The true social justice mission of the church is inextricably tied to the concept of subsidiarity.
Subsidiarity insists that the smallest or most local organization that can address a problem should address a problem.
Therefore, an individual is obligated to help himself, his family, his neighbor. The church is organized throughout the world on a local level to serve the poor, educate children, build hospitals and provide ministry programs for all.
There is very little in terms of helping the poor that required a large federal government. That is Catholic teaching, although the concept is not properly promoted by many in the media and more unfortunately by many in the church.
Thanks for posting. I was about to do the same, to answer Lucian’s question in post 1, but you beat me to it.
“Social justice”, is a requirement of all Catholics (all human beings I’d say) but it is sadly perverted by the leftists in both the US media and the US Church.
Subsidiarity is the true way Catholics (and humans in general) should promote social justice, as rwilson99 explained in post 41.
And I’d dare to say its how the good Cardinal then, now Pope Francis, approaches the problem.
Well we'll see if that's how he interprets it. If you read the material on the ACCB web site on "social justice" it appears interchangeable with the liberal Democrat platform. Maybe that will change. I'm not holding my breath.
The Catjolic church owns over 1/4 of the worlds fine art or so we were (proudly) told on a tour of St. Peters. Yet they have some of the most crushingly poor congregations that send THEM money I suggest the new pope do something about the log in his own eye before lecturing the rest of the world how to care for the poor. I’m not Catholic bashing, but I have often wondered how the Catholic church reconciles it’s great wealth and opulence with the poverty of some of it’s people, particularly when Chridt said “the Som of Man has nowhere to lay His head”. And now the new pope wants to lecture us how to care for the poor?