In the first and third parts of this article we — or rather our guest blogger Guy Stevenson — asked questions. In Part I the question was, “Why do I exist?” In Part III, the question was, “What is social justice?” Today Guy gives Fulton Sheen’s version of “The Maker’s Answer.”
As a special bonus, Guy added an epilogue. He thought some additional commentary might help clarify the issues. This is because there seemed to be a conflict or a disagreement between Augustine of Hippo’s definition of charity, and Fulton Sheen’s definition of social justice. As Guy commented in an aside, “In either case the source is a flame.” Guy closes with what he considers two key quotes from Fulton Sheen’s Freedom Under God (1940).
For a final time (at least for this article) we issue a caveat. CESJ is not a religious organization, and the Just Third Way is not a religious movement. Guy Stevenson is simply noting the congruence of Fulton Sheen’s thought, and that of the Catholic Church as Sheen understood it, especially as expressed in the “Just Third Way edition” of Sheen’s Freedom Under God, with the principles of the Just Third Way:
The Question That Burns
IV. The Maker’s Answer
By Guy C. Stevenson
To conclude this discourse, we will look at what we call “The Maker’s Answer and the War Against Forgetting.” For many, even Christians, Sheen’s answer to the question why we exist — to know, love, and serve God in this world and be happy with Him in the next — is not unfamiliar. It echoes catechisms, sermons, and sacred texts. But familiarity breeds neglect. We forget not because the truth is hidden, but because it is inconvenient. It demands reordering. It demands surrender.
To know God is not passive — it is an active pursuit. To love God is not sentiment — it is sacrifice. To serve God is not a side project — it is vocation.
And to be eternally happy with Him? That is not escapism — it is the horizon which gives meaning to every valley and every victory.
But this answer is under siege in today’s world actively in search of meaninglessness and purposelessness, of avoiding responsibility and sticking it to the other guy. The war against purpose is subtle. It comes dressed as distraction, disguised as ambition, even as social justice, and is delivered through faceless and incomprehensible algorithms. It replaces the Maker’s voice with the market’s metrics.
So, we must remember why we exist. We must rebel against forgetfulness, from the false Nirvana of becoming one with an imperfect many instead of joining freely with the Perfect One. We must re-anchor our lives in the answer Sheen preserved — not as dogma, but as deliverance. And to do that, we must always keep in mind that justice begins in the soul.
Fulton J. Sheen did not merely critique the world — he diagnosed its spiritual condition. His writings remind us that justice is not born in legislatures or movements, but in the conscience of the individual. True social justice begins with personal virtue and individual moral responsibility.
Émile Durkheim
Without this foundation in individual and personal virtue, social reform becomes hollow — an echo chamber of ideology without the substance of truth. It becomes the ephemeral and illusory Kingdom of God on Earth of the New Christianity of Saint-Simon and the socialists, with humanity turning God into a creature and servant.
The world idolizes itself. As Émile Durkheim declared, God is a divinized society. Religion consists of the group’s worship of itself. Nevertheless, as Fulton Sheen noted, “The world is rapidly being divided into two camps — the comradeship of anti-Christ and the brotherhood of Christ. . . . In a conflict between truth and darkness [however], truth cannot lose.”
This is not hyperbole. It is a call to discernment. Justice is not merely structural — it is spiritual. It is not a battle between classes, but between truth and falsehood. And in this battle, neutrality is complicity. Again, to quote Sheen, “The world is not suffering so much from the violence of bad people as it is from the silence of good people.”
Social justice cannot be outsourced to systems. It must be embodied by souls. It must be lived in homes, in workplaces, in pulpits and policy. It must begin with holiness, or it will end in hypocrisy. In summary:
· Justice without virtue is performance.
· Reform without repentance is rebellion.
· Systems without souls are scaffolds without stone.
Sheen believed social justice must be rooted in personal holiness. The transformation of society begins with the transformation of the self. The battle lines are drawn. The trumpet has sounded. Let us not be silent or indifferent.
Epilogue
The Flame That Transcends
If justice begins in the soul, then charity is its fire. St. Augustine taught charity — love rightly ordered toward God — is the form of all virtue. Charity is not an action, but a condition of the heart. And when that heart is aflame, justice follows — not as policy, but as worship.
Social justice, then, is not a separate flame. It is the same fire burning in two directions:
· Inward, toward the dignity of the soul, and
· Outward, toward the restoration of systems.
Charity is the corporal work and the spiritual witness. It is the neighbor fed and the conscience awakened. It is the spark which sanctifies both protest and prayer.
And if this flame seems bright — if it stirs us to mercy, to courage, to sacrifice — then we must ask, as Fulton Sheen did, “If a human heart in its purest quest for love can so thrill and exalt and cast us into an ecstasy, then what must be the Heart of Hearts! If that spark is so bright, then pray what must be the Flame?”
That Flame is “the Maker’s Answer.” It is the love that made us, the justice that redeems us, and the joy that awaits us. It is the fire we carry — and the fire we must spread.
Quotes from Fulton Sheen’s
Freedom Under God
Just Third Way Edition
Arlington, Virginia: Economic Justice Media, 2013
True Liberty
Hatred is rapidly becoming a stronger force than love, or truth or justice or righteousness. This growth of hatred is dangerous for any civilization; it has now reached a point that in order to spread it, hypocrisy ceases to be a sin and becomes a virtue. Because we have forgotten the reason for living, there are those who say: “Only a class has a right to live.” Because we have forgotten truth, there are those who say that: “Only error shall be spread.” Because we have forgotten justice, there are those who say that: “Only violence shall rule.” Because we have forgotten man, there are those who say “Only the State shall endure.” (p. 27.)
Liberty and the Republic
Once the passion for justice is lost, then the unity of men by submission to Righteousness and Justice gives way to a mechanical unity based on the votes of the majority. From that point on, the creation of majorities, real by election, or simulated by organized minority propaganda becomes the supreme, dynamic, and moving inspiration of classes, groups, and special interests, and always at the expense of the general wellbeing and peace of the nation. Then mob rule becomes sovereign and human rights its slave. (p. 145.)
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