The Philippine chapter of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists gathered about 60 professors, students, economists, bishops and Religious on July 15 for the conference on “Human Rights and the Eradication of Poverty” at the University of Asia and the Pacific (UAP) in Pasig City, east of Manila.
The UAP School of Economics’ Social Economics Unit and the Society of Catholic Social Scientists Philippine Chapter co-sponsored the event.
In a presentation on “The Principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church and Poverty,” Dominican Father Fausto Gomez said, “The rich and the poor, from a human Christian perspective, have the same dignity, the same rights.”
Father Gomez, a retired UAP professor of social and political philosophy, stressed that human rights have correlating duties, to “give to each person his or her due.” Engaging in business fraud, corruption, tax fraud, doing work badly, paying unjust wages and forging checks and invoices are sins, he said, because they deprive others of their rights.
He acknowledged that Church social teaching “does not offer technical solutions to social problems or problems of the economic system,” but he did propose poverty in spirit, involving simple lifestyle and solidarity with the poor, as a way to practice Christian justice and love.
One cannot be a disciple of Christ, he asserted, if one cannot share because of an attachment to material things. Instead, he recommended simplicity and asked how anyone could squander resources “when 40 million children die every year of hunger and malnutrition.” Solidarity calls for “accompanying the poor in their journey to freedom and to Christ,” Father Gomez said.
