Sunday, July 24, 2011

The Rights of Man Under Natural Law

This text should be vaguely familiar.

[Man has been given] the right to life, to bodily integrity, to the necessary means of existence; the right to tend toward his ultimate goal in the path marked out for him....; the right of association and the right to possess and use property.

Earlier we had mentioned that the Founders' core beliefs, as expressed in the Declaration, were Christian beliefs. They are not those of the French Revolution, nor of Locke, et.al. Rather, they are Burkean.

Oh, the quote?

Pius XII, Divini Redemptoris, para. 27.

The document is, in the main, a vigorous rejection of Communism (and Libertarianism) and of "liberal" (i.e., material-centered) economics.

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