Catholic Social Justice

The Christian understanding of justice requires us to live in right relationships with God, each other and with the environment. As overall, God creates all things and gives unity, order and purpose to everything that exists. Because of this we have certain responsibilities to uphold, such as; respecting the rights of each person and also the natural world, building up the common good by establishing harmonious and peaceful human relationships, and promoting equality among all people. In todays world, the Church is particularly concerned about social justice where the identity, value, dignity, and rights of our people are seriously threatened by numerous causes, such as; poverty, bullying, racism, sexism, child labour etc.

Some ethical principles of the Catholic Church that relate to this issue of food insecurity is human dignity. This Catholic social teaching relates to food security as since we are all creations of God, we all need to be treated equally no matter what age,

These ethical principles of the Catholic Church relate to food security as love and justice must be given to the poor and vulnerable for they are our brothers and sisters. We must show them extra love because they are fragile and disadvantaged compared to what we have. The common good refers to decisions and circumstances that are beneficial for all members of the community. As Pope Francis says ‘We need to strengthen the conviction that we are one single humanfamily’- Laudato Si’, #52. From this we are told to stand together so that we can strengthen our bond as brothers and sisters. So to uphold justice, we must care and respect the well-being of all people no matter their race, gender, religion etc. and because justice is based on the principles of equality for all, not just the favoured few, we must respect this