Isn't "social justice" really just a dodge?

[Captain_America]

Historians, help me.

In my understanding Catholic interest in “social justice” really blossomed in the 1960s.

Was this a way of staying Catholic, even while rejecting church teachings on contraception and abortion? I mean by this, jump into “social justice” issues as a way of living as a liberal.

I understand the church went through rough times after Vat.2. I’m just wondering if, rather than jump ship, the more liberal among us pursued social justice topics.

 

[Samuel63]

Yes, you are on the right track. Social justice allows progressive groups and people in the church to “justify” their path. They can embrace social justice and remain silent on a host of other topics such as: contraception, abortion, divorce/remarriage, same sex relations, etc.

This goes back to Human Vitae in some respects. These same people set out to make a concerted effort to undermine the Pope. They then could stay in the church and dissent at the same time. What a deal!

Removing the pope however leaves a void in catholic life. This was filled by inflating social justice. Now they can contracept and receive the eucharist without even a bruise on their conscience.

They forgot however about particular judgment. This error, or rather heresy, will be their undoing.

RealCatholic TV has a great episode of CIA (Catholic Investigative Agency) that is titled Pope Pius XII and the Jews. This short video lays out the timeline and motivation for displacing the pope for dissent in the church.

realcatholictv.com/free/index.php?vidID=ciax-2011-08-26&ssnID=162

You may have to register to see this show. It is free. It is also fantastic.

 

[manualman]

Yes and no. I think you err badly when you describe this as a purely liberal disease.

One of the fallen aspects of human nature is that we feel better about ourselves when we find someone we judge to be “worse” than we are. Each of us tends to minimize the seriousness of the sins WE are inclined to and be shocked and horrified at the sins that OTHER people commit. We must ALL guard against this tendency.

One cannot simply cross to the other side of the street in order to avoid the smelly homeless man and console oneself that “I voted pro-life, so I’m a righteous catholic.” Nor can one ignore the atrocity of abortion with the balm of working at a homeless shelter.

Catholicism challenges both sides of the political world. That said, I’d much rather be ignored when I’m hungry than torn to pieces and my parts collected with a vacuum cleaner. That’s how I evaluate voting priorities. Not sure how otherwise faithful catholics who prioritize away the abortion issue reconcile that in their minds.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

True social justice is something the Catholic Church should certainly be promoting. By the nature of the issues it will mainly fall to lay Catholics rather than clergy to work to accomplish it, though the clergy play a valid role too, for example in teaching authentic moral principles that relate to justice.

Certainly some people have misrepresented and misused the Church’s teachings regarding social justice issues to further agendas which are in fact pagan and even inhuman. This has happened on both the political right and left, though it is perhaps more noticeable on the left. However, all this should not cause us to reject the authentic social teachings and commitments of the Church, any more than Protestant misrepresentations of the authentic Scriptural teachings on grace should cause us as Catholics to reject the idea of grace.

 

[SonCatcher]

The last caller on yesterday’s Catholic Answers Live had a related question (does anyone know where to find a permanent link to the archive). Jim Blackburn and Patrick Coffin handled it admirably.

Short version:
Christ taught us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, etc. - but first you have to have a poor to feed.

 

[St_Francis]

Historians, help me.

In my understanding Catholic interest in “social justice” really blossomed in the 1960s.

Was this a way of staying Catholic, even while rejecting church teachings on contraception and abortion? I mean by this, jump into “social justice” issues as a way of living as a liberal.

I understand the church went through rough times after Vat.2. I’m just wondering if, rather than jump ship, the more liberal among us pursued social justice topics.

The idea of Catholic social justice first arose in the mid-1800s, when Fr Taparelli of the Civita Catolica first started writing about it. This came to Pope Leo 13’s attention and he wrote an encyclical about it, Rerum Novarum.

Catholics have always been involved with social justice: as they become more holy, they have worked to deal with people in a better way. The ideas proposed by Pope Leo 13 were used by GK Chesteron, Hillaire Belloc, and others, working together to see what the ideas of social justice would look like in practice and they looked remarkably like the best features of society during what some call the Glory of Christendom, the 1100 or 1200s.

The term social justice has indeed been hijacked by people, and that is why I try to always describe what i am talking about as either Catholic social justice or liberalism. I looked up social justice and abortion and there are people who call the ability of a woman to obtain an abortion a part of social justice–that is how much the term has been twisted.

Catholic social justice is something all Catholics should look into and understand. It can be difficult at first if one is into "classical liberalism,) or various forms of American conservatism. Once I saw that the Pope was talking about true cooperation between people often regarded as natural enemies (eg management and workers as per Marx), it was easier!

Somewhere up there I wanted to mention that several other popes wrote further about Catholic social justice; it is good to read those encyclicals too.

