The Gazette 1987

GAZETTE

SEPTEMBER 1987

harmony of the nation at the level of its desert wanderings, when all superfluous social structures had been abandoned and rock bottom reached in the life of a people. José Bonino, reflecting on the present deep concern of the Chris- tian world with this issue of human rights, writes: "When this joint origin, Hebrew, Greek and Chris- tian, of modern freedom is recognised, it becomes possible to explore the Christian element in it, although it is impossible to isolate it from other moments in this dynamic. It is this Christian ele- ment that gives Christians a strong basis to stand for human rights in the critical situations which are fac- ed in many areas of the world. The search for theological foundations has gravitated in the direction of securing a firm basis for the univer- sality of human dignity and rights. It has rested basically on the doc- trine of creation and/or the doctrine of redemption. The human being as God's creation and his image, has his or her dignity as God's steward and representative, the unity of the human race constitutes a strong basis for asserting the rights of all." For theologians like Jurgen Moltman the quest for human rights has resolved itself largely into a question of human dignity, witness his book "On Human Dignity". All human rights derive from the dignity of mankind. "The task of Christian theology," he writes, "does not lie in presenting once again what thousands of jurists, parliamentarians and diplomats in the United Nations have already completed. However, Christian theology also cannot dispense itself from the discussion of and the struggle for the realisation of human rights. In the name of the creation of man according to the image of God, in the name of the incarnation of God for the reconciliation of the world, and in the name of the coming Kingdom of God for the fulfilment of history, the Church is charged with the responsibility for the humanity of man as well as for his rights and duties in time. We see the theological contribution of the Christian Church in the grounding of the fundamental human rights upon God's right to man. The Christian faith has over and above the different rights and duties of

Annual Law Services We set o u t he r eunder t he add r esses by t he A r c h b i s h op o f Dub l i n, t he Mo s t Reve r end D. A . Ca i r d, and by t he Mo s t Reve r end De smo nd Wi l l i ams, D.D., Au x i l i a ry B i s hop o f Dub l i n, g i ven at t he Ch u r ch o f I r e l and a nd Roman Ca t ho l ic Se r v i ces t o ma r k t he c omme n c eme nt o f t he M i c h a e l mas T e rm on 5 t h Oc t ober 1 9 8 7 . Most Reverend D. A. Caird

Justice, like other virtues, is usually conspicuous only in its absence. Those who would find it difficult to define or even to discuss justice in the abstract, find no difficulty in seeing the injustice in a situation presented, for instance, by one of those teams of investigative re- porters on radio or television, where an old couple are cheated out of their life savings by the false promises of a crook, and are brought to face penury and disaster at the end of their lives. We see the injustice clearly and we boil with in- dignation, because the dignity of another human being has been assailed and hurt. But to define justice in the abstract is another matter which has engaged the most subtle minds recorded in history, engaged and often defeated. The Republic of Plato is a sus- tained attempt to define Justice both at the level of the Greek city- state and at the level of the in- dividual citizen. Following the Socratic method he reviewed and dismissed various contemporary definitions of Justice, including the cynical definition of Thrassy- machus that justice is the interest of the strong party; he reached his own definition that Justice is "the harmony of the virtues", that it is the quality which enables the in- dividual to live at peace with himself and which enables all the classes and denizens of the State to live in peace and co-operation for the good of the whole. Such a wide definition is perhaps of little help to us in our search to discover what justice requires in given specific circumstances. But it does turn our mind in the right direction, and through its emphasis on the community as well as the in- dividual, it balances another defini- tion of Justice which has had great influence in Western society: the classical definition of St. Thomas

— reddere suum cui — to every man his due. Again we are not really helped forward by this definition, for the very fount of our dilemma is to determine what is due to a man or woman in the particular circum- stances of their lives. It is for the wisdom and insight to determine this within the great framework of the system of laws which has grown up over centuries, indeed millenia, and which embodies the experience of society through the ages, that we pray. Though "reddere suum cui" can only be a very rough guide to the nature of just dealing at the com- plex level of sophisticated modern society in determining, for in- stance, a just pay level in relation to the work which various groups and individuals in society do, in relation to one another: e.g., the miner and the stockbroker, the dentist and the deepsea fisherman, the home help and the actress, where incomparable values are in- volved, where taste and choice are active and where no common unit can be employed; this definition is significant, however, at the level of basic human rights, in the context of what is due to each human be- ing, as a human being, irrespective of race, creed, class, colour, education, work, religious or political outlook or affiliation. The attempt to define and list those basic human rights may be traced to the Decalogue (Ex- odus 20). The six commandments defining one's duty to one's neighbour could well be cast in terms of human rights, while the first four commandments may be regarded as the theological pro- logue to the declaration. The Decalogue was given when the na- tion of Israel was reduced to its bare bones in the desert. These were the minimum moral require- ments to maintain the life and

291