no disrespect but the Church uses this term in the Catechism and many other places. I don’t like trying to label things like this, especially when something that is very Catholic gets such a bad name. If a priest were to preach on the Catholic Social teaching I wouldn’t be surprised if he got a lot of flack because people would call him “liberal” simply because he is calling people to live out the Catholic Teaching on Social Justice.In my undergraduate polisci classes “social justice” always had a Marxist overtone. ‘Social justice’ is distinct from ‘justice’ in the international human rights literature because it implies that there are rights that groups have that can trump the rights that individuals have. So, for example, a person’s right to property rights or equality before the law may be abrogated if there is a social justice claim that intends to correct a historical injustice done to an ethnic minority. Shouldn’t we resist prefixing the term justice with ‘social’ if it has less to do with being witnesses to Christ’s mercy and more to do with promoting the causes celebres of leftist politics?
I think maybe the time for CST isn’t now. After all, western governments seem to already fall into what would be acceptable in regards to Church standards… According to CST that is.no disrespect but the Church uses this term in the Catechism and many other places. I don’t like trying to label things like this, especially when something that is very Catholic gets such a bad name. If a priest were to preach on the Catholic Social teaching I wouldn’t be surprised if he got a lot of flack because people would call him “liberal” simply because he is calling people to live out the Catholic Teaching on Social Justice.
- In this same Encyclical of Ours We have shown that the means of saving the world of today from the lamentable ruin into which a moral liberalism has plunged us, are neither the class-struggle nor terror, nor yet the autocratic abuse of State power, but rather the infusion of social justice and the sentiment of Christian love into the social-economic order. We have indicated how a sound prosperity is to be restored according to the true principles of a sane corporative system which respects the proper hierarchic structure of society; and how all the occupational groups should be fused into a harmonious unity inspired by the principle of the common good. And the genuine and chief function of public and civil authority consists precisely in the efficacious furthering of this harmony and coordination of all social forces.
- 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.
- But social justice cannot be said to have been satisfied as long as workingmen are denied a salary that will enable them to secure proper sustenance for themselves and for their families; as long as they are denied the opportunity of acquiring a modest fortune and forestalling the plague of universal pauperism; as long as they cannot make suitable provision through public or private insurance for old age, for periods of illness and unemployment. In a word, to repeat what has been said in Our Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno: “Then only will the economic and social order be soundly established and attain its ends, when it offers, to all and to each, all those goods which the wealth and resources of nature, technical science and the corporate organization of social affairs can give. These goods should be sufficient to supply all necessities and reasonable comforts, and to uplift men to that higher standard of life which, provided it be used with prudence, is not only not a hindrance but is of singular help to virtue.”[37]
I do not sense that here at all. The divide seems to be between those who would use government coerced taxation to help the poor and those who favor charity over state welfare. I have a bit of trouble seeing the statists (if I may use that word) as superior to the voluntary charity supporters on the issue of “hostility to those in need.”I absolutely understand any kind of opposition to government social programs. What I don’t understand is the underlying hostility towards those in need that I’m constantly sensing on CAF.
Is the CAF divide really just between those who prefer private charity and those who feel that the state also has a role to play in helping the poor?I do not sense that here at all. The divide seems to be between those who would use government coerced taxation to help the poor and those who favor charity over state welfare. I have a bit of trouble seeing the statists (if I may use that word) as superior to the voluntary charity supporters on the issue of “hostility to those in need.”
I cring at the thought turning away someone who needs help by saying: “Go to the government. Be warmed. And filled.” (with my apologies to St James in his epistle). See “Government welfare destroys charity.”
NO. One good thing would result in your hypothetical. Lazarus would have been better off materially. (No benefit would accrue to the rich man, who would hardly have escaped hell simply because the state had robbed him to help Lazarus). More troubling is that one bad thing also occurred, that is, the state stole private property from the rich man. (There is no suggestion here that the rich man was dishonest or that the property was not rightfully his)How many excuses did the Rich Man have for not helping Lazarus? Given that the Rich Man was not inclined to part with any of his wealth out of the goodness of his heart, would it not have been better for Lazarus and the Rich Man if there had been a state sponsored program of welfare, funded by taxes from the Rich Man and other successful citizens, to help the poor like Lazarus?
