A BRIEF REFLECTION ON HUMAN DIGNITY

A BRIEF REFLECTION ON HUMAN DIGNITY

by 

Rev. David A. Fisher

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” - Genesis 1:27

Introduction

The challenge of affirming the dignity of all human beings, is possibly the greatest struggle in our world today. The ancient horrors of chattel slavery and child infanticide, are now embodied in new forms of indentured servitude, abuse and exploitation of children, abortion, and the growing legalization in Western nations of euthanasia. The Christian today finds himself or herself in a world of myriad competing ideologies as concerns human nature, gender identity, and human dignity. In Western society rationalism and secularism have replaced Christian ethics and moral teaching; with emotivism (the ethics of personal feelings and emotion), relativism (the ethics that denies universal principles and absolutes), and the pursuit of rights grounded not in faith and reason, but often in the self-centered desire to do whatever one wants to do without question. What is lost, in losing sight of Christ, is the truth of human dignity.

Life in Christ

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” - Colossians 3:1-4

The Christian affirmation of human dignity is essentially not a question of ethics, morals, or rights. The Church never ceases to remind us that we are made new in Christ; simply put, our identity, nature, and dignity is a question of Being, the Ontological question first and foremost; whose answer lies in the Word who became flesh, Jesus Christ. As St. Paul proclaims our “life is hidden with Christ in God,” not in the futile attempt to define humanity by any other means. We cannot attain moral perfection, we will never collect enough rights to satiate our thirst for total unbridled freedom, we cannot continue to question our God created gender, as if we can re-fashion ourselves more perfectly than the Creator. No, our lives are hidden with Christ in God, meaning our lives are wrapped in God’s love, and it is the Divine Love that constitutes our identity and dignity.

St. Peter Chrysologus (380-450) eloquently expressed our human dignity as rooted in Christ, he wrote: “He who made man without generation from pure clay made man again and was born from a pure body (Mary). The hand that assumed clay to make our flesh deigned to assume a body for our salvation. That the Creator is in his creature and God is in the flesh bringing dignity to humanity... .” (Sermon 148)

The Second Vatican Council on Human Dignity

The Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae (Human Dignity), was the last official topic addressed by Second Vatican Council, it was promulgated on December 7, 1965. While considered revolutionary by some for its unwavering proclamation of religious freedom, it actually expresses in modern nuances the same understanding of religious freedom taught in the Encyclical Sublimes Dei of Pope Paul III in 1537, that called for an Evangelization of the Native peoples of the newly discovered Americas. An Evangelization that would respect their freedom and dignity in accepting or rejecting the Gospel, without fear of coercion and possible enslavement.

The Council Fathers make it quite clear through Dignitatis Humanae, “that the human person has a right to religious freedom.” (paragraph 2) This statement is even more prophetic today then when it was written. In 1965, the Council Fathers had in mind primarily the loss of religious freedom in the Communist block of nations. Today however, we find a less overt but just as virulent movement against religious freedom in the Constitutional Democracies of the Western world. The anti-religious freedom movements of today seek to caste the image of traditional religious values on the human person, as archaic and bigoted. They propagate this message through the power of the media and social technology. Along with this they have discovered how to by-pass the slow deliberative process of legislative democracy by making direct attacks upon the “law courts,” to refigure the Constitutional foundations of society, so that they might reflect their new morality of non-religious values.

The Pastoral Constitution On The Church In The Modern World - Gaudium Et Spes, which was promulgated by His Holiness Pope Paul VI on December 7, 1965, addressed also the dignity of human beings in the modern world. In acknowledging our shared humanity, those who have must care for those who have not: “Therefore, there must be made available to all people everything necessary for leading a life truly human, such as food, clothing, and shelter; the right to choose a state of life freely and to found a family, the right to education, to employment...” (paragraph 26)

The Council reminds us that Human Dignity is not merely a concept but a call to action, an integral part of the social doctrine and ministry of the Church. Modern men and women are convinced of the truth not only by words but especially by deeds; the members of Christ’s Body, the Church, must simultaneous preach the message of human dignity and minister to others with Christ-like love. “Coming down to practical and particularly urgent consequences, this Council lays stress on reverence for humankind;
everyone must consider their every neighbor without exception as another self, taking into account first of all his or her life and the means necessary to living it with dignity, so as not to imitate the rich man who had no concern for the poor man Lazarus.” (paragraph 27)

Pope Saint John Paul II on Human Dignity

In 1995, His Holiness John Paul II, published his encyclical letter On The Value And Inviolability Of Human Life - Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life). He desired to remind the faithful that to treat another human being without their proper dignity does even more injury to the one who is acting in a less than humane fashion; because in the process of hurting or mistreating another person, one actually devalues their own human nature:

Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of human beings; as well as disgracefull working conditions, where human beings are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. - Pope Saint John Paul II

St. John Paul turned to the thought of St. Irenaeus of Lyon (130AD-202AD), who expressed the uniqueness of humanity in his words, “Gloria Dei est vivens homo.” (Man, living man, is the glory of God.) The Holy Father elaborated on these words, writing: “The life which God gives man is quite different from the life of all other living creatures, in as much as man, although formed from the dust of the earth, is a manifestation of God in the world, a sign of his presence, a trace of his glory... Man has been given a sublime dignity, based on the intimate bond which unites him to his Creator: in man there shines forth a reflection of God himself.” (Pope Saint John Paul)

Conclusion

Modern Catholic Social Teaching began with the defense of the laborer in Rerum Novarum (1891) of Pope Leo XIII, it has continued in the Magisterial teachings of every Pontiff since, and especially is witnessed to in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and by Conferences of Bishops all over the world. At the very heart of the Church’s teaching is the affirmation of the dignity of the human person, from conception until death.

Even politics, important as it is, is a poor tool for changing human hearts. Nations change when people change. And people change through the witness of other people – people like each of you... You make the future. You build it stone by stone with the choices you make. So choose life. Defend its dignity and witness its meaning and hope to others. And if you do, you’ll discover in your own life what it means to be fully human. - (Address given by, The Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., Retired Archbishop of Philadelphia, Penn for Life, University of Pennsylvania)

Ultimately, human hearts will not be swayed by political agendas, laws, or rhetoric, but by the commitment and actions of Christians, those living fully the commandment of Our Lord to “love one another”.