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DA: Documento de Aparecida
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Few ideas arouse so much passion; they consume so much energy, and cause so much controversy; they have much impact on everything- at what people value as idea of justice. Justice brings a host of events and concrete aspects. It is also undeniable that it carries in its very essence an extreme simplicity which allows to discover it in different and in almost all spheres of the person. |
The concept of justice runs through the Old Testament. It does not however talk about an impartial justice in the Western sense: justice conforms to the abstract norm of “giving to each his own” (according to the famous expression of Ulpian, a Roman jurist of the third century). |
In the Bible, justice refers, first and foremost, to a specific context of social relations. Specifically justice means to rescue the victim, to liberate the oppressed. Therefore, it expresses some kind of demand. “He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts up the needy from the ash heap.” Psalm 113, 7-8.
Sedeq (Justice) is supreme and global expression of what is valuable, just and right in the community. It is the Good. Sedeq is the central concept that governs all social relations. It means rectifying situations between individuals and groups; to live according to what the social situation requires. It means, therefore, justice for the oppressed. Sedaqah signifies an act of kindness or compassion. In that sense, it is to liberate the oppressed, to vindicate the orphans, the widows, the immigrants, the poor against their oppressors. God.” He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner.” Dt 10:17-18
Mishpat is often translated by right or justice. It has legal overtones (rule, trial, law, legal process) but these are just extensions of its primary sense: liberating and salvific justice. In fact, what is at the heart of the Torah is to do justice to where there is contrary. Mishpat is associated with love and compassion, since the Bible does not recognize any justice without love and mercy. In the New Testament, Jesus proclaims the Kingdom of God that represents the realization of justice of God (sedeq and mishpat). In fact. Paul, instead of talking about the Kingdom of God, speaks of the justice of God: “The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction.” Rom. 3:22
Mishpat is often translated by right or justice. It has legal overtones (rule, trial, law, legal process) but these are just extensions of its primary sense: liberating and salvific justice. In fact, what is at the heart of the Torah is to do justice to where there is contrary. Mishpat is associated with love and compassion, since the Bible does not recognize any justice without love and mercy. In the New Testament, Jesus proclaims the Kingdom of God that represents the realization of justice of God (sedeq and mishpat). In fact. Paul, instead of talking about the Kingdom of God, speaks of the justice of God: “The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction.” Rom. 3:22
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In the Gospel, Jesus made the righteousness of God in his own person: in his concern for the poor and the marginalized. He shows explicitly what was implicit in the Old Testament: love of neighbour is the supreme law of the sedeq of God and summarizes all other laws. Love is to treat others as one would want himself to be treated” is the foundation and soul of all justice: the rules and principles of justice have to express the demands of love. Those who follow Jesus in this praxis become the righteousness of God present in the world. Jesus becomes the ultimate criterion of what justice is: to do justice is to follow Jesus. The place of justice is the common life. All gaze should look back to this life; that which asks for the fulfilment of virtue—towards the family, social community, nature, social and political relations…Our mission urges us to provide our people with a happy and full life which Jesus brings to each human person, according to the human dignity that God has given. |
We do so with the awareness that this dignity will reach its fullness when God will be all in all. He is the Lord of life and history, conqueror of the mystery of evil and the saving event, that enable us to give true judgment on reality, safeguarding the dignity of persons and peoples. (DA 389b). The Church has a message for all men and women who “hunger and thirst for justice” (Mt. 5:6). The same God who created man in His own image, created the “land and all it contains for all peoples” so that the created goods can reach everyone more fairly” and give them power to jointly transform and perfect the world. It is the same God who, in the fullness of time, sent his Son to become flesh, to liberate all men and women from all slavery, ignorance, hunger, misery, oppression and poverty; in a word, injustice and hatred which have their origin in human selfishness. For our true liberation, we human beings need a profound conversion so that the “kingdom of justice, love and peace” may reign among us. Love, the fundamental law of human perfection, and therefore of the transformation of the world is not only the greatest commandment of the Lord. It is also the dynamism that should lead Christians to realize justice in the world, having truth as a foundation and as a sign of freedom. |
“The Christian quest for justice is a demand in the biblical teaching. All of humanity is a humble administrator of wealth. We believe that love for Christ and our brothers and sisters will not only be the great liberating force of justice and oppression, but also the inspiration for social justice, understood as a concept of life, and as an impulse toward the integral development of persons (Medellin 2, 3-4); to be disciples and missionaries of Jesus Christ so that our people, who have life in him, will lead us to set out evangelically our priority tasks that contribute to the dignity of every human being, from the perspective of the kingdom, and to work together with other citizens and institutions for the good of the human person (DA 389a). A loving mercy to all whose life has been violated in all dimensions, as what our Lord shows in his gestures of mercy, requires us to help in the urgent needs, at the same time to collaborate with other organizations or institutions, to organize more just structures at a national and international sphere. |
There is an urgent need to create structures that could consolidate a political, social and economic order, where there will be no inequality and where there is an opportunity for all. It also requires new structures that promote an authentic human community, preventing the arrogance of some, and facilitate a constructive dialogue for the necessary social consensus. (DA, 384)
Fr. Francisco Palau lived tough times like our own; he got hold again of the prophetic sense to demand justice for himself, from the vocational commitment in the reading of the historical events he lived. Rereading the Christian experience and approaching his experience offers us his testimony: “God is just…so too, his mercy infinite.” One has to be wise not to separate these two attributes of God. If you talk of justice, you also have to talk about mercy… (SSG, 38).
We, Carmelite Missionaries, called to live today in creative fidelity, revitalize our commitment on justice, working preferably in favour of those who have nothing and the excluded, women and children, the displaced and impoverished of our world.
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