 

[pnewton]

A dodge? Social justice is rooted in Matthew 25 and taught to us by Jesus. What we do for the needy, we do for Jesus. It is how He will separate those who are His sheep from the goats. There is no need to disparage social justice in order to address heresy, sin, or disobedience.

 

[FaithBuild18]

A dodge? Social justice is rooted in Matthew 25 and taught to us by Jesus. What we do for the needy, we do for Jesus. It is how He will separate those who are His sheep from the goats. There is no need to disparage social justice in order to address heresy, sin, or disobedience.

The point is that the modern phrase “social justice”… really isn’t about these things.

 

[RyanBlack]

The point is that the modern phrase “social justice”… really isn’t about these things.

Depends on who’s using it. Some people use the phrase and mean exactly the sort of things Christ asks of us with respect to caring for “the least of these.”

 

[pnewton]

The point is that the modern phrase “social justice”… really isn’t about these things.

That is an opinion that I do not agree with, in light of such works as Populorum Progressio and Caritas in Veritate. I am not big on labels, though. They tend to prejudice more than clarify.

 

[pnewton]

I do not doubt that some people are strong advocates of charity to the poor and needy because they do not want to take moral stands on other issues, like abortion and sexual immorality. Perhaps they had an abortion, involved in it, or they are weak to the sin of some sexual immorality. All of us have a propensity to strongly advocate for those areas in which we are not tempted and fudge in those areas we are. Social justice is no more a liberal dodge than abortion and homosexuality are conservative dodges. All represent Church moral doctrine and all can be promoted while others are left behind.

I am reminded of the Woe Jesus preached to the Pharisees on the emphasis they put on tithing the mint and julip while ignoring the weightier matters of mercy and justice. He did not say they should not have tithed, but that they should have tithed while tending to the more important things.

 

[St_Francis]

That is an opinion that I do not agree with, in light of such works as Populorum Progressio and Caritas in Veritate. I am not big on labels, though. They tend to prejudice more than clarify.

Do this: go to Google, and run a search for “social justice” “reproductice rights” Use the quotation marks so it will search for then as a term and not separate words. Read some of what you get, and you will see that there really are people who are perverting the meaning of social justice. Catholic social justice is good; what those under the spell of Satan’s ideas are doing is hijacking the term. We really do have to be careful.

When people mention the “modern” social justice, they’re not talking about the more recent papal encyclicals…

 

[JimG]

Papal encyclicals dealing with social justice go back to at least 1891, with Rerum Novarum, written by Pope Leo XIII,
followed by Quadrigesimo Anno, authored by Pope Pius XI in 1931.
There followed Mater et Magistra, in 1961, by Pope John XXIII,
Populorum Progressio (1967, Pope Paul VI),
Laborm Exercens (Pope John Paul II, 1981),
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis: On the Twentieth Anniversary of Populorum Progressio, (1987, JPII),
Centesimus Annus: The Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum, (JPII, 1991),
Caritas in Veritatae, 2009 Pope Benedict XVI.

 

[Tigg]

Unfortunately, social justice has been adopted by the progressive left to advance a new level of statism. Equality (despite Pope Leo’s stern warnings) has been defined as meaning a type of uniformity for all, leading they hope, to the desired utopia. The common good they want to be decided upon by the bureaucrats, who will also enforce it and the end result we are seeing is that we have lost representation by those we elect. And under the auspices of social justice we have the left advocating reproductive “health,” SS marriage and the redistribution of wealth.

Of course we are all confused, but that’s what happens when the Church joins forces with groups like Faith in Public Life (the evangelical group which fights anything of a conservative nature,) PICO, the Gamaliel Foundation, all the Interfaith “Justice” groups, and more - the list is endless. (And so is their money!)

 

[pnewton]

Of course we are all confused,…

I am not confused. For me, I just put first things first and second things second. Church teaching comes before both Google and political rhetoric, especially when it is partisan. I do not understand why Catholics are opposed to the phrase “social justice.” It is used by the Church. It is used but CAF. You are posting under it here. I can not accept coloring it as a bad thing by association with unrelated issues.

I do not believe or support this effort at partisan labeling, anymore than labeling conservatives as insensitive or greedy. I agree with too many social justice initiatives that are opposed by the Republican Party, yet are in line with Church doctrine.

 

[St_Francis]

I am not confused. For me, I just put first things first and second things second. Church teaching comes before both Google and political rhetoric, especially when it is partisan. I do not understand why Catholics are opposed to the phrase “social justice.” It is used by the Church. It is used but CAF. You are posting under it here. I can not accept coloring it as a bad thing by association with unrelated issues.

I do not believe or support this effort at partisan labeling, anymore than labeling conservatives as insensitive or greedy. I agree with too many social justice initiatives that are opposed by the Republican Party, yet are in line with Church doctrine.

