New Iraq

Now that the regime of Saddam Hussein has passed into history, the most pertinent question

is what kind of authority will emerge in its place. To go even further would be not only to

ask what kind of authority but to include what type of relationship between the state and the

individual that it would have. Coming into the twenty-first century with no democratic

history and little familiarity with constitutional freedoms will make this transition a difficult

one for the Iraqi people. In order to establish a fertile democratic nation and a just freemarket

economy, the transcendent dignity of the Iraqi citizens must be kept in consideration.

According the Church, there is an awareness of the sublime dignity of the human person,

who stands above all things and whose rights and duties are universal and inviolable. Every

human being was created in God's image, possessing within the capability of choosing freely

and responding to and becoming good. Any human society, if it is to be well ordered and

productive, must lay down as a foundation this principle: Every human being is a person, that

is, his nature is endowed with intelligence and free will. The function of law then, according

the Church, is to permit a citizen to make choices that will maximize his or her potential in

relation to the common good. The law must make sure that his or her ability to relate with

family and an economic, social, political, and culturally diverse society is not restrained. This

it what leads the Church to form its views on how the state and citizen should relate.

The Church believes the responsibility of a strong relationship between the state and its

citizens lies on two main pillars: the rights of the citizens and the efficiency of the economic

system. "Individual exercises of freedom are conditioned in many ways."(Centesimus Annus,

Ð'§25). Though the state cannot destroy the power of freedom, it can make it more or less

difficult. When a society begins to suppress this ability, life for that society becomes

increasingly disorganized. The fall of such an oppressive society can be linked to the lack of

either of these two things previously mentioned. The inefficiency of the economic system is

seen as a consequence of the violation of a human's right to privacy.

"It is not possible to understand the human person on the basis of economics alone, nor to

define the person simply on the basis of class membership. A human being is understood in a

more complete way when situated within the sphere of culture through language, history, and

the position one takes towards the fundamental events of life, such as birth, love, work, and

death."(Ð'§24).

At the center of every culture lies the attitude which its people take toward God, an ultimate

mystery. Without religion, there is no culture; without culture, their life is not how it once

had been. So when the human is seen as an "element within the social organism" it is no

longer a being and is seen as a mechanism of the state. Humans are there to serve the state.

The main error in all of this lies in the apparent atheism. It is imperative that human beings

are able to respond to the call of God in order to become aware of his or her transcendent

dignity. When it is crushed by the state, humans fail to recognize transcendent dignity which

then enables people to commit atrocities such as rape, murder, and genocide. The law then is

seen as a maintenance to order, having control over the citizens, and making them dependent

upon the state which