Respect for Life (bible verses and encyclicals)

- Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you,
whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price.
Therefore honor God with your bodies.
(1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

-Human life is sacred: from its very inception, the creative action of God is
directly operative.
(Mater et Magistra: Mother and Teacher (John XXIII, 1961))

Option for the poor (bible verses and encyclicals)

- And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah:This is what the Lord Almighty
said: Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.Do not
oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil
against each other.
(Zechariah 7:8-10)

-The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; He delivers them from all their
troubles.The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in
spirit.The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from
them all;
he protects all his bones,not one of them will be broken.
(Psalm 34:17-20)

-The Church continually combats all forms of poverty, because as Mother she is
concerned that each and every person be able to live fully in dignity as a child of
God.
(Populorum Progressio: On the Development of Peoples (Paul VI, 1967))

Work and Workers

- Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that
worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns. 15 Pay
them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on
it. Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
(Deuteronomy 24:14-15)

-The obligation to earn one's bread by the sweat of one's brow also presumes the
right to do so. A society in which this right is systematically denied, in which
economic policies do not allow workers to reach satisfactory levels of employment,
cannot be justified from an ethical point of view, nor can that society attain
social peace.
(Centesimus Annus: One Hundred Years (John Paul II, 1991))

Right and Duties

-The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to
proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to
proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.
(Isaiah 61:1)

-Open your mouth in behalf of the mute,

and for the rights of the destitute; Open your mouth, judge justly,
defend the needy and the poor!
(Proverbs 31:8-9)

-We must speak of man's rights. Man has the right to live. He has the right to
bodily integrity and to the means necessary for the proper development of life,
particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and, finally, the
necessary social services. In consequence, he has the right to be looked after in
the event of ill health; disability stemming from his work; widowhood; old age;
enforced unemployment; or whenever through no fault of his own he is deprived of
the means of livelihood.
(Pacem in Terris: Peace on Earth (John XXIII, 1963))

-The Gospel is about liberation from all oppresive structures.

(Evangeli Nuntiandi: Evangelisation in the Modern World (Paul VI, 1975))

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-All levels of society are to be transformed by the power of the good news.
(Evangeli Nuntiandi: Evangelisation in the Modern World (Paul VI, 1975))