It is your opinion that taxes levied by the state and used for social welfare are “stealing”, “theft”, and “robbing”? That is certainly not in line with Catholic social teaching. The Catechism tells us:NO. One good thing would result in your hypothetical. Lazarus would have been better off materially. (No benefit would accrue to the rich man, who would hardly have escaped hell simply because the state had robbed him to help Lazarus). More troubling is that one bad thing also occurred, that is, the state stole private property from the rich man. (There is no suggestion here that the rich man was dishonest or that the property was not rightfully his)
If theft is wrong, it is still wrong if committed for a good purpose. We may not do evil so that good may come of it.
personal charity. In a welfare state, we have the complication that we often push people who can (and would rather) support themselves into the welfare system by preventing them from making a living through excessive government regulation.]
I doubt that taxing one man to give to another comes within the definition of the "common good, (which term the Catechism defines chiefly as peace and security. *See below *).The Catechism tells us:
"2240. Submission to authority and co-responsibility for the common good make it morally obligatory to pay taxes"
More on solidarity in Evangelii GaudiumReep,
Will your limited understanding of what the Church refers to as the “common good” feed the hungry or clothe the naked?
Do we not provide for peace, stability and security (elements of the common good) when we as a community agree to right the wrongs of poverty and gross income inequality? I am not talking about a nebulous “right to prosperity”, I am talking about our brothers and sisters in need, and the responsibility of those of us who have to help those who have not.
The Church clearly teaches that we have both an individual and a corporate responsibility to give to those in need, and that our corporate responsibility can certainly in part be provided by the government, exactly by taxing one man (with plenty) to give to another (in need). Read Populorum Progressio (excerpts of which you conveniently ignored in my last post), or Pope John Paul II’s encyclical which commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the afore mentioned document, Solicitudo Rei Socialis (On Social Concern), which has this to say about the “common good”:
"It is above all a question of interdependence**, sensed as a system determining relationships in the contemporary world, in its economic, cultural, political and religious elements, and accepted as a moral category. When interdependence becomes recognized in this way, the correlative response as moral and social attitude, as a “virtue”, is solidarity. This then is not a vague feeling of compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a *firm and **persevering determination *to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are *all *really responsible for all."."
That’s the question, isn’t it. It probably won’t happen in this fallen world that we live in, but we need to find a system that works for all people. The ultimate problems with both socialism/Marxism and unfettered capitalism are the same - the objectification of the human person and the hoarding of power and/or wealth by a select few. Socialism/Marxism is atheistic, of course, but unfettered capitalism is often functionally atheistic. The main difference is that socialism/Marxism objectifies people as tools for the State, while unfettered capitalism objectifies people as tools for the Corporation. Plus, with unfettered capitalism concentrating a higher and higher percentage of the wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer, it lands more and more people into a situation where they either starve or need a safety net. The response to this has either been “it’s their own fault - let them starve” (though not said that explicitly) or “let’s expand the safety net” (which ends up having the government spend money that it doesn’t have). This, of course, is a false dualism. Unfortunately, true social justice probably cannot be meeted out at a federal government level, though policies set in place by the federal government can make social justice needs to be easier to meet. The only thing the federal government can really do is throw money at the problem, and make more red tape for itself.More on solidarity in Evangelii Gaudium
In this context we can understand Jesus’ command to his disciples: “You yourselves give them something to eat!” (Mk 6:37): it means working to eliminate the structural causes of poverty and to promote the integral development of the poor, as well as small daily acts of solidarity in meeting the real needs which we encounter. The word “solidarity” is a little worn and at times poorly understood, but it refers to something more than a few sporadic acts of generosity. It presumes the creation of a new mindset which thinks in terms of community and the priority of the life of all over the appropriation of goods by a few.
Solidarity is a spontaneous reaction by those who recognize that the social function of property and the universal destination of goods are realities which come before private property. The private ownership of goods is justified by the need to protect and increase them, so that they can better serve the common good; for this reason, solidarity must be lived as the decision to restore to the poor what belongs to them.
But how?
