Social Issues and Catholic Teaching

This assignment examines pressing social problems, focusing on the violation of Aboriginal rights in Australia and the detrimental effects of global warming. It analyzes these issues through the framework of Catholic Social Teaching, highlighting principles such as human dignity, stewardship of creation, and the common good. The paper argues that addressing these injustices requires collective action and adherence to ethical guidelines outlined by Catholic social doctrine.

Running head: COMMON GOOD
Common Good
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

2COMMON GOOD
Common Good, the term indicates a general social living condition that allows the
individuals to attain and satisfy their requirements. The particular term has various moral and
ethical associations that promote all the fundamental rights of the deprived individuals (Guitián,
2015). In this regard, it can be said that Human dignity is the ethical foundation of a society that
has moral values. The social workers show respect towards the entire individual’s dignity and
their worth. The motto of the society should be one for all and all for one, the resources that the
Mother Nature provides to us, none has the right to take away from on individual. The purpose
of this report is to highlight the social issues regarding human rights, human dignity, global
worming and many more problems that the individuals are facing nowadays.
In this part of this essay two major global issues are discussed, one is the negligence of
the government of Australia regarding the aboriginal and Torres islanders where the basic rights
and human dignity of those individuals get violated. The other global issue which is going to be
discussed in this essay is the issue of global warming.
The status of health of the Aboriginal and Torres population of Australia is declining in a
gradual manner and can be considered as the poorer than all the communities of Australia. This
has become a widely known global issue and this report gives a brief idea of the scenario.
Though the life expectancy level of the Aboriginal people have risen a bit in the last couple of
decades, but the healthcare system for them is not functioning at all. This part of this essay will
explain the major aspects of this situation. The aim of Australian government is to fill the gap in
the health inequality of the aboriginal people of Australia in relation to the regular citizens of the
country. To eradicate this social ill, the government of Australia should stress on implementing
various policies in order to ensure the aboriginal people’s rights. In the health plan the
government of Australia puts highest priority to the social, physical and emotional well-being of

3COMMON GOOD
the Aboriginal and Torres people. The government of Australia is committed to work with the
Aboriginal and Torres people to attain equality for them to access the health programs to get a
better life expectancy rate (Gwynne, et al., 2016). The government of Australia is aiming to
attain harmony in the health sector of Aboriginal people by the year of 2031 and in that manner
they are proceeding with their plans. The planning that is related to health sector provides an
evidence based framework which is a part of the Australian government’s approach to close the
gap (Barton et al., 2017). Due to this reason National Indigenous Reform Agreement was signed
in the year of 2008 that aims to increase the mortality rate of the children of the aboriginal
community and also to increase the life expectancy of the aboriginal and Torres people. The
health plans are at par with the government’s strategies that support better results in health sector
and that includes Australia’s National Strategic Framework for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Health (NSFATSIH).
Another global issue that is going to be discussed in this section of this essay is the issue
of global warming. It is seen that global warming has become a threat to the society where the
individuals are getting immensely affected due to this situation. Currently the average increase in
the temperature annually is 0.8 degree centigrade and that is quite concerning (Jeppesen et al.,
2015). It is a matter of fact that in UN conventions the issues of global warming has been the
most debated topic and the governments of numerous nations are planning to come up with an
effective idea that will help to eradicate the issue. In the UN conventions it has been decided to
reduce the CHC and carbon mono oxide level from the biosphere as that is increasing the hole in
the ozone layer that is directly causing the global warming (Martens, 2014). There are some
other issues that are increasing the effects of global warming, like increasing fuel emissions from
the automobiles and the incessant loss of trees due to various reasons should be stopped. Apart

4COMMON GOOD
from these, in the UN conventions it was decided that there should be modifications to attain
clean energy that would not affect the climate and there should be laws regarding the emissions
of the gasses from the chimneys of the manufacturing factories. The main issue is that the
individuals should try to reduce the atmospheric load or the bio load in order to eliminate the
issues of global warming.
In this section of this essay the principles of catholic social teaching are explained.
Conservation of human dignity, rights and responsibilities of individuals, stewardship of
creation, community and the common good are the main principles of catholic social teaching. It
is a matter of fact that the human dignity and their rights should be preserved at any cost and any
harm in that is a direct violation of the basic right of the individuals. All the individuals have the
right to take part in the political, social and cultural aspects of the society and any issues that can
prevent them from doing so is the direct breach of human rights and that are not at all justified.
In the cases of Aboriginal people of Australia, they are getting deprived of the basic medical
assistance at the time of need that the other citizens of Australia receive in time; this is harming
their basic rights and ruining their dignity (de Peyrelongue, Masclef & Guillard, 2017). On the
other hand, global warming is an increasing issue that is preventing mankind from getting the
resources that earth provides and global warming is affecting the living conditions of people and
that is also not appropriate. Thus, in the international summit of the national leaders, they should
make some plans to eliminate thse social ills from the society.

5COMMON GOOD
References
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Martens, P. (2014). Health and climate change: modelling the impacts of global warming and
ozone depletion. Routledge.
Massaro, T. (2015). Living justice: Catholic social teaching in action. Rowman & Littlefield.