VATICAN ON SOCIAL JUSTICE
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
2417 God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image! Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals, if it remains within reasonable limits, is a morally acceptable practice since it contributes to caring for or saving human lives.
2418 It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons. III. The Social Doctrine of the Church
2419 Christian revelation … promotes deeper understanding of the laws of social living. The Church receives from the Gospel the full revelation of the truth about man. When she fulfills her mission of proclaiming the Gospel, she bears witness to man, in the name of Christ, to his dignity and his vocation to the communion of persons. She teaches him the demands of justice and peace in conformity with divine wisdom.
2420 The Church makes a moral judgment about economic and social matters, when the fundamental rights of the person or the salvation of souls requires it. In the moral order she bears a mission distinct from that of political authorities; the Church is concerned with the temporal aspects of the common good because they are ordered to the sovereign Good, our ultimate end. She strives to inspire right attitudes with respect to earthly goods and in socio-economic relationships.
2421 The social doctrine of the Church developed in the nineteenth century when the Gospel encountered modern industrial society with its new structures for the production of consumer goods, its new concept of society, the state and authority, and its new forms of labor and ownership. The development of the doctrine of the Church on economic and social matters attests the permanent value of the Church's teaching at the same time as it attests the true meaning of her Tradition, always living and active.
2422 The Church's social teaching comprises a body of doctrine, which is articulated as the Church interprets events in the course of history, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, in the light of the whole of what has been revealed by Jesus Christ. This teaching can be more easily accepted by men of good will, the more the faithful let themselves be guided by it.
2423 The Church's social teaching proposes principles for reflection; it provides criteria for judgment; it gives guidelines for action. Any system in which social relationships are determined entirely by economic factors is contrary to the nature of the human person and his acts.
2424 A theory that makes profit the exclusive norm and ultimate end of economic activity is morally unacceptable. The disordered desire for money cannot but produce perverse effects. It is one of the causes of the many conflicts which disturb the social order. A system that "subordinates the basic rights of individuals and groups to the collective organization of production" is contrary to human dignity. Every practice that reduces persons to nothing more than a means of profit enslaves man, leads to idolizing money and contributes to the spread of atheism. You cannot serve God and mammon.
2425 The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modern times with "communism" a or "socialism." She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of "capitalism," individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the market place over human labor. Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning prevents the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for "there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market." Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good is to be commended.
IV Economic Activity and Social Justice
2426 The development of economic activity and growth in production are meant to provide for the needs of human beings. Economic life is not meant solely to multiply goods produced and increase profit or power, it is ordered first of all to the service of persons, of the whole man, and of the entire human community. Economic activity, conducted according to its own proper methods, is to be exercised within the limits of the moral order, in keeping with social justice so as to correspond to God's plan for man.
2427 Human work proceeds directly from persons created in the image of God and called to prolong the work of creation by subduing the earth, both with and for one another. Hence work is a duty; "If any one will not work, let him not eat." Work honors the Creator's gifts and the talents received from him. It can also be redemptive. By enduring the hardship of work in union with Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth and the one crucified on Calvary, man collaborates in a certain fashion with the Son of God in his redemptive work. He shows himself to be a disciple of Christ by carrying the cross daily in the work he is called to accomplish. Work can be a means of sanctification and a way of animating earthly realities with the Spirit of Christ.
2449 Beginning with the Old Testament, all kinds of juridical measures (the jubilee year of forgiveness of debts, prohibition of loans at interest and the keeping of collateral, the obligation to title, the daily payment of the day-laborer, the right to glean vines and fields) answer the exhortation of Deuteronomy; "For the poor will never cease out of the land, therefore I command you. You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor in the land." Jesus makes these words his own. "The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me." In so doing he does not soften the vehemence of former oracles against buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals…, but invites us to recognize his own presence in the poor who are his brethren.
When her mother reproached her for caring for the poor and the sick at home. St. Rose of Lima said to her, "When we serve the poor and the sick we serve Jesus. We must not fail to help our neighbors, because in them we serve Jesus."
IN BRIEF
2450 "You shall not steal" (Ex 20:15 Deut 5:19). "Neither thieves, nor the greedy…, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor 6:10)
2451 The seventh commandment enjoins the practice of justice and charity in the administration of earthly goods and the fruits of men's labor.
2452 The goods of creation are destined for the entire human race. The right to private property does not abolish the universal destination of goods.
2453 The seventh commandment forbids theft. Theft is the usurpation of another's goods against the reasonable will of the owner.
2454 Every manner of taking and using another's property unjustly is contrary to the seventh commandment. The injustice committed requires reparation. Commutative justice requires the restitution of stolen goods.