Catholic theology traditionally has described the human persons place in creation, using terms borrowed from the broader context of Catholic cosmology. To understand the human person, one must first view him in relation to God and only then in relation to the rest of creation. Such a comparison reveals that the human person occupies a privileged place within the created order. The only temporal creature created in Gods image, the human person has been elevated to a position somewhere above the brutes and somewhere below the angels, but over the past century, the Catholic Church increasingly has emphasized the dignity of the human person. Indeed, the notion of the fundamental dignity of the human person has become a major theme within both the Catholic Churchs ordinary catechesis and Catholic social thought.
Marc D. Guerra, "The Affirmation of Genuine Human Dignity," Journal of Markets and Morality 4, no. 2(Fall 2001): 295-301