What the Catholic teaching of social justice is and is not should be clearly understood by all faithful Catholics. Often in the political arena, the term is used to represent goals which are actually contrary to the true Catholic meaning.

In October I wrote a piece on what social justice is and a piece on what social justice is not. A while back, Dr. Mark Hendrickson (faculty member, economist, and contributing scholar with the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College) touched on the same issue for Catholic Exchange.

The modern left’s “social justice” strives for economic equality. It endeavors to reduce, if not erase, the gap between rich and poor by redistributing wealth. This is “justice” more akin to Marx and Lenin, not according to Moses and Jesus. It is a counterfeit of real justice, biblical justice. Modern notions of “social justice” are often wolves in sheep’s clothing.

The fundamental error of today’s “social justice” practitioners is their hostility to economic inequality, per se. “Social justice” theory fails to distinguish between economic disparities that result from unjust deeds and those that are part of the natural order of things. All Christians oppose unjust deeds, and I’ll list some economic injustices momentarily. First, though, let us understand why it isn’t necessarily unjust for some people to be richer than others:

God made us different from each other. We are unequal in aptitude, talent, skill, work ethic, priorities, etc. Inevitably, these differences result in some individuals producing and earning far more wealth than others. To the extent that those in the “social justice” crowd obsess about eliminating economic inequality, they are at war with the nature of the Creator’s creation.

The Bible doesn’t condemn economic inequality. You can’t read Proverbs without seeing that some people are poor due to their own vices. There is nothing unjust about people reaping what they sow, whether wealth or poverty.

Jesus himself didn’t condemn economic inequality. Yes, he repeatedly warned about the snares of material wealth; he exploded the comfortable conventionality of the Pharisaical tendency to regard prosperity as a badge of honor and superiority; he commanded compassion toward the poor and suffering. But he also told his disciples, “ye have the poor always with you? (Matthew 26:11), and in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:24-30) he condemned the failure to productively use one’s God-given talents – whether many or few, exceptional or ordinary – by having a lord take money from the one who had the least and give it to him who had the most, thereby increasing economic inequality.

The Lord’s mission was to redeem us from sin, not to redistribute our property or impose an economic equality on us. In fact, the Almighty explicitly declined to undermine property rights or preach economic equality when he told the man who wanted Jesus to tell his brother to share an inheritance with him, “Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?” (Luke 12:14).

Read the whole article at Does Social Justice Allow Inequality?

Often the American sense of how others view our politics is one of finally moving left to a more liberal position. One cornerstone of that agenda is the perversion of maternal health into the unrestricted, encouraged and taxpayer funded slaughter of the innocent. We remember, for example, when more than 200,000 Germans rallied in front of Berlin’s Victory Column to support presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008. Not everyone fits this stereotype of foreign hopes for America.

Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro-Carámbula is a Doctor of Dogmatic Theology and head of Human Life International’s Rome office. He recently shared his outsider perspective on Catholic Exchange.

For example, almost two years ago a majority of American voters elected a man because he breezily promised “Hope” and “Change,” and too few thought to ask such basic questions as: Hope in whom? Or Change to what, precisely, and from what? A religious fervor seemed to overtake masses of people for whom actual religion has obviously become an afterthought, and they suspended all critical thought in order to float away on a sea of make believe hope and liberal change.

Yet such seas can be much rockier than the salesman leads us to believe. This man elected by Americans seems to be on an economic kamikaze mission, he acts as if he is embarrassed to represent your nation abroad, he spurns historical American allies while indicating to the scoundrels of the world that they belong among the elite, he does not attend services on Sunday, then seems surprised that some question his commitment to his faith” truly one could go on and on about the many problems that this man presents to the nation that elected him.

But the most troubling thing one notices when paying close attention to the president’s actions is his utter disregard for the human person. It appears that every initiative he is enthusiastic about is designed to diminish the person, and increase his dependency on government to live his life for him.

That is, for those persons who are actually allowed to live their lives. We already know the staggering toll taken by legalized abortion, and we know that the current president has without qualification supported every expansion of the murderous procedure he has ever had the opportunity to support. Not that he would agree that killing these tiny human beings is murder: Like many, he thinks that some human beings are persons worthy of life, and some human beings are not persons, and thus may be destroyed for any reason whatsoever.

The historical, philosophical and moral problems are ones that the president, and most other proponents of abortion refuse to confront, at least openly. If we agree that all persons should be protected and allowed to live until their natural death, then to make abortion and euthanasia legal, we have to find ways to deny the personhood of those who are not wanted.

