Part III: Common Good

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Part III Common Good

• Catholic Social Practices the Health Care
  Setting

Darren M. Henson, STL913-522-0246
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Common Good
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• What comes to mind?

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Women men are fundamentally social creatures
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Teeter-totter Balancing collectivism and
individualism with the State helping balance.
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Three Social Economic Conditions for the
Common Good

1. Access to Public Goods
2. Enabling Social Participation in those Goods
3. Possibility for Human Flourishing at least
   minimally

• Boston College https//www2.bc.edu/kenneth-himes/
  

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Scriptural Roots Hebrew Scriptures

• 2 Kings 4 the Prophet Elisha receiving bread in
  abundance with much left over.
• Isaiah, All you who are thirsty, come to the
  water! You who have no money, come buy and eat!
  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without
  price (551)
• A leading theme in the Hebrew Bible is Gods
  offer of abundance.

• You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge
  against any of your people, but you shall love
  your neighbor as yourself (Lev 1918).
• The alien who resides with you shall be with you
  as the citizen among you you shall love the
  alien as yourselves, for you were aliens in the
  land of Egypt (Lev 1934).
• Bread that fell like des filled Israels hunger
  (Exod 16)

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Scriptural Roots New Testament

• Gospel Acts
• They devoted themselves to the apostles
  teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the
  bread and the prayers All who believed were
  together and had all things in common they would
  sell their possessions and goods and distribute
  the proceeds to all, as any had need (Acts 242,
  44-45).
• Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of
  the least of these who are members of my family,
  you did it to me. (Matt. 2535-40).

Johannine Literature I came that they might
have life and have it more abundantly. (Jn
1010) Love one another, because love comes
from God. (1 Jn 47-10)
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Scriptural Roots New Testament

• Pauline Literature
• The Body of Christ
• The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need
  of you, . On the contrary, the members of the
  body that seem to be weaker are indispensible,
  and those members of the body that we think less
  honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our
  less respectable members are treated with greater
  respect whereas our more respectable members do
  not need this. (I Cor. 1215, 21-25).

Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you
have been called, with all humility and
gentleness, with patience, bearing with one
another in love, making every effort to maintain
the unity of the Spirit, just as you were called
to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one
faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.
(Eph 41-7, 12)
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Ancient Greeks

• Polis the commons. The place where citizens
  made decisions about self-governance their
  common life.
• Noble action or Virtue
• Private life was incomplete for flourishing
• Aristotles Nichomachean Ethics the human
  person is by nature a social and political being

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Common Good the State

• Because the common good necessarily involves the
  polis, the State has an important role to play in
  seeking to provide for the good of all.
• Catholic Social Teaching emphasizes that
  fostering the common good is a primary
  responsibility of the State.

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Pre- and Extra-Encyclical Uses

• Augustine City of God
• Aquinas Holiness transcending polis justice
• Enlightenment I think therefore I am.
• Maritain Pope John XXIII

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Encyclicals Rerum Novarum (1891)

• All citizens, without exception, ought to
  contribute to the common good.
• The State, and lawmakers, bear special
  responsibility due to the far-ranging impact on
  the community.
• Working classes ought to enjoy the benefits of
  the common good because their labor contributes
  substantially to the advancement of the whole
  community.

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Encyclicals Mater et Magistra (1961)

• The Common Good defined
• the sum total of those conditions of social
  living, whereby individuals are enabled more
  fully and more readily to achieve their own
  perfection.

Robert Lentz Icon
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Encyclicals Pacem et Terris (1963)

• The Common Good is guaranteed by preserving
  Personal Rights
• Civil Authorities must show concern for the
  common good of the entire human family.
• New Universal Common Good
• Pope John XXIII pursuing the balance between
  Individual Personal Rights ? ? Universal
  Common Good

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Vatican II Gaudium et Spes (1965)

• The joys and hopes, the griefs and the anxieties
  of the people of this age, especially those who
  are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the
  joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the
  followers of Christ. (1)
• Justice requires a commitment to the common
  good.
• All must consider it their sacred duty to count
  social obligations among their chief duties today
  and observe them as such. It emphasized that we
  need to transcend an individualistic morality.
  (30)

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Encyclicals Solicitudo Rei Socialis (1987)

• Stresses a global context for the common good
• Interdependence throughout the world
• Pope John Paul II challenged the world driven by
  individual profit when he exhorted all people of
  good will to seek the good of all and of each
  individual, because we are all really responsible
  for all. (38)
• The Gospel call to seek the good for ones
  neighbor and to lose oneself for the sake of
  the other

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Encyclicals Centesimus Annus (1991)

• A critique of pure market forces inadequate
  standards for the common good.
• Responsibility of the Sate to defend and preserve
  the common good for the peoples.
• War is a clear threat to the common good.

Vatican.va
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Encyclicals Caritas in Veritate (2009)

• Love has 2 forms Justice the Common Good
• Pursuing the common good is a requirement of
  authentic love.
• Communal individual dimensions.
• Economics concerns the communal dimension of
  society, and therefore must be directed toward
  the common good.
• The upright must attune their consciences to the
  common good.

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What stands out in CST regarding the Common Good?

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APPLICATIONS TO HEALTH CARE

• COMMON GOOD

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Applications to Health Care

• Ethical Religious Directives
• Common Good one of the four central concepts
  for Catholic Healthcare.
• The common good is realized when economic,
  political, and social conditions ensure
  protection for the fundamental rights of all
  individuals and enable all to fulfill their
  common purpose and reach their common goals.

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Applications to Health Care - ERDs

• Advocacy for those persons who find that the
  conditions in society pushes them to the margins
  and makes them particularly vulnerable to
  discrimination. (ERD, 3)
• Workplace Collective Bargaining
• A just and equitable workplace, including the
  right for employees to organize and bargain
  collectively.
• However, collective bargaining must not undermine
  the common good. (ERD, 7)

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Applications to Health Care - ERDs

• Community Benefit
• Prohibited procedures
• HR / Compensation

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• So What?
• What does this mean for us
• Individually
• Communally
• Globally

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THANK YOU!