The God in whom we believe affirms our humanity by endowing us God's own likeness. To bear the image of God means that God loves all human persons who are equal in worth, dignity and rights. It is thus that everyone has the right to participate in the shaping, fashioning, and running of his or her economic, political and cultural life. There is no higher regard of our humanity than that God, in grace, has bestowed every person human dignity. Humanity's acceptance of such a gift of grace is manifest in our struggles for human rights.
Human dignity encompasses all gifts of talent and grace, life and beauty, wisdom and discernment.
Human rights are the protections that we give human dignity. Human dignity exists in the cosmos and there finds fulfillment. No human rights are ever meaningful outside a sustainable environment. The denial of human rights to any person is a denial of God-given dignity to that person. Participation in the human rights struggle is participation in God's work of liberation.