Only Part of the Story: Shaw on Social Justice and Virtue

Only Part of the Story | Russell Shaw | Catholic World Report

The conventional wisdom operative in American Catholic social justice circles neglects the role of virtue.

What is social justice? In Catholic circles, the expression is much in use these days, but is it used correctly—used, that is, according to its meaning in the Catholic tradition and the Magisterium of the Church? A lot more than you might expect depends on the answer to that.

Recently I received, unsolicited, a 39-page booklet called What Is Social Justice? According to this popularly written account, published by Acta Publications in Chicago, the essence of social justice is expressed in collective action to reform social structures on behalf of the common good.

In support of this understanding, the author approvingly quotes Ronald Krietemeyer, a justice and peace executive at the United States Catholic Conference in the '70s and '80s now with Catholic Charities in St. Paul: "Social justice is not about private individual acts. It is about collective actions aimed at transforming social institutions and structures in order to achieve the common good."

Krietemeyer isn't the only one who thinks that. Along with others who are cited in What Is Social Justice? as sharing this point of view, the collective-action school includes Father J. Bryan Hehir, another USCC justice and peace guru of three decades ago, who now heads Catholic Charities in Boston and teaches at Harvard. In an article on social justice written for Father Richard McBrien's HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism (1995), Father Hehir says:

The function of social justice is to evaluate the essential institutions of society in terms of their ability to satisfy the minimum needs and basic rights of the citizenry…. It is usually expected that social justice will be accomplished through organized activity rather than individual action.

Two things stand out in all this: collective action and reforming social structures. According to What Is Social Justice? the source of this vision of social justice is Father William Ferree, SM (1905-1985), an American Marianist priest who published several influential books on Catholic social teaching. In expounding social justice, however, Father Ferree also had a source: Pope Pius XI. Especially important is the landmark social encyclical Quadragesimo Anno (On Reconstruction of the Social Order), which he published in 1931. The question then necessarily becomes: What did Pius XI mean by "social justice"?

Fortunately, that question receives an exhaustive discussion in Church, State, and Society by theologian J. Brian Benestad of the University of Scranton (newly published by the Catholic University of America Press). Subtitled An Introduction to Catholic Social Doctrine, Benestad's scholarly volume deserves to become a standard work in its field.

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