So far in our
discussions on social justice in this brief series we’ve looked at the “laws”
of social justice, at least those CESJ co-founder Father William J. Ferree,
S.M., Ph.D. discerned in his work and described in his pamphlet, Introduction to Social Justice (1948). Of course, the laws of social justice are not
human statutes, like the speed limit or how to file your taxes. Such things can be changed as expedient to
fit human needs, and even abolished completely if enough people were to demand
it.
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| Pope Benedict XV |
Unlike purely
manmade laws, the laws of social justice are based on the nature of social justice itself, albeit necessarily expressed
in human terms, like the laws against murder or theft. These can never be changed, or what you have
is not social justice, but something else entirely because you have changed a
thing’s substantial nature, which only a Creator can do — and in Jewish,
Christian, and Islamic belief, God as a perfect being doesn’t change anything’s
nature, as it all derives from Him and is based on His Nature.
That is not to
say that the ways in which the laws of social justice or any other law based on
nature does not have an infinite number of ways to apply them. While the underlying law of nature can never
be changed, how it is applied must be
changed and adapted to changing conditions, or what was once a good law can
turn into a very bad law. As Pope
Benedict XV said on this very subject in his first encyclical back in 1914 when
admonishing the modernists about their efforts to change nature (which means,
ultimately, changing God),
Therefore it is Our will that the law of our forefathers should
still be held sacred: “Let there be no innovation; keep to what has been handed
down.” In matters of faith that must be inviolably adhered to as the law; it
may however also serve as a guide even in matters subject to change, but even
in such cases the rule would hold: “Old things, but in a new way.” (Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, § 25.)
For example,
suppose the human law against murder specified various ways other people could
be killed, but failed to mention abortion specifically. Would that mean it is all right to kill
someone while still in utero?
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| Human law must be consistent with divine law, but don't confuse them. |
Of course not,
even if the human law was changed to read that killing someone in utero is not to be considered murder
or even homicide. That would not change
the underlying natural law against murder.
It would only be a feeble and transparent attempt on the part of human
legislators to change nature itself by exempting some forms of murder from the
definition of murder.
Suppose, however,
human law recognized abortion as homicide, but imposed a less severe penalty
or, in mitigating circumstances, no human penalty at all? This, despite pro-choice rhetoric to the
contrary, has been the case throughout most of history. Nor was such differentiation limited to
abortion. Killing a slave incurred less
of a penalty than killing a freeman, and the killing of a freeman imposed a
lesser penalty than killing a noble, and so on.
That would not
change the fact that killing a human being is considered wrong but would be an
attempt to shape human law to circumstances, imperfectly of course, and unjust
to a degree, but sometimes necessary to keep the social order from dissolving
in chaos. As Aquinas noted, sometimes
the law must allow what is immoral to continue for a time until the situation
makes it possible to correct the injustice.
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| Monsignor Aloysius Taparelli |
And that is what
social justice is all about. Social
justice is not concerned directly
with feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, stopping abortion, or any of the
other “corporal works of mercy.” That
is, was, and always will be a matter of individual
justice and charity. Rather, social
justice is concerned with introducing changes into the system (our
institutions) to make it possible to
feed the hungry, clothe the naked, stop abortion, or anything else.
For example, ever
since Monsignor Aloysius Taparelli first used the term social justice in the
correct (if extremely vague) modern sense in the 1840s, followers of “the
democratic religion” of socialism have been hard at work convincing people that
socialism and social justice are equivalent terms. If, however, they would keep in mind the one
principle of social justice that Taparelli laid down: that whatever is done for
the common good must be done within the parameters established by the natural
law.
Primarily, of
course, this means respect for the life, liberty, and private property of every
child, woman, and man. No one, not even
for the highest reasons or the greatest justification, may violate the natural
law and call it “social justice.”
Nowhere is this
more evident today than in how people have played fast and loose with the
natural right of private property.
Anxious to obtain the results they ardently desire, socialists,
modernists, and New Agers insist either that “property” has either changed its
meaning, or never meant what people thought it meant for thousands of years.
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| Dr. Heinrich Rommen |
Obviously, this
is nonsense. Private property is a
natural right, and the natural law is based on God’s Nature — not some
demagogue’s idea of God’s Will (that strangely always seems to be just what the
demagogue wanted all along). No one
change what property means or claim to have discovered a new meaning without at
the same time necessarily implying he or she has commanded God and changed His
Nature, which is something no one, theist or atheist can claim to have done.
No, as the
solidarist jurist and political scientist Dr. Heinrich Rommen pointed out in
his book on the natural law, the universal prohibition against theft
necessarily implies that private property pertains to the natural law — and
that means that it cannot be changed.
Its form and application, yes, but never in such a way as to negate the
underlying right itself.
The bottom line
here is that the “laws” of social justice cannot be changed in their substance
(only in how they are applied), or what you have is obviously not social
justice. It may be something very good
in and of itself, or it may be something very bad, but it is not social justice
once you have redefined the nature of the thing — however badly you want it or
however good your intentions.
And the same goes
for the characteristics of social justice, which is the subject we will begin
addressing tomorrow:
·
Only By
Members of Groups
·
It Takes
Time
·
Nothing
is Impossible
·
Eternal
Vigilance
·
Effectiveness
·
You Can’t
“Take It Or Leave It Alone”
Now, although
these characteristics are not the substance of social justice, a thing would
not be social justice without them (there is a deep philosophical issue here
about form and substance that we need not get into). Of course, other things can and do have these
characteristics, but simply having them does not make something social justice,
while not having means that something is not social justice.
For example, a
human being is alive, but that does not mean that something is a human being
because it is alive; being alive is not essential to being a human being . . .
just to being a living human being —
and that is as far as we will go until tomorrow.
#30#
