Dissent From Catholic Social Teaching: A Study In Irony - Inside The Vatican

[Crocus]

Anyway I was very surprised to find that conservatives oppose pensions because that doesn’t sound like any republican and conservatives I know.

Not everyone is privileged to have a pension, and a lot of people live precariously. The free market is opposed to solidarity of the papal encyclicals (cramps its style).

Certainly there can be different ways of achieving such justice; is there a goal by which to measure success? I personally feel discouraged to see payday loan offices (symptom of people living on the edge), people on corners with signs “Homeless. Anything will help” (symptom of multiple ailments of society). Not far down the street are blocks of mansions with security gates and video cameras. Statistics show it is not getting any better for the poor, the vulnerable.

From the article linked below, just cuz you mentioned pensions:
The BLS overview shows that pension coverage is much higher in the public sector (78 percent) and among unionized workers (67 percent) in the private sector. In contrast, only 13 percent of non-union private-sector workers are covered. The drop in private-sector coverage reflects both a decline in unionization and a decline in coverage among both groups of workers (union and non-union), though the decline was more pronounced among non-union workers.

Private-sector pension coverage fell by half over two decades

The most recent issue of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Monthly Labor Review provides a wealth of interesting—and depressing—statistics about pension coverage in the United States. The BLS’ “visual essay” documents the decline in defined benefit pensions, which now cover 18 percent of...

www.epi.org

Those pensions are not guaranteed to be handled ethically for employees, will it be there for them? Maybe not, free market not necessarily responsible.

 

[po18guy]

I, frankly, am weary of hearing justice justice justice, 24/7 justice!

Social justice is an early 20th century socialist/American communist buzz phrase and rallying cry. It flows so easily off the lips. It’s not hard or embarrassing to say like “The Gospel of Christ” huh?

What about the Gospel of Christ and the CHARITY it produces? What else matters?

 

[po18guy]

Can I give two likes?

 

[Crocus]

A just wage and a living wage are entirely different, and to reject the idea of a living wage is not at all to dissent from Catholic Social Teaching, regardless of who claims otherwise.

Could you explain the difference between the two especially what you mean by: rejecting just wage is dissenting from Catholic Social Teaching, whereas rejecting living wage is not dissenting from CST.

 

[Crocus]

What about the Gospel of Christ and the CHARITY it produces? What else matters?

I can give a glass of water (in love) to a thirsty person, or a meal for the day, or fill a grocery bag for someone this week, but maybe not next week or the week after.

For the person going to work every day but receiving not enough to decently feed, clothe, shelter himself (and family), I cannot bring him that justice without the cooperation of my entire society. Likewise the person who cannot work, deserves the same justice. Human dignity demands more than sporadic charity, it demands systemic change, to achieve justice.

 

[Ender]

Could you explain the difference between the two especially what you mean by: rejecting just wage is dissenting from Catholic Social Teaching, whereas rejecting living wage is not dissenting from CST.

Justice is giving a person his due; it is a cardinal virtue, and it applies through all areas of life, including the wages paid employees. To oppose a just wage is in fact unjust and is not so much against Catholic Social Teaching as it is against our moral obligation to “walk justly”.

A “living wage”, however is not a moral imperative. It is a belief in an economic approach that appeals to some, and is opposed by others. It is not what the church teaches. She has in fact expressed no opinion on the matter. This is not entirely surprising as it’s not clear that any two people could give you the same definition of what the term even means.

Thus people may legitimately take opposing positions on a “living wage” and neither would be dissenting from Catholic Social Teaching, and it is more than a little offensive to hear someone claim that his opinion on the matter is equivalent to church teaching. Hence the derisive term “social justice warrior.”

 

[Crocus]

Justice is giving a person his due; it is a cardinal virtue, and it applies through all areas of life, including the wages paid employees. To oppose a just wage is in fact unjust and is not so much against Catholic Social Teaching as it is against our moral obligation to “walk justly”.

What then is his due just wage? Must it be at least equal, but if not equal, then more? Is that our moral obligation? That does sound like Catholic Social Teaching.

 

[Annie]

I know, right?

I once agreed with you, but then I found out that social justice is a Catholic term deriving from Rerum Novarum, an encyclical written by Pope Leo XIII in the late 1800s.

It has certainly been hijacked to cover just about anything, and it certainly sickens me to see it applied to abortion.

Anyway, as a result, I think there is Catholic social justice (the original ) and a secular derivation.

 

[Crocus]

Anyway, as a result, I think there is Catholic social justice (the original ) and a secular derivation

Please please! What is this Catholic social justice? The moral theology (not the secular ideology).

Taking Rerum Novarum line by line (for starters) where are we succeeding, more importantly were are we lacking and need to take action?

