The right to be informed

Recent Catholic social theology has recognized the centrality of the human person, and, relatedly, has declared the “identification and proclamation of human rights [as] one of the most significant attempts to respond effectively to the inescapable demands of human dignity” (Dignitatis Humanae 1965, no. 1). Pope John XXIII, in Pacem in Terris (1963), was the first to articulate a set of human rights, foremost of which is the “right to bodily integrity and to the means necessary for the proper development of life, particularlly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and, finally, the necessary social services” (no. 11).

One human right that has received abundant attention in Catholic social teachings is the right to be informed and to form opinions. The Second Vatican Council and the popes since Pope John XXIII have all stressed this right to information as essential for the individual and for society in general. In Pacem in Terris (1963), Pope John XXIII says, “[Man] has a right to freedom in investigating the truth” (no. 12). Similar to Pacem in Terris, the Second Vatican Council, in its document, Gaudium et Spes (1965), identifies a set of rights as necessary for a truly human life, including “the right to education... to appropriate information, to activity in accord with the upright norm of one’s own conscience... and to rightful freedom even in matters religious” (no. 26). Pope John Paul II, in Centesimus Annus (1991), likewise calls attention to “the right to develop one's intelligence and freedom in seeking and knowing the truth” (no. 47).