Is there justice in social justice?

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ontheway1

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Social justice. What is it exactly? Is there a department of social justice that determines what is and what isn’t social justice? And how does it differ from JUSTICE? I would like to see a definitive definition of SJ.
 
Justice has a lot of sub-categories. One, for instance, is criminal justice, by which a fair verdict is sought and enacted when someone is accused of a crime. Social justice has to do with the fairness of societal systems, such as the relationship between people who own capital or do work (labor law), how the common good is funded (tax law and the distribution of public funding), how a nation balances its responsibility to humankind with its sovereignty over its own borders and territories (diplomacy, military interventions, immigration, etc) the ways in which people are required to treat each other justly rather than depending on empathy between strangers (anti-discrimination laws, civil rights law) and so on.

If you read go the Vatican web site and read the encyclicals in the social justice category, you’ll get the idea. (Obviously, there is overlap and there are interrelationships, not strict divisions, since the way criminal law is written and enforced would, for instance, have ramifications with regards to societal systems, too.)
 
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The Catechism defines it as follows:
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.
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The Catholic Encyclopedia distinguishes it from individual justice as follows:
Justice between man and man is called individual, particular, or commutative justice, because it is chiefly concerned with contracts and exchange. Individual justice is distinguished from social, for not only individuals have claims in justice against other individuals but a subject has claims against the society to which he belongs, as society has claims against him. Justice requires that all should have what belongs to them, and so the just man will render to the society, or State, of which he is a member, what is due to it. The justice which prescribes this is called legal justice. On the other hand, the individual subject has claims against the State. It is the function of the State to protect its subjects in their rights and to govern the whole body for the common good.
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Just to add, here’s a nice passage from Pius XI’s encyclical against Communism, Divini Redemptoris, including concrete exmples:
  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.
  2. 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]
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https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-.../hf_p-xi_enc_19370319_divini-redemptoris.html
 
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This is a quote from the Encyclical you pointed to:
To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy. But their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.
 
Good read isn’t it? Especially when read in entirety and in context. 😉
 
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I’d suggest reading the entire article, here is the beginning of the Catechism article:

[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.

I. 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
 
So is the Catholic church the agency for social justice. Then how come the SJ warriors never quote the Bible or church writings, like the popes and such?
 
ontheway1 said:
To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies.
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Which is to say most of the things decried in US politics as “socialism” aren’t actually socialism. That’s not to say that some aren’t, like the rental laws that essentially deny the landlords their property rights.
Adamek said:
So is the Catholic church the agency for social justice. Then how come the SJ warriors never quote the Bible or church writings, like the popes and such?
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I have belonged to an awful lot of parishes that have a social justice committee, so this is obviously not true.
 
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I think most SJ stuff exists outside the small church groups. But, you make a good point. Are the church groups socially progressive? Do they engage in identity politics? Do they believe in abortion on demand, open borders, redistribution of wealth and such?
 
Adamek said:
I think most SJ stuff exists outside the small church groups. But, you make a good point. Are the church groups socially progressive? Do they engage in identity politics? Do they believe in abortion on demand, open borders, redistribution of wealth and such?
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Do they believe in abortion on demand?!? Let’s just say that they at least don’t dare to do so openly in any parish I’ve been in. Don’t get me wrong: I’m aware there are Catholics who, when in certain company, will say they think the Church is not correct on moral law, which is very presumptuous, and yet some of these also serve on committees they think represent where the Church is right. I assume you’re referring to that kind of unfortunate soul, who can do some substantial harm.

No, what I mean is that there are people who are very serious about social justice who are nevertheless orthodox Catholics, as well.
 
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Thank you for your thoughtful answer. I don’t belong to church groups and don’t know how they think. SJ on university campus is pretty radical leftist socialist. So I am having a hard time seeing that crowd in a church group, or quoting the Bible. But I could be wrong.
 
PetraG said:
A 21st century Catholic can’t consider themselves to have read Rerum Novarum unless they’ve also read Centesimus Annus. (Pope St. John Paul II, 1991)
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Absolutely! Then go for these two, and a reread. So much wisdom, so little time.

QUADRAGESIMO ANNO
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI
ON RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOCIAL ORDER
http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-x...s/hf_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno.html

MATER ET MAGISTRA
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE JOHN XXIII
ON CHRISTIANITY AND SOCIAL PROGRESS
http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_15051961_mater.html
 
@PetraG, Big commitment there, four encyclicals. 🙂

Try this as alternative, study form, not that big really. Very readable.

The Social Attitudes of a Catholic
ISBN-13: 978-0176574130 ISBN-10: 0176574131
Description
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 : Christian morality: personal or social?
Chapter 2 : Spiritually or justice?
Chapter 3 : Our culture: friend or enemy?
Chapter 4 : What do we mean by “the dignity of the human person”?
Chapter 5 : Individuals or social beings?
Chapter 6 : What is “the common good”?
Chapter 7 : Human rights
Chapter 8 : Charity or justice: social service or social action?
Chapter 9 : “It’s mine; I worked for it; I can do what I like with it!”
Chapter 10 : Making and spending money
Chapter 11 : Investing our money
Chapter 12 : Tax cuts
Chapter 13 : Who are the poor?
Chapter 14 : Third world debt: a moral issue
Chapter 15 : Co-operatives and credit unions
Chapter 16 : Subdue the earth or protect it?
Chapter 17 : Immigrants: a threat or a blessing?
Chapter 18 : Crime and punishment
Chapter 19 : Work: just a job or something more?
Chapter 20 : Work can be hazardous to your health
Chapter 21 : Labour unions
and more!
 
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I quote Scripture, Church writings, Saints, The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, Papal documents, well, every day as do most of the activists I know.

My guess is that you are a sincere Catholic who is also on the red side of the color wheel. You know how there is an ugly stereotype that paints Conservatives are uneducated, uncultured, bigoted people with no sense of decorum? This likely makes you angry because it is not true of you or the people you know.

Well, the same goes for the stereotypes for us on the other side. Remember on the live recording of U2’s cover of “Helter Skelter” when Bono talks about Manson stealing that term from the Beatles and “we’re stealing it back”? Well, Catholics must reclaim the term “Social Justice”.

By virtue of my Baptism and my Faith, I am compelled to advocate for Social Justice, to be a Soldier for Christ in this world, to make the Beatitudes my mantra. A “Catholic Social Justice Warrior” is the only eulogy I hope to earn.
 
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