Specifically ignoring St Paul and Sacred Scripture leads to the grave error of taking from others to feed those who will not work:Michael Mayo #74
More on solidarity in Evangelii Gaudium
In this context we can understand Jesus’ command to his disciples: “You yourselves give them something to eat!” (Mk 6:37):
While you are on the right track, where is “unfettered capitalism”? Where is a market unrestricted by any law? There is no such thing. There are some people whose god is money, but the tremendous reduction in poverty over the last 200 years is due to the Catholic Late Scholastics discovery and application of economic laws of free enterprise.powerofk #75
Plus, with unfettered capitalism concentrating a higher and higher percentage of the wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer, it lands more and more people into a situation where they either starve or need a safety net.
The only fault with that is that most people receiving benefits today either are working (at jobs that cannot feed their families), are physically or mentally unable to work, or want to work but are facing obstacles in finding work (due to lack of skills, lack of employment opportunities, lack of a permanent address, or other problems). Only a small percentage of today’s poor are simply refusing to work. Some families have at least one parent (sometimes, the only parent the children live with - usually the mother in this case) working two jobs and still need government help to put food on the table. And remember, poverty and joblessness is something that can happen to anyone. During the beginning of the “Great Recession”, automotive (and other) manufacturers laid off engineers. Mid-level executives were laid off. Teachers survived the first round of cuts but were laid off as states ran out of bail-out money. Many of these people actually not only had hard times finding jobs in their own field; they had a hard time landing ANY job. In many places, not even McDonald’s or Wal-Mart would hire them because they were TOO qualified and because the companies feared (with cause) that they would leave as soon as a better position came up. Many higher-end companies refused to hire anyone who was currently unemployed, equating “laid-off” (which means a person’s position was cut) to “fired with cause”. I agree, though, that the government throwing money at the problem does little to fix it. It has made us have the Ebenezer Scrooge attitude of “I gave at the office (i.e. by paying taxes)” and of “The poor are lazy and leeches on society”. We need to cultivate a culture that says, “The poor man is my brother, the poor woman is my sister, and the poor child is my child”.Specifically ignoring St Paul and Sacred Scripture leads to the grave error of taking from others to feed those who will not work:
“For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.” [2 Thess 3:10].
In the Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 1981, #26, Bl John Paul II, pointed out:
‘The teachings of the Apostle of the Gentiles obviously have key importance for the morality and spirituality of human work. They are an important complement to the great though discreet gospel of work that we find in the life and parables of Christ, in what Jesus “did and taught”.’
“SOCIAL INJUSTICE”, where government subsidies reward the good-for-nothings who “refuse” to work and steal from those who do work to do so.
When you love your neighbour you encourage those “refusing to work” to face reality and God’s creation and get out and find work; you help others to produce goods and services, you don’t indulge their destructive whims and fancies.
So in Centesimus Annus, #49: “Apart from the family, other intermediate communities exercise primary functions and give life to specific networks of solidarity. These develop as real communities of persons and strengthen the social fabric, preventing society from becoming an anonymous and impersonal mass, as unfortunately often happens today. It is in interrelationships on many levels that a person lives, and that society becomes more ‘personalized’.”
Bl John Paul II shows us the way which many are following.
“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 neighbors 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.” Centesimus Annus, 1991, 48].
Except for the fact that many in megacorporations have such a powerful hold over those in government that many laws passed by governments favor them over the rest of the population. For example, our tax laws are such that if a company’s headquarters are offshore (even if the “HQ” is a post office box somewhere), that company does not have to pay income taxes in the US. This favors international corporations over small businesses. But I digress. Unfettered capitalism exists anywhere any country refuses to (or is unable to) instill or enforce just laws regarding trading, company merging, and the payment of taxes. Unfettered capitalism happens when a country decides that the interests of those who consider money their god trump the interests of the rest of society.While you are on the right track, where is “unfettered capitalism”? Where is a market unrestricted by any law? There is no such thing. There are some people whose god is money, but the tremendous reduction in poverty over the last 200 years is due to the Catholic Late Scholastics discovery and application of economic laws of free enterprise.
It is most unreasonable to blame free enterprise for the poor policies of governments or of individuals, and for inadequate laws that can be improved.