The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 254: Social Justice (2025)

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

We begin to look at social justice as outlined by the Catechism by diving into two aspects: respect for the human person and equality and differences among men. The dignity of the human person is at stake without social justice. Fr. Mike highlights that since we are all made in the image and likeness of God, we are all equal in dignity and are to love everyone including our enemies. With that, we must recognize that we are not all the same and work towards fairer conditions for all. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1928-1938. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in Ear podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture, and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in Ere is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is Day 254. Congratulations for making it today. We're reading paragraphs 1928 to 1938. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism at the Catholic Church. You can also download your own catechism in your reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash CIY.

And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Today is day 254, paragraph 1928 to 1938, social justice is Article 3. Social justice yesterday, we had Article 2, we concluded Article 2. And Article 2 was all about our need to participate in social life. authority, the common good. Remember that? Responsibility and participation? Today, social justice is article three. We're going to highlight two essential elements of social justice. One is respect for the human person. Remember, we spent a lot of time with, I think I've said this every day in the last six days. We spent a long time talking about the individual human dignity, right? We're made in God's

image and likeness. So social justice can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man, right? That's paragraph 1929. So social justice is a thing. We want to We want not just individuals to have justice. We want our society to be just. Yes, that is important, but it's essential that that is based off of the respect for the individual, respect for the human person. And we're also going to talk about equality and differences between people. In fact, that's the next little bullet is equality and differences among men. So those are the two pieces we're going to highlight today.

When we talk about social justice, keep this in mind, always, always. Whenever we talk about social justice, in fact, the term, I believe this term was coined by Catholics. think about maybe some Jesuits who originally talked social justice. And this is going to be the, you know, we use that phrase quite often in our culture now, but this is going to be what we believe is true Christian social justice, as opposed to something that might try to override or subordinate the dignity of the human person. Again, it's all, it's all the peace. And so keep this in mind, we're talking about respect for the human person, as well as equality and differences between people. So as we launch into today, Article 3 talking about social justice, talking about

social justice. I get so excited you guys. That's the reason I can start blurring my words together. We're going to say a prayer and just call upon the Lord and call upon the name of Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit to guide us and to not just inform us, but also convict us. So we pray. Father in heaven, we do praise you and we do belong to you. We know that you love us. And so in this moment, we give you permission in the name of your son, Jesus Christ, to love us. We give your permission to not only love us with the affection of your truth. fatherhood, but we give you permission to love us in such a way that changes us. Lord God, help us to receive your love in a way that does not leave us the same, but

transforms us into people who are new, people who are yours, so that we can care for our brothers so that we can love the people around us the way you love us. Lord God, let your love change us, but let your love not stop with us. Let it be the kind of love that comes from you as its origin flows through us and meets the needs of the people around us. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. It is a 254 reading paragraphs 1928 to 1938. Article 3, Social Justice.

Society ensures social justice when it provides the conditions that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their due according to their nature and their vocation. social justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority. Respect for the human person. Social justice can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man. The person represents the ultimate end of society, which is ordered to him. St. John Paul II said, What is at stake is the dignity of the human person, whose defense and promotion have been

entrusted to us by the creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment of history are strictly and responsibly in debt. Respect for the human person entails respect for the rights that flow from his dignity as a creature. These rights are prior to society and must be recognized by it. They are the basis of the moral legitimacy of every authority. By flouting them or refusing to recognize them in its positive legislation, a society undermines its own moral legitimacy. If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to obtain obedience from its subjects.

It is the church's role to remind men of goodwill of these rights, and to distinguish them from unwarranted or false claims. Respect for the human person proceeds by way of respect for the principle that everyone should look upon his neighbor without any exception as another self, above all, bearing in mind his life and the means necessary for living it with dignity. No legislation could by itself do away with the fears, prejudices, and attitudes of pride and selfishness which obstruct the establishment of truly fraternal societies. Such behavior will cease only through the charity that finds in every man a neighbor, a brother.

