Massimo Faggioli shows how Pope Francis’s desire for justice in the world calls all to focus on doing justice.

One of the signs of our times is a rediscovery of the connection between justice and peace: it’s part of the contemporary discourse on race, society, the economy and the environment.

Pope Francis’s pontificate is focused on justice in order to bring about real, manifest justice in our world — it is more than a theory or an ideology. If we are to understand the role of the Catholic Church today it’s important that we consider Pope Francis’s contribution.

Compared to mercy, Pope Francis uses the term “justice” less often in his writings. It is interesting to note the difference between the background intellectual and socio-political use of “justice” at Vatican II and in Pope Francis’s usage.

Vatican II Recognises Rights

Lus (right) and iustitia (justice) are terms used very frequently in Vatican II, which is a rediscovering moment by the Catholic Church of the sensible concept of “right” and “rights”: especially in the constitution Gaudium et Spes; in the decree on the pastoral ministry of the bishops Christus Dominus; and in the declaration on religious liberty Dignitatis Humanae.

For Vatican II, it is one method towards ending the theological paradigm of political anti-liberalism, which is typical of the “long nineteenth century” reign of Catholicism between the French Revolution and World War II.

There was at Vatican II a newly discovered idea of “rights” with important intra-ecclesial and general ecclesiological consequences, with a very visible acquisition of the Vatican II vocabulary about “justice” and “right.”

Justice and Peace Linked

There is also ius gentium, “law of nations,” in Dignitatis Humanae and Gaudium et Spes, as well as an idea of justice as part of overall human progress: “All that men and women do to obtain greater justice, wider kinship, a more humane disposition of social relationships has greater worth than technical advances” (GS 35).

There is a link between justice and peace in Lumen Gentium, in Dignitatis Humanae and in Gaudium et Spes. There is also a call for secular authorities to “govern in justice” in Gaudium et Spes 34.

Notably, there is also a theological understanding of the difference between God’s justice and human justice in Dignitatis Humanae concerning the paragraph of the declaration on religious liberty explaining the Gospel passage “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Mt 22:21).

Truth and Justice Linked

There is also an interesting link between “truth and justice” in Christus Dominus 11 (quoting Ephesians 5:9: “until finally all women and men walk ‘in all goodness and justice and truth’”).

In Dignitatis Humanae there is a passage about the regard of the Church for the relationship between freedom, truth, and justice:

"This demand for freedom in human society chiefly regards the quest for the values proper to the human spirit. It regards, in the first place, the free exercise of religion in society. This Vatican Council takes careful note of these desires in the minds of men. It proposes to declare them to be greatly in accord with truth and justice. To this end, it searches into the sacred tradition and doctrine of the Church — the treasury out of which the Church continually brings forth new things that are in harmony with the things that are old" (DH par 1).

In Gaudium et Spes truth and justice are part of the birth of a “new humanism”:

"Throughout the whole world there is a mounting increase in the sense of autonomy as well as of responsibility. This is of paramount importance for the spiritual and moral maturity of the human race. This becomes clearer if we consider the unification of the world and the duty which is imposed upon us, that we build a better world based upon truth and justice. Thus we are witnesses of the birth of a new humanism, one in which man is defined first of all by this responsibility to his brothers and to history" (GS par 55).

Mission, Justice and Holiness

Vatican II talks also about the “justice of truth”. In Ad Gentes there is a link between mission, justice and holiness: “Their main duty, whether they are men or women, is the witness which they are bound to bear to Christ by their life and works in the home, in their social milieu, and in their own professional circle. In them, there must appear the new man created according to God in justice and holiness of truth (Eph. 4:24)” (AG par 21).

In the documents of Vatican II there seems to be no discernable tension between right, justice and mercy: this can be interpreted as part of the council’s attempt to give credit to the earthly realities, as well as to the Church’s witness for the progress of justice in this world.

In Gaudium et Spes the idea of “justice” is articulated in terms of social, economic and international justice looking at the possible applicability of Catholic social doctrine to the political realm. It is part of the positive view of Vatican II on the world — positive in the sense of a still limited awareness of the complex relationship and tensions between the law, the Gospel and the world.

Francis Links Justice and Concrete Values

There is a difference between Vatican II and Francis’s use of “justice” and “right”. In this pontificate, the occurrence of “justice” and “right” is in the context of a prophetic denunciation of the existing order and of the social-political consensus.

In Evangelii Gaudium Francis connects justice to the concrete application of other values, such as “justice and inclusiveness in the world”. He explains the Gospel announcing a kingdom of justice: “The Gospel is about the kingdom of God; it is about loving God who reigns in our world. To the extent that God reigns within us, the life of society will be a setting for universal kinship, justice, peace and dignity.”

Church to Practise Justice

There is in Francis a more visible distinctiveness of the Church in the world today and this distinctiveness is also about justice. In Evangelii Gaudium (183), Francis articulates his vision of the relationship between Church and politics to the ordering of society: “If indeed the just ordering of society and of the state is a central responsibility of politics, then the Church cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice” (here quoting Benedict XVI’s encyclical Deus Caritas Est par 183). The Church’s role in the fight for social justice is a recurring theme in Evangelii Gaudium.

Francis keeps the focus on the socio-political realities and their impact on family and marriage in Amoris Laetitia, where a series of tensions is visible: a tension between love and justice (“love can transcend and overflow the demands of justice”); between truth and justice (“It is true, for example, that mercy does not exclude justice and truth, but first and foremost we have to say that mercy is the fullness of justice and the most radiant manifestation of God’s truth”); and between culture and the Christian embodiment of the love command in terms of a fight for justice (“this love [in the family] is called to bind the wounds of the outcast, to foster a culture of encounter and to fight for justice”).

Francis’s approach to the shortcomings of the written human laws are part of a new perception by the papacy of the world of this time. There is no nostalgia of Christendom, and no idealisation about the world of today, especially seen with the eyes of the poor and marginalised. The eyes of the marginalised in today’s world are the eyes with which Francis looks at the law — both the ecclesial law, and civil or secular law.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 251 August 2020: 14-15