Social Justice Isn't What You Think It Is

by Michael Novak

  10.Geach, The Virtues, 80.

  11.Benedict XVI, God is Love: Deus Caritas Est (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 86.

  12.McCloskey, Bourgeois Virtues, 91.

  13.Christopher Kaczor, Thomas Aquinas on Faith, Hope, and Love; see also Geach, The Virtues.

  14.David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009); Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996); Rodney Stark, The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World’s Largest Religion (New York: Harper One, 2011).

  15.Thomas C. Oden, The Good Works Reader (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2007).

  16.See Stark’s works cited in n. 14, above.

  17.David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions.

  18.Ibid.

  19.As quoted in Stark, The Rise of Christianity, 84.

  20.Benedict XVI, God Is Love; Hart, Atheist Delusions; Stark, The Rise of Christianity, and also The Triumph of Christianity.

  21.Hart, Atheist Delusions.

  22.As found ibid., 192.

  23.See Ramsay MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981); and Louis Markos, From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics (Downer Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2007).

  24.See Edwin A. Judge, “The Quest for Mercy in Late Antiquity,” in God Who is Rich in Mercy: Essays Presented to D. B. Knox, ed. Peter T. O’Brien and David G. Peterson (Sydney: MacQuarie University Press, 1986), 107–21; and Stark, The Triumph of Christianity.

  25.See Gavan Daws, Holy Man (New York: Harper & Row, 1989); and Matthew Bunson and Margaret Bunson, St. Damien of Molokai: Apostle of the Exiled (Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, 2009).

  26.“Solidarity with South Sudan,” accessed December 10, 2013: http://www.solidarityssudan.org; and Nicholas D. Kristof, “A Church Mary Can Love,” New York Times (April 17, 2010), accessed July 10, 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/opinion/18kristof.html?hp; and also, Nicholas D. Kristof, “Who Can Mock this Church?” New York Times (May 1, 2010), accessed July 10, 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/opinion/02kristof.html.

  27.Benedict XVI, God Is Love.

  28.Ibid.

  29.For discussion of the contemporaneous shift in scientific work from clerical avocation—e.g., Copernicus, Mendel—to freestanding secular profession in the late nineteenth century, see James Hannam, “Modern Science’s Christian Sources,” First Things (October 2011): 47–51.

  30.James Leiby, A History of Social Welfare and Social Work in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978).

  31.Ibid.

  32.Bernard Bro, Saint Therese of Lisieux: Her Family, Her God, Her Message (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003).

  33.1 Corinthians 13:2–3.

  34.Leiby, A History of Social Welfare.

  35.National Association of Social Workers, NASW Code of Ethics (1999; Washington, D.C.: National Association of Social Workers, 2008). Available online at: http:/www.socialworkers.org/pubs/code/code.asp.

  36.David Hodge, “Value Differences between Social Workers and Members of the Working and Middle Classes,” Social Work 48, no. 1 (2003): 107–19.

  37.John Boyle O’Reilly, “In Bohemia,” in In Bohemia (Boston: The Pilot Publishing Co., 1886), 14–15.

  38.As found in Kathleen Woodroofe, From Charity to Social Work: In England and the United States (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), 55.

  39.Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, §22.

  40.Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Justice, Not Charity: Social Work through the Eyes of Faith,” Social Work and Christianity 33, no. 2 (2006): 123–40.

  41.Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010); and Justice in Love, Emory University Studies in Law and Religion (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2011).

  42.Jonathan Gruber and Daniel M. Hungerman, “Faith-Based Charity and Crows out during the Great Depression,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 11332, Cambridge, Mass.

  43.Wolterstorff, “Justice, Not Charity,” 135.

  44.Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (New York: Random House, 2005).

  45.Ibid., 72.

  Chapter 20. Charity Needs Caritas—So Does Social Justice

  1.Cited by Josef Pieper, Faith, Hope, Love (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 151.

  2.Robert D. Lupton, Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) (New York: Harper One, 2011).

  3.See McKnight, The Careless Society; Lupton, Toxic Charity; Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2012).

  4.Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q. 23, a. 6.

  5.Aquinas, Commentary on 1 Corinthians 13, n. 760.

  6.See Matthew 25; Luke 16:19–31.

  7.Feser, “Social Justice Reconsidered.”

  8.Benedict XVI, God Is Love.

  9.Ibid., §69.

  10.Peter L. Berger and Richard John Neuhaus, To Empower People: From State to Civil Society, 2nd ed., ed. Michael Novak (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute Press, 1996).

  11.Benedict XVI, God Is Love, §69.

