Human rights in crisis
By Fr. ROY CIMAGALA, roycimagala@gmail.com
May
2, 2011
THE recent
proliferation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is a most
welcome development since they facilitate our life in society. With
them, the requirements of the principles of subsidiarity and
solidarity, so essential in society, are more finely met.
Subsidiarity is when a
bigger entity can delegate some of its powers to a lower entity. It’s
also when the smaller needs of men in society are met due to the
presence of more intermediaries between the individual citizens and
the over-all state authorities.
Solidarity is when
society becomes more organized and moves more or less in the same
direction without annulling legitimate differences and variety of
sectors comprising it. It means having better working unity in
society.
The NGOs are these
agents and intermediaries that foster the need for subsidiarity and
solidarity in a given society. We just have to make sure that a third
social principle, that of the common good, is also met, so that the
play of the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity gets into the
right groove.
This is the problem we
often encounter these days with respect to the NGOs. Many of them, I’m
afraid, are a cover to advance an agenda whose idea of common good is
at best inadequate, often dangerous, if not utterly wrong.
The other day, someone
told me that in a Congress hearing, a representative of an NGO was
batting for sexual rights, saying that everyone has a “right to a
satisfying and safe sex.”
While it’s true that
we are a sexual being, and therefore sex has a legitimate part in our
life, we just can’t be naïve when ideas like what was presented in
that Congress hearing is proposed to us.
We need to see if
indeed this “right to a satisfying and safe sex” truly corresponds to
an objective common good meant for us. We have to know what that right
involves, what its inspiration and true purpose are, etc.
We just cannot say
anything is a human right based on an opinion or even on a consensus
of some people. We cannot even consider a culture and civilization as
the ultimate source of what is the authentic common good for us and
what is not. They are not the ultimate terra firma. They shift too
like sand, and can contain impurities.
The crux of our
problem is that in determining our common good, any mention to God is
immediately or, worse, automatically rejected. It’s as if God has no
place in this discussion. It’s as if God is the very antithesis of
democracy and its ways and processes.
At best, any reference
to God has to be veiled, since making it explicit is considered a
fallacy of begging the question. It is feared it would illegitimately
stop further discussion or reasoning, which is not true, since such
reference would in fact throw the doors open for further scrutiny. It
fosters more discussion.
We need to make a
drastic change in our attitude and ways of determining if a claimed
human right is indeed part of our common good. We have to defer to
what the Compendium of Social Doctrine says about the source of human
rights.
In point 153, it says,
“The ultimate source of human rights is not found in the mere will of
human beings, in the reality of the State, in public powers, but in
man himself and in God his Creator.”
So, it’s clear that no
matter how hard it is to determine what is God’s will and design for
us, we just have to make an effort to know God’s will, since ignoring
it would just put us in the dark, and lead us to unjust ways of
determining what is right and wrong, what is good and evil, true and
false.
In short, it would not
be democratic, in fact, if our political ways would systematically
shun the contribution of religion, or that our discussion of issues
that affect our common good would exclude faith and religion, and
everything involved there, like listening to the teachings of the
Church, etc.
In that set-up,
democracy would be understood as just a purely human affair, as if
everything begins and ends with us. Of course, we are the primary
actors in democracy, but we are nothing without God who is our source,
our Creator, and in fact, also our end.
Democracy, without
God, would lose its foundations and sense of purpose, and would just
be driven not by truth nor by love, but by sheer and brazen human
power. That’s when human rights enter the crisis zone.