The first semester of school year 2010-2011 I had a wonderful class of student theologians in the University of Santo Tomas, Manila: 38 students from different seminaries in the country and from various religious congregations of men and of women. Our subject of study was The Virtue of Justice in Christian Perspective.
After giving a panoramic view of justice – and injustice – today, we studied together the development of justice. In the first part of the course, the professor presented the biblical teachings on justice, the doctrines of the Fathers of the Church, the classical theology of justice from St. Thomas Aquinas, the social doctrine of the Church on justice and the current developments on justice. In the second part, the students analyzed various concrete themes of justice/injustice in our world: the marginalized (children, women, the elderly, and immigrants), violence and non-violence, the injustices of wars, the cultures of life and of death, justice and the Eucharist. The professor closed the course on justice by presenting other social virtues, including the virtues of truthfulness, gratitude, and frugality.
Among the questions for the final exams, the last one was the following: Has the treatise of justice influenced you in any way? Please write your answer. The answers of the young student theologians are enlightening and relevant for Christians, who are asked by St. Paul the Apostle to be “ministers of justice.†Let me share with you the most common answers and comments of my students.
Three of the most common answers refer to the biblical teachings on justice, particularly of the prophets and of the prophet Jesus. The teachings of the Bible on justice are on justice/love: no full justice without love, no true love without justice – and no authentic prayer without justice/love. On unconditional justice/love for all! In particular, justice and love for the oppressed, marginalized and poor.
From the Old Testament many students quoted in their answer to the final question the well known text from the prophet Micah: “This is what Yahweh asks of you: to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with the Lord†(Mi 6:8). From the New Testament, students remembered above all the parable of the Last Judgment, in particular these words: “Then the King will say to those on his right: ‘Come…, take for your heritage the Kingdom prepared for you… For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you made me welcome; naked and you clothe me; sick and you visited me; in prison and you came to visit me…’ I assure you, as often as you did it for one of my least brothers, you did it to me†(Mt 25: 31:40). The justice Jesus practiced and taught is fraternal or charitable justice, which is the justice of the Father of the prodigal son, a justice quite different from the justice of the elder son (Lk 15:11-32). It is also the justice of the owner of the vineyard who hired workers at dawn and through the day, and then pays the same salary to all the workers hired, regardless of the number of hours working in his vineyard (Mt 20:1-16).
After reflecting on the teachings of the Sacred Scriptures, we move to the teachings of the best representatives of Christian Tradition, the Fathers of the Church. We focused on the most important four Fathers on justice: the Greek Fathers Sts. Basil and John Chrysostom, and the Latin Fathers Sts. Ambrose and Augustine. One of the most common teachings of all the Fathers is this: God created the world for all and therefore all – every human being – have a right to a share in the goods of the earth. The text that surprised my students most was the following text of St. Basil (330-379), monk and pastor of the Church: “He who takes the clothes from a man is a thief. He who does not clothe the indigent when he can, does he deserve another name but thief? The bread that you keep belongs to the hungry; to the naked, the coat that you hide in your wardrobe; to the shoeless, the shoes that are dusty at you home; to the wretched, the silver that you hide. In brief, you offend all those who can be helped by you.â€
On our journey of the development of justice we made a stop to visit St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), the common doctor of the Church and still, according to Vatican II, guide and exemplar for theologians today. St Thomas studies justice as one of the four cardinal virtues (with prudence, fortitude and temperance). Justice is a good habit, a social virtue that inclines us to give to each person what is due to him or to her. The most radical teaching of St. Thomas is his distinction between common and private property. Common property (community of goods) refers to the natural right of all to have a share in the goods created by God for all, while private property (individual appropriation) refers to the positive right of individuals to own something not only for their own use, but also for the use of others who are in real need. Provocative worlds of the angelic doctor: “The use or administration of the goods of the earth belongs to man. However, “no man is entitled to have things merely for himself, but for all, so that he is ready to share with others in case of needâ€(Summa Theologiae, II-II, 66, 2). St. Thomas adds that “in case of need, everything is in common†(II-II, 66, 7). In case of dire need, to take what is needed is not theft but restitution. St Thomas is also very much in favor of private property, not of a possessive privatizing property but of a property with an essential social dimension. A modern theologian comments: “Private ownership in the matter of the goods of the earth is only secondary and subordinate to common benefit: it exists only as a responsibility and a trust†(Mary O’Driscoll, OP).
