The centuries-old position of the roman church on the issue of human rights and the attempt to defend this position by cardinal Ruffini at the Second Vatican Council

The article provides a historical overview of the formation and development of legal social doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church. The social teaching of the Church answers a number of important questions of public life. These issues include dignity, freedom and human rights. The position of the Roman Catholic Church has changed from a complete rejection of the idea of individual human rights and freedoms (freedom of religion) to their recognition and support. The article examines and analyzes the reason and prerequisites for such changes, considers the theological, historical and ideological context of this issue. The relevance of this work is due to the challenges facing Christian churches in the 21st century, including Christianophobia in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa and the deformation of the development of human rights in the civil-political space, in which the traditional ideas about the person and the family are distorted. Particular attention in this study is paid to the analysis of official church documents, the papal encyclicals. As part of this work, Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini’s speech at the Second Vatican Council was translated from Latin, in which he analyzes the draft declaration on religious freedom “Dignitatis humanae”. The methodology of the article is based on descriptive-analytical, comparative-comparative and historical research methods.