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,