 

[Annie]

Hey, I was just trying to explain to @po18guy the history of the term social justice, not deliver a full-fledged paper about what constitutes Catholic social justice. That has already been done much more ably by a few popes.

 

[Ender]

What then is his due just wage? Must it be at least equal, but if not equal, then more? Is that our moral obligation? That does sound like Catholic Social Teaching.

A just wage is CST; a living wage is not. The article in the OP claimed these were the same thing and that is manifestly untrue.

 

[Crocus]

A just wage is CST; a living wage is not. The article in the OP claimed these were the same thing and that is manifestly untrue.

I asked a couple of times what is a just wage (if not a living wage).

From #44 Rerum Novarum:

“The preservation of life is the bounden duty of one and all, and to be wanting therein is a crime. It necessarily follows that each one has a natural right to procure what is required in order to live, and the poor can procure that in no other way than by what they can earn through their work.”

Seems to me, “what is required in order to live” sounds pretty close to “a living wage.”

 

[po18guy]

So, Christian charity is not enough? It must be government? The Church must give preference to social programs at the cost of the Gospel?

What are you saying?

 

[po18guy]

The 19th century. Those were certainly gay times!

Sometimes, language gets hijacked and the faithful follow.

The Papal document was a response to the industrial age, in which charity had fallen off while the need was still great. The rabble-rousing lefties (IWW, ACP etc.) hijacked the term, but as with all things, repetition soon brings support for their secular ideas. Being charitable with someone else’s money is always popular. Add in the concurrent advent of modernism and you set the stage for our Lord to be pushed to the periphery. As always, the socialists/communists were right, but for the wrong reasons.

What was lost in the translation was the Gospel! Despite the bleating of modern leftists, it is no charity to comfort someone who is on the road to hell.

It just might be charitable to send money to Africa so that our fellow Catholics and other Africans might have enough water to stay alive, or enough penicillin to avoid death from sepsis.

Too bad that does not fit the progressive left’s agenda.

 

[blackforest]

As Pope St. John Paul II said, there must be a balance between solidarity and subsidiarity. Many politically conservative people I know question the prudence of promoting increase Federal and State government involvement in social justice at the expense of local and parish level support of social justice initiatives. These folks give generously to local soup kitchens, local homeless shelters, Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services, etc. they support parish level outreach programs.

How many of you have Angel Trees in the narthex this time of year? How many collect food for the less fortunate at Thanksgiving and Christmas? How many support second collection for charitable purposes?

What you’ve outlined distinguishes social justice from charity. The USCCB refers to both as “the two feet of love.” In other words, no one can subsist on just one exclusively. We need both.

Charity addresses urgency. It puts a warm meal on someone’s plate, outfits homeless kids with coats to go to school in the winter, and even helps out internationally with disaster survivors, the sick, the refugees, etc. It’s one of the most beautiful and promising gestures of our faith in action. Social justice addresses underlying causes and long-term solutions, usually through enacting policies that best represent and serve marginalized populations.

 

[Crocus]

So, Christian charity is not enough? It must be government? The Church must give preference to social programs at the cost of the Gospel?

What are you saying?

Charity has its place in relieving immediate suffering. Social Justice according to the Church ensures harmonious relationships between the rich and poor, capital and labor. The Gospel is about justice.

 

[Beryllos]

Just wage = Living wage. Jesus said as much in the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, where the landowner says, “You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.” All the workers were paid the same, which I believe was enough to live on.

 

[mrsdizzyd]

Just wage = Living wage

This is not true at least in the American context. The idea that we could have a universal living wage at either the federal or state level is absurd considering how wildly the cost of living varies in this country.

 

[Dovekin]

Aren’t you making the article’s point, that conservatives ignore Catholic Social Teaching?

Loftier and nobler principles - social justice and social charity - must, therefore, be sought whereby this dictatorship may be governed firmly and fully. Hence, the institutions themselves of peoples and, particularly those of all social life, ought to be penetrated with this justice, and it is most necessary that it be truly effective, that is, establish a juridical and social order which will, as it were, give form and shape to all economic life. Social charity, moreover, ought to be as the soul of this order, an order which public authority ought to be ever ready effectively to protect and defend.
Pius XI Quadragesimo Anno 88

 

[Beryllos]

So, Christian charity is not enough?

Charity with all that it brings forth would be enough. Charity in the limited sense of giving money is not enough.

It must be government?

Of course not.

The Church must give preference to social programs at the cost of the Gospel?

Of course not.

What are you saying?

That we should care for our neighbor. We can argue about the best way to accomplish that, but I think it’s obvious that we as a society are failing to care for our poor. The American (US) way in particular is failing in this regard.