The duty of making oneself a neighbor to others and actively serving them becomes even more urgent when it involves the disadvantaged, in whatever area this may be. Christ said, As you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me. This same duty extends to those who think or act differently from us. The teaching of Christ goes so far as to require the forgiveness of offenses he extends the commandment of love, which is that of the new law to all enemies. Liberation in the spirit of the gospel is incompatible with hatred of one's enemy as a person,

but not with hatred of the evil that he does as an enemy. Equality and differences among men. Created in the image of the one God, and equally endowed with rational souls, all men have the same nature and the same origin. Redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, all are called to participate in the same divine beatitude, all therefore enjoy an equal dignity. The equality of men rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it. As Gaudium-At-Spez states,

every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the ground of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God's design. On coming into the world, man is not equipped with everything he needs for developing his bodily, and spiritual life. He needs others. Differences appear tied to age, physical abilities, intellectual or moral aptitudes, the benefits derived from social commerce and the distribution of wealth. The talents are not distributed equally. These differences belong to God's plan, who wills that each receive what he needs from others, and that those endowed with particular talents share the benefits with those who need them. These differences encourage and often oblige persons to practice generosity, kindness, and sharing of goods.

They foster the mutual enrichment of cultures. St. Catherine of Siena, speaking poetically in the voice of God, states, I distribute the virtues quite diversely. I do not give all of them to each person, but some to one, some to others. I shall give principally charity to one, justice to another, humility to this one, a living faith to that one. And so I have given many gifts and graces, both spiritual and temporal, with such diversity that I have not given everything to one single person so that you may be constrained

to practice charity towards one another. I have willed that one should need another, and that all should be my ministers in distributing the graces and gifts they have received from me. There exist also sinful inequalities that affect millions of men and women. These are an open contradiction of the gospel. Gaudematespe's further states, their equal dignity as persons, demands that we strive for fairer and more humane conditions. Excessive economic and social disparity between individuals and peoples of the one human race is a source of scandal and militates against social justice, equity, human dignity, as well as social and international peace. Right. There we have at paragraphs 1928 to 1938. We're starting off from the very beginning. Again, keep in mind,

all of these things, they make up a whole. So we can't ever discard one truth for another truth. Maybe I've heard this before. Maybe I've said this before. Heresy is a refusal to live in tension, you know, right? Heresy is a refuses to live in paradox. And so, you know, what a heretic does is emphasizes one truth or at the expense of another truth. And so one of the things we need to keep in mind is this, this Article 3 on social justice

is so good. It's orthodox, right? It is coherent because it does not emphasize social justice at the expense of individual justice, right? So there's such a goodness here. there's a coherence here. In fact, it's even part of what we talked about a couple weeks ago when it came to justice. What is justice? Remember when we talked about the virtues? And we discussed the cardinal virtues of justice, temperance, prudence, fortitude. Man, it seems like a long time

ago, but justice is giving someone what they're owed. It's giving someone what is their due. That's very, very simple. And so we recognize in paragraph 1928, right at the very beginning here, It says, society ensures social justice when it provides the conditions that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their do, right? That's the definition of justice. So society ensures social justice, right, when associations and individuals have justice, according to their nature and their vocation. It's linked to the common good.

Again, this is one of those situations where we want to hold it all in our grasp, right? We never want to drop something in favor of something else. We don't want to drop a truth, we'll say it like that. I don't want to drop one truth to pick up another truth. hold them in tension. And I love, again, 1929, the next paragraph. We said this at the very beginning at the outset of this day's episode, social justice can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man. So remember, each individual is greater than any country. One individual is greater than any nation, any government, any corporation, right? Why? Because every

nation, every government, every corporation will cease to exist at some point. But there is no individual. There's no human being who will ever cease to exist. Every one of us will exist forever, either in glory with the Lord in heaven or in what scripture calls in everlasting shame, in damnation, in hell. But every one of us is destined to live forever, whereas governments, nations, corporations, societies, at some point they will cease. And so what's that stake here? The quote from John Paul II is, what is that stake is the dignity of the human person.

