Catholic social teaching encompasses the teaching that has been prevalent in the Catholic Church on all matters dealing with the collective aspect of humanity, since the mid-19th century. While most of the teachings are far older, they were combined into one systematic approach to social issues only after Marxism and other socialist movements began to gain ground after the Industrial Revolution.

While not endorsing any particular political agenda, the Church holds that this teaching applies in the public (political) realm, not only the private.

Christian Democracy, a political movement in numerous European countries, took these principles as its main agenda. They have also influenced many other political movements in varying degrees throughout the majority Christian nations, even those that aren't Catholic.

The fundamental principles of

• Human life is sacred and the human dignity of every person must be recognized.
• Human rights: Every person has fundamental human rights, including the right to life. The Catholic Church condemns abortion, capital punishment and euthanasia because human beings do not have the right to end the life of another person. Also, the right to food, to decent work, to housing and to health care are promoted to support life. The church does not believe in absolute property rights, considering it theoretically moral and just for its members to destroy property used in an evil way by others, or for the state to redistribute wealth from those who have unjustly hoarded it. The Church does not believe in the absolute right of kings or other human systems of government.
• Solidarity with, and compassion for, the poor: A whole society can be judged by how well it treats its most vulnerable members - the poor and those on the margin. This also applies on an international level with regard to the Global South. For example, the Church has habitually insisted that loans be forgiven during many occasions (during jubilee years.) Unjust systems or
  
  
  
  structures, such as the current world trade system, are the focus of CST; charity to individuals or groups must be accompanied by transforming unjust structures.
• Economic justice: Workers have a right to work, to a living wage, and to form unions. Though Catholic teaching opposes collectivist approaches such as Communism as it was practiced in the Soviet Union (and elsewhere) and upholds a right to private property limited by the concept of the social mortgage, it also opposes laissez-faire. This belief ties closely with compassion for the poor.
• Stewardship of creation: The world's goods are available for humanity to use only under a "social mortgage" which carries with it the responsibility to protect the environment.
• Disarmament and rejection of war: The Church now regards the circumstances under which military force is permissible as extremely limited (and rejects recent notable examples of military force such as the 2003 Invasion of Iraq). The circumstances under which military force is permissible are set out in the doctrine of just war, which forbids weapons of mass destruction, state or non-state terrorism, premptive war, and mistreatment of prisoners of war; this doctrine has changed in recent decades to become more restrictive.
• The state has a positive moral role to play: Under the principle of subsidiarity, state functions should be carried out at the lowest level that is practical.

In addition, the church does not support freedom of speech which offends religious sensibilities. On 4 February 2006, in response to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, the Vatican released a statement saying, "The right to freedom of thought and expression .. cannot entail the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers." This is consistent with the New Catholic Dictionary's entry for freedom of speech and press, a portion of which states: "There is no inherent right in the individual to voice his thought in public speech or in writing. When a man becomes articulate he must answer to the State and, if he be a Catholic, to the Church. . . . Speech and writing must first of all correspond to the truth; and after that they must be governed by justice and charity."

Doctrina Social de la Iglesia Katolika sociala doktrino