Catholic Social Teaching
“The permanent principles of the Church’s social doctrine constitute the very heart of Catholic social teaching” (Compendium, no. 160). The Church names four of them, the dignity of the human person, the common good, subsidiarity and solidarity, and offers them as the first reference points for judging any social question (Compendium, nos. 160–161).
Each principle below has its own page: a short explanation from the Church’s own texts, then every piece on this site that applies it. The twelve follow the curriculum of The Catholic Citizen, a year of formation in the Church’s social doctrine.
- Human Dignity: the foundation of every other principle.
- Work and the Worker: why the worker comes before the balance sheet.
- The Common Good: the conditions that let everyone flourish.
- Subsidiarity: decisions made as close as possible to the people they affect.
- Solidarity: responsibility for one another, between persons and between nations.
- The Preferential Option for the Poor: the poor first in our attention.
- Property and the Universal Destination of Goods: what property is for.
- War and Peace: what peace requires and when force can be just.
- Life, from Conception to Natural Death: the first of all rights.
- Family, Community, Participation: the first cell of society, and the duty to take part.
- Integral Ecology: care for creation and for the poor who suffer first.
- The Political Vocation of the Laity: conscience, voting and public life.
Quotations are from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2004), cited by paragraph number.