  12.Ibid., §79.

  13.Ibid., §81.

  14.Roger Scruton, The Uses of Pessimism: And the Danger of False Hope (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

  15.Benedict XVI, God Is Love, §88.

  16.Paul Adams and Kristine Nelson, Reinventing Human Services: Community- and Family-centered Practice (Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1995); Gale Burford and Paul Adams, “Restorative Justice, Responsive Regulation and Social Work,” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 31, no. 1 (2004): 7–26; McKnight, The Careless Society.

  17.Charles J. Chaput, “Protecting the Church’s Freedom in Colorado,” First Things (February 6, 2008), accessed February 7, 2008: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=966; Charles J. Chaput, “A Charitable Endeavor,” First Things no. 197 (November 2009): 25–29.

  18.Brian C. Anderson, “How Catholic Charities Lost Its Soul,” City Journal (Winter 2000), accessed September 10, 2009: http://www.city-journal.org/printable.php?id=566; Chaput, “A Charitable Endeavor.”

  19.Chaput, “A Charitable Endeavor,” 29.

  20.Benedict XVI, God Is Love, §79.

  21.See Adams, “Ethics with Character”; Drisko, “Common Factors in Psychotherapy Outcomes”; Wampold, The Great Psychotherapy Debate.

  22.Benedict XVI, God Is Love, §85.

  23.Ibid., §87.

  24.Ibid., §88.

  25.Ibid., §90.

  26.Matthew 25:40.

  27.Robert Barron, The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2002).

  28.Dorothy Day, The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, ed. Robert Ellsberg (New York: Image, 2011).

  29.Jean Pierre De Cassaude, S.J., Abandonment to Divine Providence (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011).

  30.Matthew 5:48.

  31.Benedict XVI, “On Everyone’s Call to be a Saint,” General Audience in Saint Peter’s Square (April 4, 2011), accessed November 21, 2011: http://www.zenit.org/article-32316?1=english.

  Epilogue. Social Justice: In the Vast Social Space between the Person and the State

  1.The term “excessive individualism” indicates that there is a bad form of individualism, as well as a good form. Tocqueville called attention to the latter under the term “self-interest rightly understood,” as when one person takes responsibility for doing his duty, and another shows initiative and creativity in helping a society find its way out of distress. No one should attack individualism in an undifferentiated way. See Democracy in Amer
ica, vol. 2, part 2, chapter 8: “The American moralists do not profess that men ought to sacrifice themselves for their fellow-creatures because it is noble to make such sacrifices; but they boldly aver that such sacrifices are as necessary to him who imposes them upon himself as to him for whose sake they are made. They have found out that in their country and their age man is brought home to himself by an irresistible force; and losing all hope of stopping that force, they turn all their thoughts to the direction of it. They therefore do not deny that every man may follow his own interest; but they endeavor to prove that it is the interest of every man to be virtuous.”

  2.Edmund Pellegrino and D. C. Thomasma, The Virtues in Medical Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); see also Edmund Pellegrino, The Philosophy of Medicine Reborn: A Pellegrino Reader.

  3.Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry.

  4.Justin Oakley and Dean Cocking, Virtue Ethics and Professional Roles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

  5.Paul Adams, “Ethics with Character.” This 2009 article was the first in many decades in the American social-work literature to offer a serious discussion of the virtues and virtue ethics. Elizabeth Anscombe’s devastating critique of Kantian and utilitarian ethics had been published in 1957, and Alasdair MacIntyre’s path-breaking and influential study, After Virtue, in 1981. See G. E. M. Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy.”

  6.Paul Adams, “Children as Contributions in Kind: Social Security and Family Policy,” Social Work 35, no. 6 (1990): 492–98.

  7.The image is from Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poem “The Windhover.”

  INDEX

  abortion, 36, 158, 205, 206, 231, 238, 304n41, 304n42; as matter of conscience, 208–9, 215; Progressives and, 33, 35. See also birth control; rights: reproductive

  Acton, Lord, 53, 69

  Adams, John, 68, 176

  Adams, Paul, 16, 28, 93, 154, 156, 197, 199, 233

  Aeterni Patris (Leo XIII, 1879), 93

  agriculture, 18, 19, 22, 60, 75, 85, 97; agrarianism and, 95, 97, 174; economics and, 166, 263; progress in, 106, 263

  Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), 51–52

  almsgiving, 175, 259, 260, 261–62, 265, 267. See also charity

  Alvaré, Helen, 206, 231

  America, Americans, 18, 20, 31, 51, 72, 76, 84, 128, 147, 173, 206, 214, 224; associations and, 119; capitalism and, 165, 166, 168; Catholic social thought and, 121–38, 151; Centesimus Annus and, 149; civil rights and, 34, 35, 284; communitarianism in, 175, 176; democracy and, 3, 26, 28, 216; economics and, 114, 141, 263; as experiment, 4, 20, 176; founding of, 10, 22, 26, 27; freedom and, 18, 67, 141; immigrants to, 22, 23; individualism and, 113, 117, 311n1; liberalism and, 104, 151; poverty in, 24, 36, 75, 97, 169; Progressive elites in, 33, 34; religion and, 18, 67, 104; welfare in, 33, 52, 240. See also United States

  Anderson, Ryan, 230

  Andreotti, Giulio, 173

  Antiochus IV Epiphanes, 212, 218

  Argentina, Argentines, 161, 163, 166, 167, 168, 171, 239

  Aristotle, 7, 20, 30, 108, 118, 119, 183, 184, 224, 235, 254, 273, 279; on common good, 31; on man as political, 43, 92, 93; on natural beings, 56; on private property, 71; on roots of social justice, 19, 39; on virtue, 137

  associationism, associations: Aquinas on, 69, 70; democracy and, 27, 53–54; John Paul II and, 28, 71; right of, 69–71; voluntary, 175; virtue of, 21–24, 25, 50

  atheism, atheists, 2, 29, 37, 67, 80, 256, 275, 284

  Atlas Foundation, 52–53

  Augustine, Saint, 85, 157, 187, 190, 224

  Ave Maria, Florida, 4, 232–34

  Ave Maria University, 4, 232

  Bangladesh, 116, 160, 238–39

  Beatitudes, 2, 16

  Benedict XVI, 9, 28, 66, 88, 264; on caritas, 56, 255, 267; Caritas in Veritate, 156–60, 264; Deus Caritas Est, 56, 169. See also Ratzinger, Joseph Aloisius

  Benestad, J. Brian, 223, 235, 246

  Bentham, Jeremy, 95, 165

  Berlin Wall, 138, 173

  birth control, 35, 206. See also abortion; rights: reproductive

  blacks, 34–35, 52, 76, 220, 284

  Braithwaite, John, 242, 244, 247–48, 250

  Brazil, 123, 144, 153, 164, 167

  bureaucracy, government, 24, 39, 192, 239, 267, 272. See also government; state, the

  Burke, Thomas Patrick, 9, 90, 91, 288n16, 295n8

  Cain and Abel, 57

  Calvez, Jean-Yves, 89, 90, 92

  Camus, Albert, 57, 179

  Canada, 203, 217

  capitalism, capitalists, 8, 22, 26, 34, 105, 166; Centesimus Annus and, 62, 139–55; democratic, 2, 3, 4, 129; as economic system, 8–9, 47, 97, 107, 134, 160, 174, 292n21; Francis on, 161–71; John Paul II and, 129, 132–35, 173

  Caritapolis, 178–79, 284–86

  caritas, 56–58, 169, 178–79, 201, 255–56, 259, 260, 267, 284–86, 294n3; Benedict XVI and, 156–60, 264, 269; as greatest gift of Holy Spirit, 254; solidarity and, 71, 84; as theological virtue, 10, 254, 265–66, 269. See also charity

  Caritas in Veritate (Benedict XVI, 2009), 156–60

  Carter, Jimmy, 75–76

  Catholic Charities, 216, 258

  Catholic Relief Services, 258

  Catholic social teaching, 2, 4, 8, 31, 58, 160, 179, 195, 217, 246; collectivism and, 201, 245; concern for poor in, 6–7; individualism and, 201, 245; John Paul II and, 122, 171; principles of, 54, 55–88, 255; rights in, 55–77; social justice in, 9, 31, 55, 87–88; 219; as theological specialization, 172–73; as work in progress, 5, 6

  Catholic tradition, 3, 9, 31, 88, 139, 209, 210

  Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 240, 278

  Centesimus Annus (John Paul II, 1991), 28, 83, 85, 127, 129, 132, 156, 157, 173; on capitalism, 139–55; on dignity of labor, 62–63, 76, 87; Gaudium et Spes in, 7–8; on human capital, 40, 62–63, 142, 152, 153, 178; inner logic of, 134; on marginalization, 161–62; outline of, 133–34; quoted, 62, 63–64, 80, 83, 85, 87, 135, 136, 140, 143, 144, 145, 147, 152, 153, 162; Rerum Novarum and, 5, 80, 133; on socialism, 135–36; on solidarity, 83, 138

  character, 246, 255; imperfection of, 246, 257; inner, 31, 71; social justice and, 24, 274; of social worker, 246, 253, 270, 280; unique personal, 177, 235; virtue and, 20–21, 90

  charity, 134, 259, 268, 279; as caritas, 10, 58, 160, 265–72; justice and, 200, 201, 252–64; social, 2, 10, 15, 87, 107, 114; as theological virtue, 10, 16, 160, 277. See also almsgiving; caritas

