Achieving Social Justice

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Helen Keller was a Communist. As both a Catholic and a believer in the American constitution, I’m not interested in any idealism she has to offer.
 
Neildown said:
Helen Keller was a Communist. As both a Catholic and a believer in the American constitution, I’m not interested in any idealism she has to offer.
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Is Pope Francis a Communist too? He seems to hold similar beliefs as a role model.
 
Robert_Sock said:
Is Pope Francis a Communist too? He seems to hold similar beliefs as a role model.
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Did he join the communist party and espouse that ownership rights be abolished?

I’m sure they both thought washing your hands was a good idea too, but that doesn’t make them the same.
 
Chesterton wrote around 1930 or so, “[In England] we will have either the communism of wrath or the communism of repentance.” It’s even truer now than it was then.

Unless they were actively conspiring with Soviet agents, most American communists would have considered themselves good Americans and even believers in the Constitution as well, which, as is well known, has no religious test in it even though its authors and signers were theists, mostly (but not all) explicitly protestant Christians.
 
Jaysuitical said:
Chesterton wrote around 1930 or so, “[In England] we will have either the communism of wrath or the communism of repentence.”
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Given there is no circumstantial context to that quote, it isn’t by any necessity a positive statement about Communism or anything like Communism.

Edit: My bad - read that wrong the first time. 😛
 
Neildown said:
Given there is no circumstantial context to that quote, it isn’t by any necessity a positive statement about Communism or anything like Communism.
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Chesterton was a friendly enemy of the Fabians, Shaw especially, so he was not anti-socialist or anti-communist in the manner of many Americans, but in the manner that the Church is.
 
Neildown said:
Helen Keller was a Communist. As both a Catholic and a believer in the American constitution, I’m not interested in any idealism she has to offer.
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Take the idea she’s suggesting and tell me It lacks value or that Pope Francis would disagree with it!
 
Robert_Sock said:
Take the idea she’s suggesting and tell me It lacks value or that Pope Francis would disagree with it!
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In and of itself, it has some value but I very much agree with NeilDown. As Catholics we should all be much more concerned withe the salvation of souls than with social justice. What good does it do someone to find social justice and then go to Hell?

Ran
 
Ranp said:
In and of itself, it has some value but I very much agree with NeilDown. As Catholics we should all be much more concerned withe the salvation of souls than with social justice. What good does it do someone to find social justice and then go to Hell?

Ran
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You talk as though saving souls and social justice are mutually exclusive…they are intertwined at the core…one can not save one’s soul without good works… sometimes it seems like people think can simply pray their way to heaven without engaging the world…

How do you save souls?
 
Ranp said:
In and of itself, it has some value but I very much agree with NeilDown. As Catholics we should all be much more concerned withe the salvation of souls than with social justice. What good does it do someone to find social justice and then go to Hell?

Ran
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Saving souls is key. But social justice can help do just that…save souls. Performing good works is a vital part of saving one’s own soul.
 
Lots of folks talk about “social justice” as if it was a known quantity. But it isn’t. It’s one of the least clearly defined of all human expressions. Just about everybody who has ever heard the term has a different notion of it.

I’ll add this. Is it to be considered different from “charity”? Charity is something done for another that is done voluntarily, out of love of the recipient. The notion of “social justice” implies something more than that. “Justice” is something separate from the giver, and implies coercion.

For that reason, I am always a bit leery of the expression, as many do include the idea of coercion in their concept of it.
 
The quote can be broken down into two parts:
  1. “sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare”
  2. “social justice can never be attained”
Part 1 calls to have us feel a sense of responsibility. I would consider that good. However, we were given free will. As my wife constantly reminds me, I should “want” to _________ (insert - clean the house, do laundry, buy flowers, etc.), not be compelled to do so.

Part 2 has to do with a term which has often been perverted (IMO) or used as a cover for various agendas. On the surface, equality is a noble idea. However, when I have discussions with folks espousing “social justice” most (not all) advocate achieving their idea of it through confiscatory means (taxation, laws, etc). That conflicts with the “free will” in part 1.

