In an interview with the Catholic News Agency (CNA) in 2011, Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, now Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and then President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, expressed a concern that he saw in the way that Americans interpreted the language of the Church’s teachings. “We found out that some of the vocabulary which is just taken for granted and used freely may not always have the same sense or may have had some nuances which sometimes are missed because of the way the terms are used in the American political context,” he stated in the interview.
Examples he included in this list of frequently misunderstood terms include “social justice” and even “gift.” He goes on to explain that, in some circles, the term “social justice” is interpreted as synonymous with “socialism” or “communism.” “Gift,” he explains, is interpreted by some as synonymous with “welfare handouts.” His Eminence Cardinal Turkson’s observation has only increased in severity as we’ve moved from 2011 to 2021.
The context of the Catholic social magisterium and the American political discourse are worlds apart. Catholic philosophy and theology often approach highly complex contemporary issues with a grounding in thousands of years old Western tradition that greatly dwarfs the time period of liberalism, socialism, or contemporary American conservatism. American political language is an ever-shifting and amorphous battleground that can see radically diverse meanings being applied to the exact words by different sides of a particular debate. Even more challenging is the tendency to use words with no clear accompanying definition or with only vaguely defined definitions. These approaches present stark contrasts. Examples include terms like “charity,” “justice,” “common good,” “religious freedom,” and “free market.” These terms are terms found in the Catholic tradition yet are used in political discourse with a variety of conflicting meanings.
The term “equity” may be foremost amongst the contemporary contested terminology. Pieces have been written by the likes of popular churchman and theologian His Excellency Bishop Robert Barron on the contrast between the ideals of equality and equity, making a nuanced but potentially obfuscating claim that equity is not of “absolute value.” While I greatly respect Bishop Barron’s work in general, this piece may exacerbate the divide between Catholics of goodwill. What does the Catholic tradition say about this buzzword? St. Thomas Aquinas deals with the concept of equity in his cornerstone work The Summa Theologica. In the Second Part of the Second Part (Secunda Secundae Partis), article 1 & 2, Aquinas agrees with the traditional Aristotelian understanding of equity as a virtue that applies when it is necessary to circumvent an actual law to abide by a higher criterion of justice. Equity is a form of justice itself, and, indeed, a higher form of justice than legal justice in Thomistic philosophy. All that to say, equity is a concept with a solid basis in the Catholic tradition, not simply a modern political concept.
Another oft contested term, social justice, is an extraordinarily Catholic term. Not only can it be found all over the ordinary magisterium of all the Popes since St. Pope Paul VI but is codified in many universally binding documents like those of the Second Vatican Council which states in Gaudium et Spes that “excessive economic and social differences between the members of the one human family or population groups cause scandal and militate against social justice, equity, the dignity of the human person, as well as social and international peace” (no. 29). Social justice, from a Catholic lens, is a true development in what was traditionally called legal, or general, justice. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church states that social justice can be defined as:
“[…] a requirement related to the social question which today is worldwide in scope, concerns the social, political, and economic aspects and, above all, the structural dimension of problems and their respective solutions.”
The Catholic notion of social justice is not only comfortable with discussing social justice as addressing issues of structure but states that it does so “above all” other considerations. Understanding that the Catholic tradition provides definitions for phrases that are very often used with amorphous or contentious definitions should present to us an opportunity for common ground rather than conflict. Agreeing that people of diverse political, ideological, and religious backgrounds can be striving towards common ideals is a necessary aspect of any pluralistic society, and Catholics of all ideological paths should engage wholeheartedly in the quest for a more just and equitable society with no scruples of conscience. This certainly does not mean that every movement or group that states that its goals are done for the sake of social justice or equity is correct in its aims, but this requires a discerning rather than a dismissive approach. The conversation about what constitutes a socially just society is perhaps the ripest ground for the New Evangelization in the 21st century so far. It isn’t easy work, but the Church, an expert in humanity, provides us the definitions to get started.