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

[Swiss_Guy]

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.

Catholics have always been interested in social justice. It’s just that in the 60’s what social justice was changed to be something leftists used to justify socialism/liberation theology. Although true social justice has always been something the Church has supported. But anyway, if you mean the hijacked term, then yes this ways a way of staying Catholic while rejecting Church teachings.

 

[Abu]

Surely we need to put “social justice" in its true perspective as the revered late Fr Stephen Torraco does so well:

**Do We Need Social Justice Or Social Engineering?
This question is answered by Fr Torraco of EWTN on Nov-24-2003 to a Question:
What is “Social Justice”? When was this concept introduced in Catholic moral doctrine?

Answer by Fr.Stephen F. Torraco on Nov-24-2003:**
The term “social justice” was introduced into Catholic teaching in the 19th century. On the one hand, it is intended, at least in part, to avoid the error of reducing what Aristotle calls “general justice” (devotion to the common good of one’s country) to LEGAL justice. On the other hand, consciously or not, the term “social justice” aptly reflects the political philosophy of the modern philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, according to whom justice is fundamentally a matter of achieving the proper institutions and external settings that would effectively mold human beings into model citizens. In other words, for Rousseau, justice is not rooted in nature as it is for Aristotle and for the Church’s teaching. It is something that has to be attained by “social engineering.”

Unfortunately, in the minds of many if not most, consciously or not, the term “social justice” is viewed more in a Rousseaunian than an Aristotelian way. From the vantage point of both Aristotle and the Church’s teaching, the phrase “social justice” is redundant because justice is already social: it is the social virtue par excellence.​

First, the economic LAWS discovered by the Late Scholastics are apolitical, but can be, and often are, distorted by political stupidity and bad economic policies.

It is clear that coercive state systems provide neither material goods nor political liberties; justice is more directed toward seeking greater equity and compassion within free enterprise market systems. As Pope Leo XIII pointed out as long ago as 1891 in his Encyclical Rerum Novarum, socialism does not help the poor. Rather, it reduces everyone to the same lowest common denominator of poverty and misery, while at the same time drying up the very sources of capital.

That Church tells us that socialism is evil, and why. She also gives us Jesus’ Parable in which He rewards only those who are faithful, prudent and industrious with the master’s money. She promotes a free enterprise society built on justice, fidelity, prudence, industriousness, private property, subsidiarity, love and peace. Free enterprise is not “greed driven” it is common good driven for the welfare of the greatest number and dependant on consumer satisfaction and competition, dependant on the laws of cause and effect involving God-given reason, and based on a standard social principle of Christ’s Church – subsidiarity.

 

[markomalley]

1. On this point We have already insisted in Our Allocution of May 12th of last year, but We believe it to be a duty of special urgency, Venerable Brethren, to call your attention to it once again. In the beginning Communism showed itself for what it was in all its perversity; but very soon it realized that it was thus alienating the people. It has therefore changed its tactics, and strives to entice the multitudes by trickery of various forms, hiding its real designs behind ideas that in themselves are good and attractive. Thus, aware of the universal desire for peace, the leaders of Communism pretend to be the most zealous promoters and propagandists in the movement for world amity. Yet at the same time they stir up a class-warfare which causes rivers of blood to flow, and, realizing that their system offers no internal guarantee of peace, they have recourse to unlimited armaments. Under various names which do not suggest Communism, they establish organizations and periodicals with the sole purpose of carrying their ideas into quarters otherwise inaccessible. They try perfidiously to worm their way even into professedly Catholic and religious organizations. Again, without receding an inch from their subversive principles, they invite Catholics to collaborate with them in the realm of so-called humanitarianism and charity; and at times even make proposals that are in perfect harmony with the Christian spirit and the doctrine of the Church. Elsewhere they carry their hypocrisy so far as to encourage the belief that Communism, in countries where faith and culture are more strongly entrenched, will assume another and much milder form. It will not interfere with the practice of religion. It will respect liberty of conscience. There are some even who refer to certain changes recently introduced into soviet legislation as a proof that Communism is about to abandon its program of war against God.
2. See to it, Venerable Brethren, that the Faithful do not allow themselves to be deceived! Communism is intrinsically wrong, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever. Those who permit themselves to be deceived into lending their aid towards the triumph of Communism in their own country, will be the first to fall victims of their error. And the greater the antiquity and grandeur of the Christian civilization in the regions where Communism successfully penetrates, so much more devastating will be the hatred displayed by the godless.