The problem for those who buy into this bifurcation between humanity and personhood is first historical: this is exactly the formula employed by every mass murderer in history. It is the semantic of oppression, a procedure through which the groups that are targeted to be destroyed or exploited are described with traits that go from having human deficiencies to even denying their humanity. Once this semantic takes hold, those in power go about destroying the newly-depersonalized.

The second problem is philosophical: What exactly determines why this human being should live, and this other one should not? Those who claim that the difference is one of an ability to demonstrate conscience and will or some other more or less measurable trait always ignore the fact that such traits are often transitory. I can be sentient one minute, non-sentient the next, then back to my old self. A baby starts life with very limited conscience and will and all of us run the risk of ending our lives with a diminished state of consciousness. These criteria are also notoriously subjective and subject to revision.

The undeniable fact is that those who defend the destruction of innocent human life in the form of abortion and euthanasia cannot confront the moral issues, nor can they confront the history that proves beyond a doubt the similarity between their reasoning and that of the most heinous murderers of history.

Read the whole article entitled Politics and the American Person.

Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

CCC 2270

My hope and change – that Americans recognize their complicity in the murder of 1.37 million babies every year. This is the termination of life itself. No faithful Catholic can possibly vote for a pro-abortion candidate over a pro-life one, regardless of ANY other consideration.

In the time it took you to read this post, a dozen more babies were killed.

We have our “progressive” fringe as evidenced by Jennifer Sleeman, an Irish octogenarian. Ms. Sleeman organized a boycott of Mass last weekend by all liberal women who are outraged at the Church, for whatever it is they are outraged about now. The press loves this stuff.

“Whatever change you long for, recognition, ordination, the end of celibacy, which is another means of keeping women out, join with your sisters and let the hierarchy know by your absence that the days of an exclusively male-dominated church are over.”

Naturally, Women’s Ordination Worldwide jumped on-board with their full support. Of the billion+ Catholics worldwide, there were probably a dozen women who normally go to Church but chose to support the boycott. Fortunately, the faithful know better. Irish attendance was actually up slightly.

This lunacy makes as much sense as women boycotting their husbands until they become pregnant as equals. UK blogger Father Ray Blake covers this story well:

Missing Mass is a serious sin, encouraging others to do it is a wicked and divisive thing. It is a demonstration that for people like Sleeman there is little about the duty of being present at Calvary or taking part in the Liturgy of Heaven. The Mass and the Church too is seen just as meeting, an assembly, a rally, a family meal, at which the disgruntled like petulant adolescents can absent themselves.

Nevertheless Sleeman’s action is deeply worrying and is perhaps significant of what is happening to many Liberals today who are boycotting themselves out of the Church. For them the Catholic Church is becoming an alien place, no wonder during the visit some of them were happier to be amongst the angry grey faces of the Protest the Popers rather than amongst the happy, joyful crowds that welcomed him.

In some ways it is tempting to say good riddance to those who seem to have little in common with orthodox Catholicism, who are selective in their beliefs, dismissive of any Magisterium, who are happier with circle dancing than monthly confession, preferring the eneagram to Benediction, who squirm at the mention of an Indulgence but ultimately here we are talking about souls and their loss here. We cannot be happy or complacent at their loss or their absence.

Read the whole article entitled Lost Liberal Souls.

Matthew Archbold also covers this over at Creative Minority Report in his piece Did You Boycott Church?

Sigh…

Pope Benedict XVI has just completed a historic state visit to the United Kingdom. Despite the tireless efforts of the British Humanist Association, National Secular Society, Women Against Fundamentalism and similar groups – the visit was a huge success. Our Holy Father is an amazing shepherd in this troubled world.

The US mainstream press has covered the Pope’s triumph on their front pages from the New York Times to the LA Times and papers big and small everywhere in between. This is not just Catholic news but worldwide news. As fair and professional journalists, they presented history unfolding. Featured prominently was coverage of huge supportive crowds along with their government leaders. Here in the US, there was an apparent press blackout of the visit. Mostly, the usual anti-Catholic pieces appeared.

Deacon Greg Kandra noted this on his blog (The Deacon’s Bench). He wrote:

One of the biggest surprises of Pope Benedict’s historic trip to the United Kingdom may be how few people realize that it was, in fact, historic.

