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Justice Definition

August 2nd, Justice Definition

Yesterday I shared the beginning concept of social justice. Since the 20th century, incredible progress has been made.  Understanding the dangers that the accelerated progress being made by man, all of God’s children needed to be protected from abuses from those leaders who were more concerned with profit than with treating their employees fairly.


The term Social Justice has been hijacked to defend a partisan view that many connect to socialism.  This is inaccurate.  Below is a Church document on Social Justice.


1986 A Pastoral Message - Economic Justice for All


It begins: “We are believers called to follow our Lord Jesus Christ and proclaim his Gospel in the midst of a complex and powerful economy. This reality poses both opportunities and responsibilities for Catholics in the United States. Our faith calls us to measure this economy not only by what it produces, but also by how it touches human life and whether it protects or undermines the dignity of the human person. Economic decisions have human consequences and moral content; they help or hurt people, strengthen or weaken family life, advance or diminish the quality of justice in our land.”


2. Human Rights: The Minimum Conditions for Life in Community


79. “...Vatican II described the common good as "the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment."(36) These conditions include the rights to fulfillment of material needs, a guarantee of fundamental freedoms, and the protection of relationships that are essential to participation in the life of society(37) These rights are bestowed on human beings by God and grounded in the nature and dignity of human persons. They are not created by society. Indeed, society has a duty to secure and protect them. (38)”

 

 

See also: Catechism of the Catholic Church

1928 Society ensures social justice when it provides the conditions that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their due, according to their nature and their vocation. Social justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority.

  1. Respect for the Human Person

1929 Social justice can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man. The person represents the ultimate end of society, which is ordered to him:

What is at stake is the dignity of the human person, whose defense and promotion have been entrusted to us by the Creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment of history are strictly and responsibly in debt. (35) John Paul II, SRS 47


I encourage you to watch our short video on Justice Definition here: https://youtu.be/NACp_GmB1QI


Millie Padilla

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Comments

“Catholic social teaching is a central and essential element of our faith. Its roots are in the Hebrew prophets who announced God's special love for the poor and called God's people to a covenant of love and justice. It is a teaching founded on the life and words of Jesus Christ, who came "to bring glad tidings to the poor . . . liberty to captives . . . recovery of sight to the blind"(Lk 4:18-19), and who identified himself with "the least of these," the hungry and the stranger (cf. Mt 25:45). Catholic social teaching is built on a commitment to the poor. This commitment arises from our experiences of Christ in the eucharist.”

https://www.usccb.org/resources/sharing-catholic-social-teaching-challenges-and-directions

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