Rights in Catholic Social Thought

Vox Nova has a post today discussing of the difference between the concept of rights in Catholic thought and the concept of rights in American political discourse.  The difference largly is a function of the extent to which Catholic thougth views the common good as limiting and defining rights, something "incomprehensible" from the secular perspective, which wonders what is the purpose of a right if it is limited by the common good.

"The answer, I think, lies in the differnt role that rights play in Catholic Social Thought.  Rights, in Catholic Social teaching, serve as a means of orienting our thinking about questions of social policy.  To say, in Catholic Social Thought, that something is a right is to say that it is a constitutive element of the Common Good."   So, for example, when the Church declares that there is a right to basic health care, what She is saying is that access to basic health care is one of the conditions of social life which allows access to human flourishing and fulfillment, and that achieving that right should be a central goal of social policy.  At the same time, however, this right is not seen as absolute, and may have to give way to other, equally pressing elements of the Common Good."

I think this accurately describes how the common good may limit rights from a Catholic perspective (although it is hard for me to imaging what pressing element of the common good would force us to abandon the right to basic health care), but I'm less sure whether I think this adequately explains the difference between rights from a Catholic perspecitve and rights from a secular perspective (which, are not absolute either).