It is frustrating that we need to qualify a certain business or investment as being ‘socially responsible’. This qualification implies that most of the other business is socially irresponsible. Indeed, anyone following the financial media will conclude that there is much irresponsibility in the way business is conducted.

I must remind you and me that we are all called to maintain, defend and advocate for the fullness of the Truth, despite the complexity of the issue or the personal cost to do so.

Catholic social teaching, which is a branch of Catholic Moral Theology, contains a set of principles to be used to form our conscience as we impact on the social structures around us. Charity is a theological virtue. It applies to all and involves engaging, directly, those around us who are in need.

There are three fundamental principles of Catholic social teaching, the greatest of which the Church insists is the first: A correct understanding of the human person, which is Human Dignity: this is the prime principle! Then there are Solidarity and Subsidiarity.

Catholic Social Doctrine has its place where faith and politics meet. The Church’s aim is to not replace the State, but to simply help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just.

Solidarity and Subsidiarity are both born in and expressions of human dignity and both are absolutely central to the implementation of Catholic social doctrine. You can’t have one without the other!