Human Rights Development among the Catholic Christians Dr. Raj P. Charles Christopher* Assistant Professor of History, Department of History Studies, Kasthurba College for Women, Villianur, Puducherry, 605 110 *Corresponding Author Email: ccraj18@gmail.com
Online published on 3 February, 2020. Abstract Human life is built up through the development of satisfying personal and social relationships, through appropriate economic and political arrangements, by the development of the humanities and the sciences. Through Jesus Christ, Catholics believe, God's love as a transformative force of grace is effective throughout the cosmos. Violence, coercion and torture are the enemies of human rights. They perfectly exemplify the actuality of sin. The Christian gospel is concerned with salvation, reconciliation, the fullness of human flourishing in all its aspects, in life and beyond life and achieve the goodness of life through the worldly human rights. The Christian Catholics believe that the basis for human rights was given by Lord Jesus Christ. He could be called as the real founder of Human Rights as we come across many verses from the Bible. Pope Francis in his recent interview said when questioned about the human right that the Roman Catholic Church must become “the home for all” and place its pastoral ministries ahead of such hot-button political and social issues as gay marriage, abortion and contraception and try to smoothen the relationship between Christianity and human rights which are often found both complex and inextricable. Catholicism provide authoritative and accessible assessment and contributes to the development of the idea and institutions of the human rights. It also probes the major human rights issues that confront religious individuals and communities around the world today and the main challenges that the Catholic Christian will pose to the human rights in the future. My article tends to bring into light and explore the process of accessing the activism and innovations as well as complexity faced by Christianity for the success of human rights, and to create a platform about the development of a Catholicism by the help of rights through the publication of Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum and also The three Vatican II documents in which the transformation of the Catholic understanding of rights took place were Gaudium et Spes(1965), Pacem in Terris(1963), and Dignitatis Humanae (1965), which provides voluminous intellect in understanding and protecting the human rights. Top Keywords Inextricable, restitution, reconciliation, Rerum Novarum, Gaudium et Spes, Pacem in Terris, Dignitatis Humanae. Top |