Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-p2v8j Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2024-05-15T03:42:21.410Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

14 - Catholicism and Human Dignity in the Philippines

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2022

Jimmy Chia-Shin Hsu
Affiliation:
Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
Get access

Summary

This chapter reviews Catholic teachings regarding human dignity and how the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) – the official representative of the Catholic hierarchy in the Philippines – has interpreted it in several issue areas, including capital punishment, contraception, poverty, and electoral fraud. Catholic doctrine teaches that all people possess intrinsic dignity because they have been created in the image of God (the imago Dei), thereby imposing certain moral principles regarding the treatment of oneself and others, including solidarity, care for the poor, and the sanctity of human life. The Church’s views have taken on distinct local characteristics shaped by high levels of societal poverty, economic inequality, and corruption, as well as the Church’s historically strong political influence. Catholic bishops have harnessed the concept of human dignity to point out dehumanizing practices in Philippine society and call for greater respect for human life. In recent decades, though, the Church’s moral authority has been severely challenged, revealing the limits of its ability to promote Catholic teachings on human dignity.

Type
Chapter
Information
Human Dignity in Asia
Dialogue between Law and Culture
, pp. 332 - 355
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×