Mr Newton, why are you having so much trouble accepting the fact that some people are using our term with their definition?

 

[pnewton]

Mr Newton, why are you having so much trouble accepting the fact that some people are using our term with their definition?

Thank you for the quesion. It is useful. I can accept that this happens with some people. All labels and terms tend to have this problem.

I think my objection is tying legitimate social justice to one political party or ideology, which I have seen here. Some areas of social justice (legitimate Catholic social justice) are promoted more heavily by Democrats than Republicans, at least in my opinion. Then what I see is a backlash against true social justitce because of its association with the wrong politcal ideology. That is why I prefer to take each issue, abortion, immigration, homosexual rights, healthcare, poverty, etc.,on its own.

So, yes, Francis, while some use their charitable views on social justice to justify their opinions on other moral issues, I think this is a tactic that is also used in the reverse. I have seen here that almost any political discusion on social issues like poverty, welfare, homosexual rights, immigration, healthcare, etc., will always result in some bringing in abortion out of the blue. Watch and see if this doesn’t happen.

 

[Tigg]

I am not confused. For me, I just put first things first and second things second. Church teaching comes before both Google and political rhetoric, especially when it is partisan. I do not understand why Catholics are opposed to the phrase “social justice.” It is used by the Church. It is used but CAF. You are posting under it here. I can not accept coloring it as a bad thing by association with unrelated issues.

I do not believe or support this effort at partisan labeling, anymore than labeling conservatives as insensitive or greedy. I agree with too many social justice initiatives that are opposed by the Republican Party, yet are in line with Church doctrine.

I am a Catholic first and have warned others about blind party loyalties, but it would be a very good thing for us to closely examine some of the associations the Catholic Church claims an alliance with (and funds.) We need to understand how some of these social justice groups (their label, not ours) are antithetical to Church teaching. The phrase social justice now constitutes a sociopolitical program within the Church for those driven by the agenda (call them progressives, call them dissident Catholics, call them whatever you like.)

For starters, you could look at the very detailed 212-page report that recently came from ALL exposing the political goals of these groups which are given Catholic money by the U. S. Bishops Anti-Poverty Arm, under their banner of “Social Justice,” which among other things, promotes school health programs which distribute condoms and refers students to abortion providers. And then there’s the community housing and worker’s rights projects promoting the “Transgender Day of Remembrance” and which openly participate in the Marxist U.S. Social Forum. And please check out the Intercommunity Justice & Peace Center which claims membership with the Internat’l Socialist Organization and chants the need to end oppression and exploitation. All being done in the name of social justice.

We (Catholics) did not assign a different meaning to the term, nor did we ever expect to see government partnering with Christian churches to accomplish specific platforms which only advance humanism (contrary to papal documents.) Where is the gospel message being advanced which speaks of salvation and repentence for sin? How is individual freedom being protected so that people may direct their own lives free from State intervention? And where is the message that love of God and neighbor may be born from right judgments and true charity to better the situations of the poor rather than an ideology that always, but always replaces God with government control.

 

[FaithBuild18]

…I think… that there are two sides in this topic that just aren’t actually talking about the same thing.

 

[St_Francis]

Thank you for the quesion. It is useful. I can accept that this happens with some people. All labels and terms tend to have this problem.

I think my objection is tying legitimate social justice to one political party or ideology, which I have seen here. Some areas of social justice (legitimate Catholic social justice) are promoted more heavily by Democrats than Republicans, at least in my opinion. Then what I see is a backlash against true social justitce because of its association with the wrong politcal ideology. That is why I prefer to take each issue, abortion, immigration, homosexual rights, healthcare, poverty, etc.,on its own.

So, yes, Francis, while some use their charitable views on social justice to justify their opinions on other moral issues, I think this is a tactic that is also used in the reverse. I have seen here that almost any political discusion on social issues like poverty, welfare, homosexual rights, immigration, healthcare, etc., will always result in some bringing in abortion out of the blue. Watch and see if this doesn’t happen.

Ahh, now I understand; I’m sorry about that.

At the same time, I see people accusing pro-life advocates as not caring about babies after they are born, and people who don’t fall in line with a government-paid cradle to grave safety net as wanting to get rid of welfare…

I think that too many people adhere to one or the other of two political solutions proposed in the US, and thus end up seeming to ignore one part or another of the full spectrum of Catholic teaching. For a long time I ignored Distributism, but have recently learned enough about it to see that it offers ideas which do not align with any of the forms of libaeralism advocated in the US, and I think that looking at things from a place where we take Catholic teaching as our starting point for deveopment rather than trying to fit alien philosopies into Catholic social teaching is what we really ought to be doing.