Pius XI, Encyclical Divini Redemptoris, 1937​

Something to consider when evaluating “social justice” efforts. It calls to mind many of the organizations that are supported by such efforts as CCHD.

 

[ACCT]

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.

…Judas Iscariot, the Patron Saint of Social Justice, where people are concerned with humanity but ignore the truths of God…—Bishop Fulton Sheen

 

[Swiss_Guy]

…Judas Iscariot, the Patron Saint of Social Justice, where people are concerned with humanity but ignore the truths of God…—Bishop Fulton Sheen

Do you have a link to this?

 

[pnewton]

Something to consider when evaluating “social justice” efforts. It calls to mind many of the organizations that are supported by such efforts as CCHD.

I know that communism has been condemned by the Catholic Church. I do not know that the same is true of socialism though, as someone stated earlier. I have not seen that anywhere.

 

[Captain_America]

“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.”

I much like PNewton’s expression above.

I dislike both political parties and try to steer a, take it as it comes up, approach. So I’m a despised moderate in the Year 2012. I LIKE social justice; this thread’s been good on its pre-1960s origin.

I’ve just been trying to learn more about the implosion of the church after Vatican 2. . . were the labels “liberal Catholic” and “conservative Catholic” , or “liberal position” vs. “conservative position” applied before then (as if the church is some kind of political party).

This “partizanizing of the Church” seems extremely detrimental to us.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

“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.”

I much like PNewton’s expression above.

I dislike both political parties and try to steer a, take it as it comes up, approach. So I’m a despised moderate in the Year 2012. I LIKE social justice; this thread’s been good on its pre-1960s origin.

I’ve just been trying to learn more about the implosion of the church after Vatican 2. . .** were the labels “liberal Catholic” and “conservative Catholic” , or “liberal position” vs. “conservative position” applied before then (as if the church is some kind of political party).**

This “partizanizing of the Church” seems extremely detrimental to us.

I think Catholics were universally considered “liberal” in the US before the 60’s because they always voted Democrat, and were universally considered “conservative” in Europe for Christian Democratic parties and being around for 1900 years.

 

[Abu]

Pnewton #26
I know that communism has been condemned by the Catholic Church. I do not know that the same is true of socialism though, as someone stated earlier. I have not seen that anywhere.

How strange that the condemnation of socialism is unknown, at this stage!

Post #22: “That Church tells us that socialism is evil, and why.”

Socialism has been roundly condemned by Papal social teaching, while free enterprise has been clearly affirmed.
Leo XIII asserts: “…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.” Rerum Novarum, #4].

Pius XI declared emphatically in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931, #120: “Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.”

The socialism that is condemned by Pius XI has the following false theories:
The Welfare State as the supreme objective.
Everything belongs to the State, thus excluding the real rights to private property.
The elimination of free enterprise in favour of state-controlled production and distribution.
Denunciation of the principle of subsidiarity.

Similarly John Paul II condemns socialism for precisely this among other errors, in Centesimus Annus, making a frank acknowledgement that socialism has failed on its own terms as witnessed by events in Eastern Europe.

 

[Abu]

I abhor the tendency to label Catholics as “liberal" or “conservative” – it is pandering to confusion.

Catholics are faithful, or unfaithful – dissenting against dogma or doctrine. Politically they may be liberal or conservative, labour or conservative etc.
.

 

[pnewton]

How strange that the condemnation of socialism is unknown, at this stage!

