Dear St. Rita Parishioners,
Moving into the years of the Second Vatican Council and beyond, Catholic Social Teaching grew from the merely global to the international, meaning that it began to focus on the relations between nation-states and not just on their individual governance. The language of “truth, justice, love, and freedom” (MH 33) becomes much more prevalent, and the Church doubled down, so to speak, on Her desire to protect those who are most affected the most by the human structures set up by governments for the sake of their own nations. Her desire has been to infuse concern for the poor and marginalized into the civil and economic structures of nations, so that they are not forgotten and so that all have the greatest opportunity to discover Christ’s Gospel of Salvation.
There is a tension, admittedly, in the hearts of many Catholics as they ponder and reflect on Catholic Social Teaching, and that tension is rooted in the fact that much of CST comments on and directs political and economic activity and does not seem to speak much of God. Even the explanation of the history of CST in Magnifica Humanitas hardly mentions God at all. Thus, to some, it can feel like the Church appears to be abandoning the vertical dimension for the sake of the horizontal.
This perception is one to be taken seriously. For example, Pope Leo indicates in the encyclical that “the truest response to the love of the heart of Jesus is concrete love for our brothers and sisters” (MH 44). Taken one way, this statement *could* suggest that I ought to forget loving Jesus Himself and focus only on my neighbor. This would be a reversal of the two greatest commandments; it would place love of neighbor above love of God; it would be tantamount to Judas complaining that the oil poured over Jesus’ feet at Bethany should have been sold and given to the poor (cf. Jn 12:1-8). And we would be naïve and wrong to deny that there are people who want to read CST in this way. It is a particular pitfall of the global social justice movement that Catholics must guard against, lest they betray Jesus once again.
On the other hand, to respond to the Love of the Heart of Jesus is to admit that that Love has penetrated my own heart. It means that for love of neighbor to begin or to continue in any meaningful way, one must be rooted in the Love of the Heart of Jesus. This is one reason that Mother Teresa established a requirement of an hour of Eucharistic Adoration daily for her sisters. Her constant admonition to see Jesus “in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor” was a concrete living out of Our Lord’s words, “Whenever you did it to the least of my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).
The point is simple enough: Do not reduce Catholic Social Teaching to a godless social justice. It is not and never can be. But the flip side is also true: Do not discard Catholic Social Teaching because its pitfall is a godless social justice. Focusing on truth and worship/liturgy alone likewise has its pitfalls, and the Lord calls out the Pharisees for them: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith” (Mt 23:23). Interestingly as well, Judas went to the Pharisees to betray Jesus. Both excesses work together against Our Lord.
No matter, then, what others do regarding CST. You, as a faithful Catholic, bring your love of God into CST. You live out CST within and because of your love of God. And, while everyone else calls it social justice, I prefer the term “social mercy.” It was not in justice towards me that God became man and saved me from my sin. It was Divine Mercy, because I did not merit it or deserve it because of my actions. Many of the poor in our society have not merited by their actions our assistance or our help, but that does not mean that we withhold it. We, rather, recognize their inherent human dignity, and we seek to show them the mercy that God showed to us.
In Christ,
Fr. Christensen