In
The Smoke of Satan I quoted Robert Royal on Catholics and "social justice":
If we've learned anything from the past 35
years, it is that the world does not need more social workers and activists who
also happen to say prayers. It desperately needs contemplatives who understand
that their love for God—and the graces they get in prayer—are the source and
guide to their love of neighbor. That was the revolution Vatican II introduced
into the modern world.
Of late Alejandro Chaufen makes a point on Catholic
Social teaching that I share. He writes:
As a thought experiment, let’s
imagine the story of the good Samaritan taking a different twist. Let’s suppose
that the Samaritan, upon spotting the badly wounded man, also sees a rich man
walking by. Let us then suppose that the Samaritan is a big, powerful man who
intimidates the rich man into handing over enough money to pay for the wounded
man’s care. The man in need would still receive the help that he so desperately
needs, but would the Samaritan still touch our heart, and would he have acted
selflessly? Would we remember him as a paragon of Christian virtue and charity?
Jesus had not demanded that the
Samaritan take money from strangers on the street by threat of force. That
wouldn’t feel right, would it?
The obvious difference, of
course, is that in Jesus’ parable, the Samaritan acts voluntarily—out of the
goodness of his own heart—whereas in my hypothetical, counterfeit version, the
Samaritan engages in an ersatz pseudo-charity by forcing someone else to pay
for the good deed that the Samaritan wants to be performed. Is it true charity
to be generous with other people’s money?
This is the murky moral territory
onto which many Christians stray in the name of “social justice” or the social
gospel. The desire to help those in need is laudable, but the means often
employed by advocates of “social justice” are not.
Many Christians commit a
fundamental error when they call for government to redistribute wealth to the
poor, the sick, the needy. Government necessarily introduces the additional
factor of compulsion into the equation, as government employs organized force.
If we wouldn’t justify an
individual collecting funds for the poor by threatening passersby, then how do
we justify government using the threat of fines or imprisonment to extract
property from some to give it to others’ In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “It
is strangely absurd [to suppose] that a million human beings, collected
together, are not under the same moral laws which bind (or liberate) each of
them separately.”
This isn’t to say that no
collective action should be taken to minister to the poor. Indeed, many
churches and various private-sector charities are doing praiseworthy work for
those in need, and they merit our financial support. The common factor, though,
in these nongovernmental organizations is that participation is voluntary.
Nobody compels you to belong to a certain church or contribute to a specific
charitable organization. It is your prerogative and choice.
By all means, be charitable. But
don’t mix charity with compulsion. Jesus never did.
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