Thank you for the information, though there is no need to comment that it is strange. It is not anything I have needed to know. It is sufficient for me to understand both the right to own property and the universal destination of goods. I had previous come across the condemntation both of communism and unrestricted capitalism. Like the association of atheism with communism, individualism with capitalism is likewise rejected.

 

[markomalley]

I know that communism has been condemned by the Catholic Church. I do not know that the same is true of socialism though, as someone stated earlier. I have not seen that anywhere.
[/INDENT]

How strange that the condemnation of socialism is unknown, at this stage!

Post #22: “That Church tells us that socialism is evil, and why.”

Socialism has been roundly condemned by Papal social teaching, while free enterprise has been clearly affirmed.
Leo XIII asserts: “…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.” Rerum Novarum, #4].

Pius XI declared emphatically in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931, #120: “Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.”

The socialism that is condemned by Pius XI has the following false theories:
The Welfare State as the supreme objective.
Everything belongs to the State, thus excluding the real rights to private property.
The elimination of free enterprise in favour of state-controlled production and distribution.
Denunciation of the principle of subsidiarity.

Similarly John Paul II condemns socialism for precisely this among other errors, in Centesimus Annus, making a frank acknowledgement that socialism has failed on its own terms as witnessed by events in Eastern Europe.

Actually, another pretty explicit quote (the one I was thinking about) was:

1. Pope Pius XI further emphasized the fundamental opposition between Communism and Christianity, and made it clear that no Catholic could subscribe even to moderate Socialism. The reason is that Socialism is founded on a doctrine of human society which is bounded by time and takes no account of any objective other than that of material well-being. Since, therefore, it proposes a form of social organization which aims solely at production, it places too severe a restraint on human liberty, at the same time flouting the true notion of social authority.

Bl. John XXIII, Encyclical Mater et Magistra, 1961

 

[pnewton]

Actually, another pretty explicit quote (the one I was thinking about) was:
34. Pope Pius XI further emphasized the fundamental opposition between Communism and Christianity, and made it clear that no Catholic could subscribe even to moderate Socialism. The reason is that Socialism is founded on a doctrine of human society which is bounded by time and takes no account of any objective other than that of material well-being. Since, therefore, it proposes a form of social organization which aims solely at production, it places too severe a restraint on human liberty, at the same time flouting the true notion of social authority.

Bl. John XXIII, Encyclical Mater et Magistra, 1961

Thank you. With that definition of socialism, I understand why.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I.m.o. it is natural to gravitate toward what one identifies with most in Church teachings. This is an embrace of one’s own gifts, actually, which is reflected even in the various callings of religious life (some in active ministry, some in contemplative, and among the former, some are better suited to social justice activities, some more to personal spiritual guidance of their flock).

That does not mean that either social justice on the one hand or personal prayer & morality --on the other-- should be exclusively pursued by the individual Catholic, out of personal preference. However, I think I understand what the OP is getting at because I see it quite a bit among practicing Catholics, and on this forum: there is a tendency of some to over-identify or exclusively identify with social justice missions as the core of Jesus’ message, and to establish that as a hierarchy of fidelity (vs. the rest of the Catholic moral code). This is summarized as, “Who cares what your sexual practices are as long as you practice the corporal works of mercy and work for societal justice? No one should care what individual morality is, proportionally speaking.”

But the thing is, we are all commanded anyway to practice the corporal works of mercy and the spiritual works of mercy: together these are social justice.

What troubles me is the equivalence which many establish between social justice and certain contemporary issues, so that social justice comes to be associated with a politically partisan position, including an assumption that “justice” = that provided by the government. Rather, the various s.j. issues raised in the bishops’ Faithful Citizenship document do not have simplistic or partisan solutions; many complex factors are involved in each of them (economics, the environment, immigration, political persecution, etc.). That is, the role of the U.S. government and the roles of private parties and companies are debatable in each of those issues. Further, human approaches to justice are not absolute, but are always relative to their effect on justice toward all those involved in that issue. There is no such thing as justice in a vacuum.

