Feb 26, 2022
We are living in a time in the Church when social justice seems to be at the forefront of everyone’s mind, and I think this is largely the result of the emphasis of Pope Francis who has made talking about the needs of the poor a priority. But one thing that is true of a crisis is that it will test the sincerity of certain beliefs and how committed people are to them, especially if it starts to cost them something and I would say recent events did just that. And it makes me wonder that for the people who talk about social justice the most, do they actually understand what the Church even teaches about social justice and even if they do, are they sincere when they rehearse those concepts in conversations that will portray them as those most committed to the needs of the poor? Whenever you explore Catholic social teaching, you will inevitably collide with the concepts of solidarity and subsidiarity and many respectable commentators and instructors on the subject will point out that if you ever want to evaluate and compare some system or fabric of society for its compatibility with Catholic social teaching, you should look to see if they get these two things right.