whose defense and promotion have been entrusted to us by the creator and to whom the men and women at every moment in history are strictly and responsibly in debt. And so that's just so key. Why would we want social justice? Because the people next to us are made in God's image or likeness. Because the people who would get justice are the people who made in God's image of likeness. And as Christians, what's been placed upon us, what's been placed upon us is this recognition that not only is every human being on this planet made in God's image and likeness. Therefore, in some way, we are all brothers and sisters of the human race. But also, the Lord God, Jesus Christ himself, has died for everyone. He's given his life for every person, even those people who don't believe what we

believe, even those people who are our enemies. And Jesus commands us to even treat our enemies like our neighbors, to treat our enemies as family. It's remarkable. So that's in paragraph 1930 and 1931, it says, everyone should look upon his neighbor without any exception as another self. Remember, what is the second great commandment? Love your neighbor as yourself. Above all, bearing in mind his life and the means necessary for living it with dignity. And so again, it goes, I love this next part because it's just so important. He highlights the limit of law. He says, no legislation could by itself do away with the fears, prejudices, attitudes of pride and selfishness, which obstruct the establishment of truly fraternal society.

right so so there's no law there's no law that will bring about justice there's no law that will bring about love you can never eradicate hatred you can never eradicate prejudices i mean racism or sexism or any kind of other other kind of prejudice that exists you can't legislate that out of existence it goes on to say such behavior those things those attitudes of pride selfishness prejudices fears those behaviors will cease only through the love or charity that finds in man in every man a neighbor or a brother. I mean, just keep that in mind. How often, you know, how often are there times where we get so mad at someone or are we prejudge, like prejudice? That's what prejudice is to prejudge. We prejudge the behavior of somebody or their actions or we look at them and say,

oh, who's that person? And if you got to know them, your mind completely changes. Once you realize, oh, this person is actually a friend or even if we look at others, the way, if you have siblings, I do this all of the time. I'm so grateful to my parents for having my five brothers and sisters, the six of us. I'm so grateful for knowing my cousins and for knowing my extended family and for being able to be in relationship with my siblings who have kids because in them, these people I love and know really well and love so well that I can meet a new person and someone who might be a little abrasive, you know, someone who I wouldn't necessarily, I might think

a certain thing about them, you know, if they're, again, if they're a little abrasive, if they're kind of like however they come across. And I think, oh, no, no, no, no. I have a sibling just like you. I get it. But it's what every one of us is called to do, to find in every person around us, a neighbor or a brother. And Beraf, 1932 says this, the duty of making oneself a neighbor to others and actively serving them becomes even more urgent when it involves the disadvantage in whatever area this might be, right? That those who need help, those who can't help themselves, we are called as Christians to do something. And I'd love this. 1933 keeps on going and

says, because here's what we do, maybe this isn't what you do, but this is what a lot of us do, we put up the objections and say, well, yeah, but what about, what about, um, those who aren't part of our tribe, right? What about those who, who don't think what we think, or don't believe what we believe, don't act. It says in 1933, this same duty, right, the duty to do it to the least of these brethren's. The same duty extends to those who think or act differently from us. The teaching of Christ goes so far as to require the forgiveness of offenses. that he extends that commandment of love to all enemies. And it's, man, it's so, it's so important.

Now, the last line of 1933 is also very important because I think, again, the church is so powerful and beautiful in its teaching. And it says, liberation in the spirit of the gospel is incompatible with hatred of one's enemy as a person, right? So if I'm going to live in the spirit of Christ, if I'm going to live in the spirit of the gospel, that's incompatible with hatred of one's enemy as a person, but not with hatred of the evil that he does as an enemy. And so I can't hate my enemy.

