I lecture occasionally on Catholic social teaching and its applicability to everyday life. The two most prominent features in this body of doctrine are the principles of human dignity and the common good.

The first insists that we are human beings, not human doings. We have intrinsic value and are worthy of respect because we are human, not because we’re wise, wealthy, healthy or good-looking.

People like hearing this principle, even though they sometimes permit non-essentials such as race, poverty or sexual orientation to blind them to the dignity they should respect in others.

The principle of the common good is not so readily received. I have found that Catholic audiences often need help in wrapping their minds around this notion. Moreover, they sometimes have difficulty in connecting the notion of individual human dignity with the idea of the common good.

In the “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,” Vatican Council II described the common good as “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment” (No. 26).

So the common good is not the sum of all individual goods, nor is it a utilitarian concept of greatest good for the greatest number of people. It involves rather an acknowledgment of the basic human dignity of all people and a commitment to work for the promotion of conditions in society that encourage the development of each person’s human potential.

This idea is related to the principle of solidarity, the notion that we are connected to one another by virtue of our common human nature.

The principle of solidarity functions as a moral category that leads to choices that will promote and protect the common good.

In a question-and-answer period following a lecture I gave to a Catholic adult education group, one of the participants faulted the American bishops for their liberal views on immigration policy. He asked, “Aren’t they violating their own principle of the common good by offering sanctuary to illegal immigrants and advocating more liberal immigration laws?”

That prompted me to think of an image I find useful in explaining the common good – the old-fashioned inner tube and rubber tire.

The wholeness and roundness of the tire suggests the oneness of society. The inner tube’s vulnerability to wear and tear – the potential for a blowout that can flatten the entire tire – serves to remind that it is in the interest of the whole tire that attention be paid to a small section in need of a plug or patch.

Promotion of the common good not only protects the weak, but it works for the ultimate good of all others in society, not just the poor and vulnerable.

But what about those not yet part of our society, the refugees and migrants who want in but face barriers to entry?

First we have to avoid the trap of putting national boundaries around the concept of the common good. It embraces human nature anywhere; it transcends citizenship.

National Rights

But the common good also requires respect for national as well as individual rights and, therefore, looks to orderly progress in the flow of immigration while attending to the causes and effects of problems that propel people out of their native lands who would stay or return if conditions improved.

We can become a better national tire through immigration; our national history demonstrates that. History also teaches that we will be a stronger tire to the extent that we attend to all points of vulnerability.