Sunday night, I was chatting by phone with my father-in-law in Maryland. I told him I’d been busy with the papal coverage all weekend.

“Didn’t seem like much happened,” he said.

“Really?,” I replied. “He was the first pope to visit the Church of England’s Westminster Abbey. He stood there with the Archbishop of Canterbury, side by side, as they both pronounced the final blessing and made the sign of the cross together.”

“He did that?” My father-in-law sounded genuinely surprised.

“He went to the hall where Thomas More was sentenced to death and delivered a speech about religion to the civil leaders of Great Britain.”

“He did?”

“And he took part in his first beatification: Cardinal John Henry Newman, an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism.”

I could almost hear him scratching his bald head. “How come nobody said anything about that?”

Now, my father-in-law is a pretty smart guy, and what you might consider an observant Catholic. He attends mass every morning. He keeps up on current events. Now retired from the FDA, he regularly checks in with the Washington Post, USA TODAY, MSNBC and CNN. But he was baffled that this stuff I was telling him wasn’t on the nightly news.

“All we saw down here,” he explained, “was that he met with sex abuse victims.”

I started to wonder what sort of coverage the trip had received. After I hung up the phone, I searched through several newspaper websites. I clicked on the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe. Nothing, nothing, nothing. None of them mentioned on their home page the Pope’s just-completed trip.

When I got to work on Monday, I searched CNN Newsource, which provides newsfeeds to my show, “Currents,” as well as to countless other news programs around the country. I found a grand total of one item, running about a minute long, slugged “Anti-Pope Demonstrations.”

That was it.

Read the whole article entitled The pope, the greatest story never told.

Hilary White writes about the challenge and effect of the Pope’s visit. Too bad our press ignored it – they (purposefully) missed one great story! Be sure to read her truly excellent piece Britain Gobsmacked by Pope Benedict.

When catechumens and candidates continue their journey into RCIA, they are received by the Rite of Welcome. The ceremony is beautiful and quite simple with only two questions asked of those entering. The first question is “what do you ask of God’s Church?” to which they respond faith. The second is “What does faith offer your?” to which they respond eternal life.

In the last three weeks I have written about the Church in the road trip of life, the communion of saints, and only Catholics go to heaven? The Church is the Communion of Saints, the Body of Christ, and our guide to faith and eternal life.

Jesus did not institute thousands of independent churches, all teaching a different “truth,” from which we may shop according to our preferences. He create one, from which the others formed out of heresy and schism. Some remain closer to the teaching of His Church while other “progressive” ones stray wider and wider. If it were not so serious, it might be comical:

Once again, Father Longenecker provides great insight into the whole “church shopping” mindset:

Riding up through the hills of upper South Carolina you can’t help but notice the huge number of churches. Every mile or so there’s another one: Pebble Creek Baptist, Maranatha Church, Heritage Church, New Spring, Rocky Rill Baptist, Beaver Run Baptist, Calvary Baptist, Assembly of God, Church of God, Disciples of Christ, Christian Disciples…the names and numbers are bewildering and ever multiplying.

It’s the Protestant principle run riot. The irony is that while the non-Catholics say, “It doesn’t really matter what church you belong to” they seem to think it pretty important to keep breaking up with one church to go and start another one. If it doesn’t matter what church you go to why not go to the one on the nearest corner? The second problem with this commonly held view is that it only takes a short jump from “It doesn’t matter what church you go to” to “Well it doesn’t really matter if you go to church at all.”

Indeed, in a conversation with some good non Catholic folks not long ago they said, “Our teenaged daughter tells us that she doesn’t want to go to church and doesn’t need to go to church because she already has a relationship with Jesus in her heart.” They didn’t have an answer for her, and of course cannot have an answer because according to the Protestant theology they follow there is no such thing as ecclesiology and their daughter is right.

The only thing that remains, therefore, for non Catholic Christians is to make church attractive to people. If they don’t have to go to church, then they should want to go to church and the only way to make people want to go to church is to offer something they want. So we find that the non-Catholic Churches are extremely competitive. They offer a vast range of services and pastoral care and ‘outreach opportunities’. Now, there’s not problem with that necessarily except that what results is the commercialization of Christianity.

The temptation is there to water down the gospel, keep people happy and never challenge them. The worship becomes more and more entertainment oriented. Sentimentality sweeps over. The people want a ‘feel good’ experience and the pastors do everything they can to provide that lest the consumers get tired of what’s on offer and shop around for something they like better.

Read his whole essay here.