To mark World Day of Social Justice, ANDY HAMILTON SJ writes that Catholic Social Teaching informs the day-to-day work of Jesuit Social Services, in which we support people experiencing multiple and complex forms of disadvantage.
The cry for justice comes naturally to all human beings. Children protest that ‘it isn’t fair’. Adults ask their torturers, ‘Why do you hurt me?’ Justice has to do with relationships. In families, justice has to do with personal relationships between parents and children and between siblings. In schools, between teachers and students. Justice, however, has also to do with the human relationships between groups of people, institutions, nations and our environment.
These relationships have to do with social justice. We constantly meet broken relationships at Jesuit Social Services in persons caught in the justice system, are homeless, are victims or perpetrators of domestic violence. All these, as well as the large issues of our day such as war, inequality, care for our environment and the use of new technologies pose questions of social justice.
In reflecting on these issues of justice at Jesuit Social Services we are fortunate to be able to draw on a long tradition of Catholic thought on what it means for us to flourish and what form our complex relationships should take.
The central insight of Catholic social thought is that each human being has a unique dignity and value, whatever our race, religion, colour, gender and virtue or lack of it. In all relations we ourselves are entitled to respect and owe it to others. In business we may not treat employees simply as a cost; nor in war may we treat civilians and prisoners as things. Children in the justice system should not be treated as adults. They are persons like us and must be treated with respect for their humanity.
The second insight of Catholic social thought is that we human beings do not flourish as individuals but through relationships to others. We rely on others and have responsibility to others. Society flourishes when persons have strong relationships and agency in social groups and in such institutions as schools, ethnic and religious associations, recreational clubs, cultural groups, industrial unions and associations, and political parties.
Together these two insights mean that as individuals and as groups we are all entitled to support in society and have a duty to support the flourishing of others, particularly those who are disadvantaged. The flourishing of individuals and of groups is tied to the flourishing of others. This is expressed in taxes and levies proportionate to their wealth. A society in which there is gross inequality between the wealthiest and the poor is not a just society. Its measure is how it supports the flourishing of the neediest.
Respect for persons and our shared humanity and flourishing also shapes the relationships between social groups and those between nations. Where there is conflict, for example between employers and employees over wages and conditions and between nations over the control of property these must be resolved by mutual respect, diplomacy and by appeal to national and international arbitration. The temptation to resolve them by the unliteral use of superior power must be resisted by national and international bodies and public opinion.
Our society puts a high value on human flourishing but often sees it as an individual right and entitlement. It is competitive. Our tradition sees it as something we should build together by caring for others.