After studying St. Thomas Aquinas we went to the Magisterium of the social doctrine of the Church on justice. The students presented the most relevant social documents of the Church on the matter: The 1971 Synod of Bishops’ Justice in the World, the teachings of Vatican II, of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and of the great social encyclicals, in particular, Leo XIII Rerum Novarum (1891), John XXIII Pacem in Terris (1963), John Paul II Laborem Exercens (1981), and Benedict XVI Deus Caritas Est (2005) and Caritas in Veritate (2009). Thereafter, we pointed out the social teachings of the Philippine Church, in particular of PCP II and of the Catechism for Filipino Catholics. We also reflected on – and this heightened my students’ attention – the social teachings which ground theologically Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales’ popular Pondo ng Pinoy.
We find in the social teachings of the universal Church and of the local Church the radical teachings of the Bible, the Fathers of the Church and St. Thomas Aquinas expressed in the relationship between justice and love, and in the principle of the universal destination of the goods of the earth, which is closely connected with two other basic principles, namely the principle of solidarity and the principle of the preferential love for the poor (see Vatican II, GS, 69).
On the relationship and close connection between justice and charity, some students recalled a text of Benedict XVI: “The just ordering of society and the State is a central responsibility of politics. As Augustine once said, a State which is not governed according to justice would be just a bunch of thieves… Love will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. There is no ordering of the State so just that is can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbor is indispensable†(Deus Caritas Est, no. 28).
In this context, we underlined the need and beauty of almsgiving, that is, of authentic almsgiving: an act of true love that necessarily implies justice. Almsgiving without justice is a cover up of injustice. Words to ponder: “Works of charity (almsgiving without justice) are in effect a way for the rich to shrink their obligation to work for justice and a means of soothing their consciences, while preserving their own status and robbing the poor of their rights†(Benedict XVI, DCE, 26).
We rounded up our treatise on justice with a brief reflection on other social virtues, including truthfulness, gratitude, affability, generosity and frugality. Students remembered – and quoted correctly – two lovely texts: one, on gratitude; another on frugality (the disposition to be able to live with less). On the lovely virtue of gratitude: “When drinking water, remember its source†(Oriental saying). On the virtue of frugality or austerity: “Let us live simply so that others might simply live†(Canadian Bishops).
In our conclusion we pointed out the new way of understanding justice: not only as the virtue that inclines us to give to others what is their due, but also to give to others – to all others – their dignity and rights. In this context, my students underlined with John XXIII the need to speak not only of rights but also of duties, which are the correlative of rights. Our duty is to respect the rights of all, in particular of those who at the practical level do not yet have rights, such as children, women, the elderly and immigrants.
Let me close with another point repeated by my students in their final exam on justice: the day-to-day practice of justice. In fact, this is what matters most. After all, we study ethics or moral theology to be ethical and good Christians. One of the characters created by novelist André Brink says: “There are only two kinds of madness we should guard against: one is the belief that we can do everything; the other is the belief that we can do nothing.†We can and ought to do something: to be just and spread justice around us. As members of the human family, as brothers and sisters to one another we can light a candle. We can be just every day in our relationships with others. We can contribute a grain of sand in the peaceful struggle for more justice and solidarity in our world, in our societies, in our communities and, above all, in our souls. Indeed, “Acquire inner peace and thousands around you will find liberation.â€
FR. FAUSTO GOMEZ BERLANA, OP
Macau, December 2010