  Charity Organization Societies (COS), 230, 259–61, 267

  Charles, Rodger, S.J., 89, 92

  checks and balances, 26, 28

  child protection, 228, 280; Child Protective Services (CPS) and, 241, 246, 248; patch and, 240–41; state and, 10, 243, 244; welfare and, 10, 249

  Chile, 64, 73, 147, 164

  China, 61, 73, 123, 164, 168, 263

  Christian Democratic party, 120, 173

  Christianity, Christians, 16, 51, 175; care for pagans during plagues, 256–57, 258; concern for poor, 6–7; conscience and worship and, 68–69; human story in, 56, 57, 62

  citizenship, citizens, 20, 23, 30, 32, 41, 50, 103; subjects vs., 3, 22

  City of God, 58, 85, 155, 158, 284

  City of Man (Human City), 50, 52, 155, 158

  civil rights, 34–35, 282, 284

  civil society, 50, 82, 93, 95, 101, 102, 107, 118, 120, 146, 159, 216, 234, 236; associations and, 23, 156, 225, 230, 237; Centesimus Annus and, 151, 154; collectivism and, 245, 281; conscience and, 200–203, 216; economy and, 27, 239; empowerment and, 154; Family Group Conferencing and, 250, 277, 280; government vs., 139, 146, 239, 280, 281; individuals and, 175, 245, 281; marriage and, 228, 230–31, 236; as mediating structure, 219, 228, 280; professionals and, 214, 245, 251; social justice required for, 2, 237, 281

  collectivism, 9, 275, 276; individualism vs., 200–203, 218, 245, 281

  colleges and universities, 23, 70, 176, 204, 221–22, 260–61; Catholic, 4, 16, 109, 130, 172, 206, 232–33

  C
olombia, 153, 164

  command economy, 43, 293n26. See also state, the

  common good, 9, 31–34, 74, 103, 117, 151, 157, 159, 167, 178, 188, 216, 234; associations and, 50, 70, 283; Beatitudes and, 2–3; conscience and, 211, 218; contributions to, 74, 79, 103; economic systems and, 116, 296n30; John Paul II and, 136, 137, 142; justice and, 235, 266; personal responsibility and property and, 73, 74, 79, 196; as principle of Catholic social teaching, 58–60, 85, 160; socialism and, 102, 120; social justice and, 36, 92, 95, 116, 196, 197, 219, 225, 237, 238, 246, 266, 295n8; societies and, 22, 23, 82, 83, 149, 170, 228, 274; social work professionals and, 235, 245, 277, 278, 280

  Communism, Communists, 32, 38, 86, 104, 120, 140, 175; European, 4, 164; John Paul II and, 5, 185; Leo XIII and, 105, 108; Pius XI and, 113, 114; Poland and, 84, 130; revolution of, 173; Russian, 5, 155; social justice and, 19, 87

  compassion, 25, 29, 35–36, 51, 59, 77, 184, 277, 284

  conscience, 68, 69, 80, 176, 203, 204, 209–12, 217–18; coercion and, 67, 202, 205, 211, 214, 216; easing of, 7, 33; exemptions for, 202, 207–9, 213–16; Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate and, 206, 211; liberty of, 130, 131, 170; right of, 10, 66–69, 200; sin and, 181, 195; social justice and, 200–18; trivialization of, 203–8, 211

  creation theology, 177–79

  creativity, 61–63

  cultural capital, 138

  Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, 256, 272

  Damien of Molokai, Saint, 258, 269, 271, 272

  Day, Dorothy, 271–72

  Declaration of Independence, 284

  democracy, 26–27, 32, 53, 87, 92, 173; associations and, 27, 53–54; democratic capitalism and, 2–4; democratic socialism and, 96; Pius XII on, 28; religion and, 17–18; in republics, 22, 27

  de Soto, Hernando, 146, 191, 239, 263

  Deus Caritas Est (Benedict XVI, 2005): church independent of state in, 66; God’s love in, 56, 169; guidance to social workers in, 269

  Deuteronomy, 68

  developing nations, 4, 61. See also Third World

  Dignitatis Humanae (Vatican II, 1965), 122