Social justice must not be misconstrued as \u201cmisguided compassion<\/a>.\u201d While compassion certainly should be a part of the equation, because justice is not justice without mercy and grace, without transcendent charity penetrating it and making it more than another form of legalism, justice is about righteousness and making less-than just situations just. Compassion is a tool which helps make people realize where injustice is occurring, and sympathize with the victims of injustice, but even without compassion, even without charity, a mere desire for righteousness itself should suffice as to justify social justice and demonstrate why it is a necessary part of Christian moral teaching. Social justice is not some sort of liberal relativism deny objective goodness, rather, it follows objective goodness as a reason why justice must be followed, showing that it is one of the most conservative elements of the Christian tradition.<\/p>\n To what is said here, Keep judgment, and do justice, <\/em>the following words are similar: \u201cBlessed are those who keep judgment and do justice at all times\u201d [Ps 106:3], so that they justly pursue what is just \u2013 although under the name of justice all points of morality appear to be to be signified. For the one who does a single justice is shown to have fulfilled all the virtues, which follows each other in succession and cleave to each other. Consequently one who has one, has them all, and the one who lacks one, lacks them all. [1]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n St. Jerome\u2019s point follows what James wrote, when he said, \u201cFor whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it\u201d (James 2:10 RSV). Social Justice realizes the unity of all moral claims, of all justice, that all that is good is united together as one holistic doctrine, one holistic good, and all sin is about the destruction of the \u201cseamless garment\u201d of truth which Christ used to cover the church in glory. \u00a0Social justice realizes this is true, not just for people as individuals, but for people in their personal relationships, in their communities, in the structures which they implement in society. If those structures are unjust, then they are sinful and must be overturned. Those who repudiate social justice remove an intricate element of the church\u2019s moral teaching, that of the proper treatment and respect to be shown to other persons, and so can be said to deny the whole of the law. This is why St. Basil, commenting upon Jesus\u2019 conversation with a rich young man, \u00a0was able to say that those who do not truly love their neighbor as themselves have forsaken the whole law, and unless they allow themselves to be corrected, they will not be able to enter the kingdom of God, for the kingdom of God follows the truth in love and so makes all love one seamless love for all. \u201cAlthough you say you have not murdered, or committed adultery, or stolen, or borne false witness against another, you make all this diligence of no account by not adding what follows, which is the only way you will be able to enter the Kingdom of God.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n Social justice follows from and serves the common good which flows out of the teachings of Christ, the teachings which find themselves to be condensed into two ways we are meant to engage love. Scholastic writers saw a reflection of this in the way the so-called Ten Commandments were written out on two tablets, one which focused on God and our relationship with God, and the other on community, and the basic forms of justice which are expected to form the social bonds which are the foundation for any civic institution. We form one humanity, which is then divided into many different communities, nations, and states, but all those divisions should not be meant to create absolute division and remove anyone from the good which should be shown to all humanity, but rather, they are to be relative or conventional divisions which help us map out the ways we can interact with each other; we must not absolutize the divisions, for when we do, then we divide humanity and destroy it from within, following then the path of sin instead of love, for sin whittles away and destroys being while love opens it up and allows it to transcend itself into something greater.<\/p>\n If the way some treated social justice were examined within the domain of grace, it would be easy to show how Pelagian the ideology is and why it is insufficient for society. For we are expected to cooperate with grace, but we are not to think ourselves of capable of doing all things ourselves. What we do is important, but we are more than what we do thanks to grace, and without grace, we would be spiritually impoverished indeed. All those who demean the impoverished and say they should earn their way up the social ladder must see that their judgment against the poor will be rendered back to them in their spiritual poverty. They will be able to work their way up the spiritual ladder without \u201chand-outs,\u201d and so if they realize how they are able to get out of spiritual poverty is through a \u201chand up,\u201d then they must realize the practical ramification of this in the material sphere. Those who are impoverished will never be able to work their way out of poverty without society working for them, giving them economic grace, because the debt they find themselves it will undermine all their accomplishment and destroy them as they try to rise up entirely on their own. Social justice, therefore, is merely the continuation of the way of grace and how it works, bringing the spiritual grace into action into the social sphere, and to deny it is to deny the reality of the human condition itself, a reality which is we cannot do all things ourselves.<\/p>\n The Church, therefore, rightfully proclaims: \u201cChristian love leads to denunciation, proposals and a commitment to cultural and social projects; it prompts positive activity that inspires all who sincerely have the good of man at heart to make their contribution<\/em>. Humanity is coming to understand ever more clearly that it is linked by one sole destiny that requires joint acceptance of responsibility, a responsibility inspired by an integral and shared humanism.\u201d[4]<\/a> This is what social justice is about. It is about love, and since God is a God of love, social justice must forever be a core teaching of the Christian faith.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> St. Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah <\/em>in Jerome: Commentary on Isaiah; Origen: Homilies 1-9 on Isaiah. <\/em>trans. Thomas P. Check (New York: The Newman Press, 2015), 707.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Patriarch Bartholomew, Encountering the Mystery <\/em>(New York: Doubleday, 2008), 147.<\/p>\n![\"By](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/637\/2017\/01\/Anthony_van_Dyck_-_Saint_Jerome_-_Google_Art_Project-242x300.jpg\")
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