Today we celebrate the 61st anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Human Rights. This year the focus is on ending discrimination.
The Catholic Church is strong on fight for human rights, though some argue it doesn't do so well internally on the discrimination issue. Check out this recent news story: The Catholic Church in England is worried that an anti-discrimination law would force them to accept everyone, regardless of gender, marital status, and sexuality, into the priesthood.
We've had a couple of articles recently at U.S. Catholic–one by Don Wycliff and an interview with M. Shawn Copeland–that have reminded us that the church and society have come a long way but still haven't achieved Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of ending discrimination.
The church has spoken out loudly on other human rights issues. Here are a just few human rights issues we've covered recently: human trafficking, water, women's rights, torture, relief work, health care, immigration, economic rights (coming soon: abortion in Europe).
What are the most important human rights issues to you? How do you think the church does on it?