THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (50pts) ~ Pt.33: The Church and Social Justice

"We are aware there are great differences among men and yet equality. Everyone of us is created in the image and likeness of God, every single human being is created in God's own image and likeness. Now for us that's hard to see sometimes. We go by sense-perceptible things but there are a great many things which are beyond first glance. The reality of all things is not revealed to us instantly through sense-perceptible things. For instance, you can take the Holy Father, as in intelligent as he is, holy as he is, as tremendous the work that he does..you can take Mother Teresa, even a politician or a sports figure who's done much..and it's easier to see in them.. Greatness. And then you take someone who was born horribly deformed, someone with a terrible birth defect, they're deaf, they're blind, they're mangled, they're twisted, they can't speak, they can't communicate, they can't understand.. they are every bit as human as anyone else..why? Because the dignity of every single person resides in their person-hood. If you are human, and they are human, no matter how malformed, deformed you are, you're deaf, you're blind, you have polio, you have aids, you have any disease imaginable..you are STILL human. That's where your Dignity is, your Person-hood. So we must respect every human being. Equal in dignity but different, we are not all the same. Now we know that, I've talked about men and women. Men and women, perfectly human..men and women absolutely equal in dignity, God created us the same that way, equal in dignity as persons BUT men and women are NOT the same. Differentiated physically, emotionally, spiritually..and the differences do run so very deep..we have different gifts. You have certain gifts as I said before, I have certain gifts."