Pursuing justice selectively very often results in injustice for others, especially when a “class” or a “group” approach is assumed. This is indirectly an expression of social Marxism, in which persecution of one group is rationalized as needed to effect “justice” for a previously oppressed group. That is just a trade of oppression and marginalization, and is pretty shockingly antithetical to Christianity.

 

[Captain_America]

I abhor the tendency to label Catholics as “liberal" or “conservative” – it is pandering to confusion.

Catholics are faithful, or unfaithful – dissenting against dogma or doctrine. Politically they may be liberal or conservative, labour or conservative etc.
.

Good quote. Regarding Catholics and socialism, I’d just like to point out that anybody who knows anything about the life of JP the Great must recognize the many difficulties and evils of state socialism.

And to be fair, unrestrained capitalism is just the big dogs chewing on the little ones.

 

[Lujack]

One of the issues, I think, is that the condemnation of socialism by the Catholic Church only applies to what the Catholic Church defines as socialism. That means, then, that you can’t use what your political science textbook defines as socialism, what Rick Santorum or Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann or Robert Taft or Dwight Eisenhower or John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson define as socialism, but what the Catholic Church defines as socialism.

And that’s very important.

 

[pnewton]

One of the issues, I think, is that the condemnation of socialism by the Catholic Church only applies to what the Catholic Church defines as socialism. That means, then, that you can’t use what your political science textbook defines as socialism, what Rick Santorum or Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann or Robert Taft or Dwight Eisenhower or John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson define as socialism, but what the Catholic Church defines as socialism.

And that’s very important.

This is why defining terms is so important. The definition appears in the condemnation, and it understandably condemned. However, we can not let this apply to any definition born of political rhetoric.

 

[Abu]

Pnewton #31
“unrestricted capitalism”
Captain America #35
unrestrained capitalism

These vague references tend to cloud the whole concept of free enterprise developed by the Catholic Late Scholastics. Factually, the terms are hardly ever used in Social Encyclicals, and in Quadragesimo Anno, #132, 1931, Pius XI, writes:
“The easy gains that a market unrestricted by any law opens to everybody attracts large numbers to buying and selling goods, and they, their one aim being to make quick profits with the least expenditure of work, raise or lower prices by their uncontrolled business dealings so rapidly according to their own caprice and greed that they nullify the wisest forecasts of producers.”
Where is “unrestricted capitalism”? Where is a market unrestricted by any law? There is no such thing.

It is PEOPLE who have to be prudent, just, have fortitude and temperance. The Catholic way: free enterprise, sound laws, and the morals that maketh the man. The duty of governments is to make wise laws; that’s why we have laws to seek and punish those who steal, cheat, swindle, and to ensure competition. It is people who commit crimes. What has always existed is people who cheat, swindle, etc.

The continued finagling by governments, going back 80 years, which has so distorted the essence of free enterprise, is apparently blissfully unknown so that some posters are totally unaware of the distortions.

“Capitalism” is a derogatory term of Karl Marx and shunned by Bl John Paul II for “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy” in Centesimus Annus #42, 1991, in affirming free enterprise emphatically:
‘If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”.’

 

[pnewton]

These vague references tend to cloud the whole concept of free enterprise developed by the Catholic Late Scholastics. Factually, the terms are hardly ever used in Social Encyclicals, and in Quadragesimo Anno, #132, 1931, Pius XI, writes:

They came from the article you gave, sauce for the goose and all. Of course they have to be taken only within the narrow definition given, like I said about socialism. Think JP Morgan and nineteenth centure monoplies, for those of us with a simpler mindset.

I do fear we may be getting there again, with the stretch between the most wealthy growing ever greater. This is not what the Church wants, this choice between wealth becoming more concentrated in the hands of fewer people, or increase of social programs so that we slip back into a state socialism. No, a return to free-enterprise where wealth is more dispersed among more people in a market economy is ideal.

We shall see.

 

[LegoGE1947]

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.

It may be a dodge, but it could be a chevy, or a ford, or a hyundai, or a mercedes benz!