Suffering is part of the journey. We are not guaranteed an easy ride on Earth, nor should we expect it. As good Christians, we should want to help our brothers and sisters. Personally I draw the line at being compelled to do so.

Helen Keller’s quote is accurate, IMO. All people will need to have the “sense of responsibility” for her vision of “social justice” to be achieved. However, not all people will have such a sense of responsibility.

BTW, this is my first post on this forum. I was baptized and became a Catholic on Saturday.
 
I believe that without recourse to God and the desire to be open to His life affirming purposes, social justice becomes false and is nothing more than state-mandated “compassion” - cold, indifferent, and often times in direct opposition to core Christian principles as taught by the Church.
 
godisgood77 said:
You talk as though saving souls and social justice are mutually exclusive…they are intertwined at the core…one can not save one’s soul without good works… sometimes it seems like people think can simply pray their way to heaven without engaging the world…

How do you save souls?
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the problem is the modern Left has made " social justice" synonymous with ‘big government’. Our responsibility to help the poor and the needy is a personal responsibility and cannot be co-opted to the government nor can it be fulfilled by voting for someone who promises to take other people’s money and do it for us.
 
Does doing good works mean voting for politicians so that they do works in your place?
 
Here is how the Church defines “social justice”:
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CCC:
CCC [1928](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/1928.htm’)😉 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.
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Note, justice has to do with what people deserves, what they are due, such as a just wage for work performed. Mercy and charity, on the other hand, go beyond what someone is owed strictly in justice, such as alms to a begger.

Social justice is also linked to what people need to fulfill their function in society so that they may positively contribute to the common good. Here’s how Pope Pius XI explained it:
Divini Redemptoris:
  1. In reality, besides commutative justice, there is also social justice with its own set obligations, from which neither employers nor workingmen can escape. Now it is of the very essence of social justice to demand for each individual all that is necessary for the common good. But just as in the living organism it is impossible to provide for the good of the whole unless each single part and each individual member is given what it needs for the exercise of its proper functions, so it is impossible to care for the social organism and the good of society as a unit unless each single part and each individual member - that is to say, each individual man in the dignity of his human personality - is supplied with all that is necessary for the exercise of his social functions. If social justice be satisfied, the result will be an intense activity in economic life as a whole, pursued in tranquillity and order. This activity will be proof of the health of the social body, just as the health of the human body is recognized in the undisturbed regularity and perfect efficiency of the whole organism.
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What does man need to fulfill his function? As the CCC notes, it depends on his vocation. For a lay married man, for example, he needs to be able to work, acquire property, make provisions for the future, etc. so that he can provide for and raise a family. To fulfill social justice, the state needs to ensure the conditions that allow him to do these things.
 
Some have brought up the relationship between social justice and the salvation of souls. Acting unjustly is sinful, so to be saved we must act with justice, and that includes rulers. Of course, charity is also necessary–without charity we are nothing.

State assistance or safety nets do have a proper role to play in the realm of social justice, provided it does not detract from man’s total well-being. The problem is when this role is exercised contrary to subsidiarity and it becomes impersonal and neglectful of the spiritual well-being of the person.

Pope Bl. John Paul II addressed this here:
Centissimus Annus:
By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbours to those in need. It should be added that certain kinds of demands often call for a response which is not simply material but which is capable of perceiving the deeper human need. One thinks of the condition of refugees, immigrants, the elderly, the sick, and all those in circumstances which call for assistance, such as drug abusers: all these people can be helped effectively only by those who offer them genuine fraternal support, in addition to the necessary care.
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When serving the common good, even the state must take into account the spiritual well-being of the members of society–sadly, very few if any actually do this today:
Pope Bl. John XXIII:
  1. In this connection, We would draw the attention of Our own sons to the fact that the common good is something which affects the needs of the whole man, body and soul. That, then, is the sort of good which rulers of States must take suitable measure to ensure. They must respect the hierarchy of values, and aim at achieving the spiritual as well as the material prosperity of their subjects.(42)
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