This morning I came across Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus: Catholic Social Teaching at Work Today that’s a great “cheat sheet” on Catholic Social Teaching and the biblical issues of charity and justice. It’s part of the basic catechism of the Catholic church and one of the greatest gifts we Catholics have to offer the rest of the world. It’s a great thing to hand out at church. Here’s an excerpt:
CHARITYAND JUSTICE
There are a number of ways that we can walk in the footsteps of Jesus today. We can help in a soup kitchen, visit someone in prison, or help resettle a refugee family. We can contact legislators, work for peace, or support a local community organization that empowers low-income people to address issues that impact them. These examples illustrate two distinct yet complementary ways to put Catholic social teaching into practice: charity and justice.These two types of responses have been called the two “feet” of Christian service. We need both feet—charity and justice—to walk the walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
Catholic social teaching calls us to both charity and justice. Charity meets the immediate needs of persons and families; but charity alone does not change social structures that attack human dignity, oppress people, and contribute to poverty. Pursuing social justice helps us change oppressive social structures; but we cannot ignore the urgent needs of persons while we work for social change.
Charity and justice are incomplete without each other; they are two sides of the same coin. Charity calls forth a generous response from individuals; justice requires concerted communal action to transform institutional policies, societal laws, or unjust social situations. With our emphasis on individualism, we Americans tend to emphasize charity over justice. The challenge for Catholics is to appreciate the demands of both charity and justice.
Read the whole thing here.
Catholic Social Teaching is often referred to as the “best kept secret” in the Catholic Church. It’s even a secret from Catholics and many priests! But it provides some of the most strenuous theological ethics available to all Christians for teaching values, ethics, and moral reasoning. While many denominations – including Catholics – teach church goers the “do’s and don’t’s” of Christian morality, too few teach the roots or values behind the “law.” And in the moral quagmire of today’s world – where the decision of one individual can have global consequences – it is more important than ever to teach moral reasoning, not just moral outcomes.
On “Wallking in the Footsteps of Christ” and the numerous articles on immigration by Jim Wallis…I fail to see either Charity or Justice in advocating for persons to come here to be used for cheap labor.
I remember the rancor of those in the Vineyards when the last laborer was paid the same as the one with tenure. The cheap labor supports the owners of the Empire, the workers left poor. It is a great poverty of Spirit that would promote such a thing as charity or justice. In 2014, under ObamaCare, those 65 and older will take part in the biggest lie offered under the guise of Healthcare, as my own Doctor told me, we won’t be able to do anything for that group.
Some of those people are Nuns, they were my teachers.
I cannot recall a time in history when a culture was left without its elders, without its holders of Wisdom, without the keepers of the stories of life, of its good and of its wrongs, of its sins and of its great promise of Salvation. The “Social Sin” is reality when we speak about issues affecting someones elses life, that make US feel Holy and look good, when our own food arrives at our tables by the long hard labor of those who pick it for peanuts. The real problems, the real sin is not out there it is within. Maybe you and Jim Wallis could co-author an article on how you manage to live on $8.50 or even $10.00 an hour, just so this author will know that there is someone on the Path of Christ.