Pope Leo XIII (1878- 1903) in the year 1900 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Having a month of festivals concerning freedom and liberation it is not bad to compare socialist and Catholics their ideas about our way to build up a community where every body can live in a decent healthy and wealthy way.
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To remember
social justice = one of those terms that a lot of people use, but are either unwilling or unable to define.
left-leaning political ideas
Michael Novak article Dec. 2009 > Social Justice Mean Originally
first coined by an Italian priest, Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio, mid-1800’s. > trying to revive + update Aquinas’ works to deal with problems of his day.
Pope Leo XIII in 1891, issued encyclical, Rerum Novarum = addressed changes going on in society – people moving from agrarian ways of live > Pope sees threat in socialism giving the state total power
all striving against nature is in vain
“social justice” =/= equality >Leo held = good that there’s an unequal society
equality ~~ Equal outcomes or equal opportunities
Rerum Novarum addresses evil of equality => Equality = against nature + against whole range of human gifts.
We naturally can not agree with that. According to the Holy Scriptures every man is created in the image of God and we should all be children of God. In the eyes of God, we’re all equal.
It is man who created differences between people and who by giving more priority to material goods created inequality.
creation moving towards sameness or differentiation (differentiation = norm)
Lutheran understanding = all are equal before God, outside of our works > salvation, humanity can’t do anything – it’s all up to God. But in temporal matters, we have freedom to do as we wish.
Popes described social justice as a virtue = habit = set of skills
conclusion = Novak’s arguments make a great deal of sense <=> Politics = about power, not helping people
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Adding to the articles:
May, for many a month for mothers and many celebrations
Religious celebrations in May 2016
Having put lives on the line to protect the freedoms that we enjoy
Remembrance and freedom in the Netherlands – Dodenherdenking and Bevrijdingsdag
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Related articles
I’ve been thinking a great deal about social justice in recent months. It’s a term that gets thrown around quite a bit. But I bet that if you went and surveyed a 100 people to define it, you’d end up with almost 100 different answers.
As I mentioned, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Mostly because I haven’t come with a good conclusion on this up to this point. So this is a long post and I quote from one article quite a bit. But I welcome your insights as well. So let’s begin.
Social justice is one of those terms that a lot of people use, but are either unwilling or unable to define. Some might say that they know it when they see it. Others might define it through specific policy objectives. But I’m not sure that’s really defining it. I’ve heard other people say that social…
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