Catholic Social Teaching 101: Dignity, Subsidiarity, and Solidarity

COZ160: What does it mean to have a dignity no one can ever take away? Lindsay Sant and Lino Saubolle return for part two of their series on Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (“On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence”), working through its first two chapters on the Church’s social doctrine.

Lindsay traces the historical arc of Catholic social teaching from Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum through Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno, the Second Vatican Council’s Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae, John Paul II’s Laborem Exercens, and into Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’Fratelli Tutti, and Dilexit Nos — before unpacking the document’s core principles: human dignity rooted in being made in the image of the triune God, the common good, the universal destination of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity, and social justice.

Along the way, Lindsay and Lino also address some pointed listener feedback, pray for Caroline and her family (she’s in New Zealand this week for a family emergency), and note that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has reportedly referenced the document.

Then the show pivots to citizen science: real, ordinary-person-friendly projects making a measurable difference, from the Atlas of Living Australia’s Biosecurity Alerts Service and Climate History Australia’s weather-record transcription effort, to the Kilonova Seekers astronomy project, Mozzie Monitors mosquito surveillance, and NASA’s GLOBE Observer, “Are We Alone in the Universe,” and Cloudspotting on Mars.

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