What does Catholic Social Teaching say about Peace, Justice and the Poor?

What is the Church’s understanding of “peace”?

• The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “Peace is the work of justice and the effect of charity. (#2304)”
• Pope Paul VI added: “For peace is not simply the absence of warfare, based on a precarious balance of power; it is fashioned by efforts directed day after day toward the establishment of the ordered universe willed by God, with a more perfect form of justice among people.” (Populorum Progessio, #76).

Why is the effort at attaining peace tied so closely to justice?

The subtitle of Pope Paul VI’s message of the Day of Peace in 1972 was, “If you want peace, work for justice.” To take this idea a step further, Pope Saint John Paul II in his encyclical, “Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (The Social Concern of the Church),” states that:

“the solidarity which we propose is the path to peace and at the same time to development … The goal of peace, so desired by everyone, will certainly be achieved through the putting into effect of social and international justice, but also through the practice of the virtues which favor togetherness, and which teach us to live in unity, so as to build in unity, by giving and receiving, a new society and a better world. (#39)”

How did Pope Saint John XXIII view the image of the Church?

In his address on Sept. 11, 1962, just one month before the opening of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Saint John XXIII stated that: “Where the underdeveloped countries are concerned, the Church presents herself as she is. She wishes to be the Church of all, and especially the Church of the poor.”

What is meant by the “preferential option for the poor”?

A basic moral test of society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. The poor have the most urgent moral claim on the conscience of the nation.Mother Teresa of Calcutta on June 10, 1995 in Washington, DC; photo: Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com

The option for the poor is a perspective that examines personal decisions, policies of private and public institutions, and economic relationships in terms of their effects on the poor: those who lack the minimum necessities of nutrition, housing, education, and health care; those who are marginalized and whose rights are denied have privileged claims if society is to provide justice for all.

The obligation to evaluate social and economic activity from the viewpoint of the poor and the powerless arises from the radical command of Jesus to love one's neighbor as one's self. The option for the poor is an essential part of society's effort to achieve the common good. A healthy community can be achieved only if its members give special attention to those with special needs, to those who are poor and on the margins of society.

As Pope Saint John Paul II added, “Today, this preference has to be expressed in worldwide dimensions, embracing the immense numbers of the hungry, the needy, the homeless, those without medical care, and those without hope. (Solicitudo Rei Socialis, #42)”

Reflection Questions:

• What more is needed for peace – beyond the cessation of war? Why?
• In what concrete ways can the “preferential option for the poor” be practiced by affluent citizens today as well as yourself?
• Other comments…

What is “globalization”?

Globalization is the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets. Major factors in the development of globalization are advances in transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, including the Internet. All this generates the reality that our world is “getting smaller”.

How does the Church view globalization?

“Globalization gives rise to new hopes while at the same time it poses troubling questions. [749] Globalization is able to produce potentially beneficial effects for the whole of humanity… In analyzing the present context, besides identifying the opportunities now opening up in the era of the global economy, one also comes to see the risks connected with the new dimensions of commercial and financial relations … The challenge, in short, is to ensure a globalization in solidarity, a globalization without marginalization”...[751]

“It is evident that, because of the great disparities between countries regarding access to technical and scientific knowledge and to the most recent products of technology, the process of globalization ends up increasing rather than decreasing the inequalities between countries in terms of economic and social development... An adequate solidarity in the era of globalization requires that human rights be defended” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, #362-363, 365).

How does the Church understand “the principle of solidarity”?

“Catholic social teaching proclaims that we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers, wherever they live. We are one human family, whatever our national, racial, ethnic, economic, and ideological differences. Solidarity means that "loving our neighbor" has global dimensions in an interdependent world.

Pope Saint John Paul II further explains: “What we nowadays call the principle of solidarity ... is frequently stated by Pope Leo XIII, who uses the term ‘friendship’ ... Pope Pius XI refers to it with the equally meaningful term ‘social charity'. Pope Paul VI, expanding the concept to cover the many modern aspects of the social question, speaks of a ‘civilization of love’”[193](Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, #103)..

“Pope Saint John Paul II has called solidarity a virtue. It is the virtue, he says, by which one demonstrates “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good... because we are all really responsible for all” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, #38).

For us Christians, we hear this virtue expressed well in the St. Paul’s words when he speaks about the one body of Christ: “If [one] part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy” (1 Cor 12:26).Mahatma Gandhi on a 1969 postage stamp of the Soviet Union; photo: USSR Post

Quotes about solidarity:

• “The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings. (Albert Schweitzer, 1875-1965: theologian, physician, and medical missionary in Africa, also known for his interpretive life of Jesus.)”
• “I believe in the essential unity of all people and for that matter of all lives. Therefore, I believe that if one person gains spiritually, the whole world gains, and if one person falls, the whole world falls to that extent. (Mohandas K. Gandhi, 1869—1948, the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India; a proponent of nonviolent civil disobedience.)
• “Perhaps solidarity means that the next time I buy some clothes at a store, I should care about where they were made, how the workers were treated and whether they received a just wage. (Anonymous)”

Reflection Questions:

• How are you (or your family and friends) personally effected – for better or for worse – by globalization (changes in prices of goods, communication with others, etc.) ?
• In your own life, in what situation have you experienced a feeling of solidarity with others?
• In the paragraph above, which quote about solidarity do you like and why?
• Other comments  …