of others' rights and the pursuit of the common good, and when the community supports individuals as they grow into a truly mature humanity-- that is what "living in solidarity" means.

--George Weigel, "The Free and Virtuous Society", in Against the Grain: Christianity and Democracy, War and Peace, 2008

QUOTATION: The Principle of Personalism

The first classic principle of Catholic social doctrine is the principle of personalism, which can also be called the human rights principle. According to this principle, all right thinking about society-- in its cultural, ecnomic and political aspects-- begins with the inalienable dignity and value of the human person. Right thinking about society does not begin with the state, the party, or the tribe; neither does it begin with ethnicity, race, or gemder. Rather, it begins  with the human person, considered as an individual possessing intelligence and free will, and therefore inherent dignity and value.  Society and it legal expression, the state, must always be understood to be in the service of the integral development of the human person.  The state, in particular, has an obligation to defend the basic human rights of persons, which are "built into" us by reason of our very humanity.  "Rights," in the Catholic understanding of the term, are not benefices distributed by the state as its whim or pleasure; they are goods to be protected and/or advanced by any just state.

--George Weigel, "The Free and Virtuous Society", in Against the Grain: Christianity and Democracy, War and Peace, 2008

QUOTATION: Duties

An overemphasis on rights leads to a disregard for duties. Duties set a limit on rights because they point to the anthropological and ethical framework of which rights are a part, in this way ensuring that they do not become licence. Duties thereby reinforce rights and call for their defence and promotion as a task to be undertaken in the service of the common good. Otherwise, if the only basis of human rights is to be found in the deliberations of an assembly of citizens, those rights can be changed at any time, and so the duty to respect and pursue them fades from the common consciousness. 

--Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate

QUOTATION: The Right to Life

The right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture-- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.

--Pope John Paul II

QUOTATION: The Right to Life

Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or sovereign

--Mother Teresa of Calcutta

QUOTATION: Rights

If we wish to have the light, we must keep the sun; if we wish to keep our forests we must keep our trees; if we wish to keep our perfumes, we must keep our flowers- and if we wish to keep our rights, then we must keep our God.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: Freedom and Objective Truth

When freedom is detached from objective truth it becomes impossible to establish personal rights on a firm rational basis; and the ground is laid for society to be at the mercy of the unrestrained will of individuals or the oppressive totalitarianism of public authority.

--John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 1995

QUOTATION: Those who have no rights

There are two groups of people who have no rights...the unborn and the priests.

--Fr. Benedict Groeschel