Seeking Clarity Amidst Confusion About Social Justice
Ryan Messmore /
Last night Professor Robbie George of Princeton University appeared on a panel discussing social justice on Glenn Beck’s television show. He offered the following comment about the confusion that’s often present in conversations about social justice:
In the Catholic tradition the concept of social justice has a long history, and an honorable history, and what it refers to is the fair distribution of the benefits and burdens of common life. But what has happened very often [is] … the concept has become corrupted and used as a pretext for advancing what is essentially a … socialist agenda. So I think Catholics have to understand that when you or when we are criticizing “social justice” we don’t mean it in the honorable sense in which it has been used in our tradition. We mean it in the corrupted sense that some people, not all people, use it.