II.

1. Firstly, I find The Principle of Human Dignity to be somewhat prevalent in the SLUH society. Of course, you will always have the exceptions to the rules such are the kids who find it funny to call people "fags" or "gay" or that, obviously disrespecting the equality deserved of those people whose status is used as a slur or derogatory insult. But! Although the SLUH community boasts a diverse community, the minority groups are still the minority groups and the majority group is still the majority. Although this is how it is at SLUH, what makes the community different is that almost all of the students respect each other, no matter how different that other person is.

   Another Building Block that is prevalent in the SLUH community is the Principle of Solidarity. As we saw just in the past week, the SLUH administration made a rather large fuss about the reprimanding of a sophomore student who threatened the common good of the student body. The SLUH administration successfully handled the situation that questioned their moral understanding and obligation to protect the SLUH community.

2. 
   From www.transmissionzero.co.uk
3. One thing to remember are the requirements for True Social Justice: applications of the virtues of social justice and solidarity, well formed individual consciences, independent groups organized to secure the common good, and complementary state regulation based on the principle of subsidiarity. These things are good to remember, especially later on in life when you have a say in the future of your community and government. As it states earlier in the section "All for One, One for All" is a valiant idea that should be applied as much as possible to the decisions, community, and whole of the people.

   Another thing to remember is the obligations of National Governments. They must work for the common good, which is what I think the United States' ideal is to the core (although sometimes a few people can get inside the system and screw with it, but that's why we have three branches, isn't it? Checks and balances.)The political community has certain duties to the family and the rights of the common man: family, marriage, religion, property, medical care, security, community. I agree that once these are skewed, the idea of government also becomes estranged. I'm not going to sit here and make comments about what I think the role of government is, but I think that it is the obligation of the government to honor these rights of the people. On a side note, I am almost certain that this book was written by American authors who are perhaps taking stabs at certain weaknesses in the US way. The right to health care in particular, or security from pornography and prostitution etc. I don't know, it just seems like the author(s) seem to be trying to make rather political statements. But all in all, I must say the US includes many of these duties in the system. Better than we can say for many other countries.

4. Why does the text book insist that women are inferior to men? On page 157, it states very plainly that, "As a direct result of original sin, women have been placed in an inferior role to men who will 'rule over you' (cf. Gn 3:16)." I find this to be rather backward. It is almost as if the writers of this book are looking for a fight. The Second Vatican Council said that the human race was undergoing a deep transformation "which would offer women who are imbued with a deep spirit of the Gospel many opportunities to aid humanity." This is also so terribly written and seems like words from a blind follower. It lacks thought or compassion or understanding. They are cold words discriminating against women, obviously breaking the Principle of Human Dignity. If the Principle of Human Dignity stands, then not even God's word should be able to discriminate against other groups of human beings. I don't understand why the writers of this book or even Vatican II, as well-respected as it is, were so inclined to put down women but try and compensate for their put-down (to coincide with political correctness) that they stick little bits of women-aren't-so-inferior-if-they-have-the-spirit-of-the-Gospel blah blah. Or Original Sin, obviously originating from the Adam and Eve story, which I thought was left for interpretation by Catholics and was not believed in a literal fashion today. But I have been sadly mistaken, for it seems like the opinion of women in this book is rather bigoted and confrontational. This is kind of like the test questions about gay actions always being wrong because they are "intrinsically evil."