The Youcat number of the month is all about how society should safeguard human life. # 329 How does social justice come about in a society? Social justice comes about where the inalienable dignity of every person is respected and the resulting rights are safeguarded and championed without reservation. The basis of all justice is respect for the inalienable dignity of the human person, “whose defense and promotion have been entrusted to us by the Creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment of history are strictly and responsibly in debt” (Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis, published 1987). Human rights are an immediate consequence of human dignity, and no State can abolish or change them. States and authorities that trample these rights underfoot are unjust regimes and lose their authority. A society is not perfected by laws, however, but rather by love of neighbor, which makes it possible for everyone to “look upon his neighbor (without any exception) as ‘another self’ ”