I can hate the evil he does as an enemy. And this is in so many ways what we talk about when we say, okay, we love the sinner but hate the sin. That's a real thing. And yet maybe some people say that's cliche. Maybe some people say that's too shallow. Maybe some people really dislike that phrase. At the same time, we must love the people around us. We must love our neighbor.

We must love our brother. We must love the sinner. but we may not love the sin. We actually can hate the sin. And we can actually work to stop that, work to stop the sin, work to stop the evil that someone's perpetuating. Now, lastly, equality and differences among men, and this is so important for us.

We recognize that every one of us is equal in dignity. Paragraph 1934, 1935, 1936, as highlights this so clearly that we are made in God's image and likeness. Therefore, we equally endow with rational souls. We have the same nature, the same origin, redeemed by the same sacrifice of Jesus Christ, all participated, invited to participate in the same divine beatitude, all destined for heaven.

Therefore, all enjoy an equal dignity. There is no room in the Catholic Church for any kind of racism or sexism or any kind of thing like that. We are equal, equal in dignity. And therefore, there's rights that come out of this. Here's the church. Once again, in Gaudi Mitz-Bez, every form of social or culture of discrimination

in fundamental personal rights on the ground of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God's design. Any immutable characteristic, and if there's any unjust discrimination about that, that must be eradicated. That's not compatible with the gospel, with God's design. And yet at the same time, we recognize that we're different. We're equal, but not the same. And I know the Plessy versus Ferguson separate but equal was a not, that was not accurate. And that's not a good court case. but we do recognize that this is how reality is this is what is true about humanity is what's true about all of us is that we are equal and dignity and yet we are not the same there are differences

and on coming into the world this is 1936 man is not equipped with everything he needs for developing us bodily and spiritual life he needs others and again i mean think about this a baby just a simple straightforward a baby needs others but also at any stage in life we need others because there are differences tied to age, whether that be early age or old age. There's differences tied to physical abilities, intellectual and mortal aptitudes. I can't fix my car when it breaks down. So I need others, right? And I can't give myself an appendectomy.

We need others. And the recognition that talents have not been distributed equally. Some people are smarter than others. Some people are stronger than others. Some people are more competent. Some people are kinder than others. there is an equality and dignity, but there is not a sameness. Those differences belong to God's plan.

Why? That's a good question. Why? Well, one reason maybe is those differences encourage and often oblige each one of us to be generous, to be kind, to share what we have. Then maybe those differences mean that, okay, we get to take care of each other. Think about, again, when it comes back to children. There are so many times I've talked to parents who have said that, yeah, it's, It's when I finally had children and I realize I can't just choose whether to love them or not.

I have to love them. I have to choose to love them always or else they're not taking care of. And that has expanded their hearts. That's actually made them into better people. Think about if you just lived a selfish life where you didn't care about anyone around you. I didn't see the needs of the people around me. Therefore, I didn't have to be generous. I didn't have to be kind.

I didn't have to share my goods. At the same time, and this is the last point. 1938 says there also exist sinful inequalities that affect millions of of men and women. Those are an open contradiction of the gospel. So because of the dignity of people and because we're not all the same, because there are differences in socioeconomic status and abilities, and that means that we have to, we have to strive for fairer and more humane conditions. That when there's excessive economic and social disparity between individuals and peoples, that that's a source of scandal. And it mitigates against justice and human dignity,

as well as social and international peace. There is something that we get to fight against it, but we get to fight against it with each other, and we get to fight against it with the grace that comes from God. So tomorrow we're going to talk about human solidarity, and there's that need to conclude this little article, and then we'll go on to the next day, super, super good, God's law and God's salvation of law and grace.

So beautiful. But tomorrow we have our last paragraphs, as well as some nuggets, talking about human solidarity that we just, we need each other. We need friendship, we need social charity, and we need to take care of each other like brothers and sisters. So let's start by praying for each other. Let's pray for each other like brothers and sisters.

I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name's Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.