Social Justice

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The journey of identifying the opponents of justice, which are hiding under the shadow of development, seems to be tricky. The document “Justice in the World” (JW) was shortly issued by the 1971 synod, [just a few months after Octogesima Adveniens (EN) issued in May 1971], showed a shift of understanding or disagreement within the Church in some controversial aspects of social justice. “Structural injustice” is identified as “a network of domination, oppression, and abuses” (JW 3) and “international systems” of domination (JW 13). I like the way that the document puts, “Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world [... is] a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel” (JW 6, emphasis added). Although the term “constitutive” caused …show more content…

Octogesima Adveniens, “Justice in the World,” and Evangelii Nuntiandi guide us to look through the oppressive situations which were caused by rapid economic growth. In fact, the development of richer countries has exploited the earth and other poorer countries. Poverty and oppression will not stop if “the new industrial and technological order ‘favors the concentration of wealth, power, and decision-making in the hands of a small public or private group’” (JW 9). In this situation, Catholic social teaching (CST) becomes an awakening voice amid social problems because of the robust relationship between faith and justice. According to Thomas Massaro, CST can be “applied as a yardstick to measure the moral achievements and ethical deficits of any economic system.” He also notes that CST affirms ethical values and the Church’s commitments to social justice, but to provide a practical guidance for each social issue is not always possible because of the complexity of social policies and

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