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Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

CONFESSIONS
May 2006

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SUSPICIOUS SOCIAL JUSTICE TYPES

Not long ago, I spoke with one of the people behind the Busted Halo website. I had written a piece for him on my devotion to the Eucharist. "Among young Catholics," he told me, "there are only two groups with any energy. People who are into the new orthodoxy, like you, and people who are really serious about the social justice thing -- going overseas to give aid, that kind of thing."

It is, I suppose, sad that such a distinction exists. After all, "the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself." The Gospels are full of exhortations to care for others, particularly the poor (as the "social justice" types are wont to point out, and rightly so), just as they are full of exhortations to obedience and holiness and self-denial (as the "new orthodoxy" types are wont to point out, and rightly so). The two are bound up with one another. You cannot love God and hate your neighbor. You cannot even love God and neglect your neighbor -- "Lord, when did we see you hungry?" et cetera.

But the distinction exists, all the same -- in my own heart, at least. If I am honest with myself, I must admit that I am suspicious of the social-justice types. Too often, I see them lump abortion in with the death penalty and the question of war in a manner that produces statements like this: "If you were really pro-life, you'd be out protesting these things as well. Since you're not, you're not really pro-life, and so you have no business fighting abortion."

Even if the notion of the seamless garment holds true, this is nonsense. Never mind that the Church seems to make a clear distinction -- taking part in war or legal execution does not incur latae sententiae excommunication; taking part in an abortion does. Never mind the numbers involved -- 4,000 dead per day in the clinics, in this country alone. It simply doesn't follow.

For my part, I would never suggest that someone protesting the war didn't care about the slaughter of the unborn, simply because they weren't out in front of a clinic every Saturday. You go where you're called; you do what you can. Taking action against one evil and not another does not indicate indifference toward that other. Ditto the line, "You don't care about what happens to the babies after they're born, so you have no business fighting abortion." The common response to this is, "Well, in fact, people deep in the pro-life movement tend to be the most active in trying to provide alternatives and helpful care." San Diego's own Culture of Life Family Services seems to be a pretty good case in point -- fighting abortion by providing whole-person care for pregnant mothers and their children, born and unborn. But even if "pro-lifers" weren't all that active in caring for babies after they were born -- an abortion prevented is a life saved, and that is a real, and arguably primary, good.

My suspicion goes deeper. I understand the Church's interest in economic structures. I admit to my own "liberal outrage" regarding the exploitation of workers, the erosion of the middle class, rampant consumerism, et cetera. But I am suspicious; when I start to hear a lot of talk about economics from the social justice types, I start to wonder if economic good has become the primary good -- if the material world has trumped the spiritual.

Please don't imagine that I regard my suspicion as a good thing. At best, it's divisive, even if it is sometimes justified. At worst, it's poisonous, discounting genuine goods because of what might lie behind them. It spills over into a suspicion of the communal life of the Church -- or at least, an emphasis on it. A while back, I took part in a Eucharistic procession all around Little Italy. "What a marvelous communal witness," I thought to myself as we walked, singing, behind the monstrance. But if the procession hadn't been tied up with the Eucharist, would I have attended? Or would I have held fast to my usual attitude of "get in, get Jesus, get out"?

This is my temperament -- community is not to my tastes. I'm like a friend of mine, who said she really valued the anonymity her church experience afforded her. She wasn't there to deal with her neighbors; she was there to worship God. But whoever said that Christianity ought to be to my tastes? And isn't community in some way essential to Christianity?

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