Modern liberalism has redefined “human rights” to include things that Catholic teaching considers grave moral wrongs, abortion chief among them. Frank Wright examines the difference between the modern liberal conception of rights and the Catholic understanding of natural rights rooted in St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.
Catholics do believe in rights. But not in purported rights that permit evil. The progressive understanding of rights has become detached from an objective moral order. The evidence is everywhere: the “right” to abortion, the “right” to gender transition, and now attempts to extend human-rights concepts to artificial intelligence. Progressivism continually moves toward more extreme positions because its conception of a “right” must continually change.
Natural rights, by contrast, recognize the unchanging nature of reality and serve God’s justice. Catholic doctrine offers a permanent moral and metaphysical foundation, one that does not shift with the culture or the courts.
