Social justice

In spreading the spiritual goods of the faith, the Church has promoted and often opened new paths for the development of temporal goods as well.

And so throughout the centuries has the Lord's saying been verified, "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well." Pope Pius XII further stated, "For two thousand years this sentiment has lived and endured in the soul of the Church, impelling souls then and now to the heroic charity of monastic farmers, liberators of slaves, healers of the sick, and messengers of faith, civilization, and science to all generations and all peoples for the sake of creating the social conditions capable of offering to everyone possible a life worthy of man and of a Christian." In brief, society ensures social justice by providing the conditions that allow associations and individuals to obtain their due.

Respect for the human person considers the other another self.

It presupposes respect for the fundamental rights that flow from the dignity intrinsic of the person.

Today is day two fifty-four, paragraphs nineteen twenty-eight to nineteen thirty-eight.

Social justice.

This is article three, Social Justice.

Yesterday, we had article two.

We concluded article two, and article two was all about our need to participate in social life.

We talked about authority, the common good.

Remember that? Responsibility and participation.

Today, social justice is article three.

Welcome to our podcast, Social Justice Matters.

My name is Suzanne Rogers.

I'm Research and Policy Analyst with Social Justice Ireland.

We release our podcast in three different formats.

We have our interview series where we chat to policy experts across a really wide range of topics.

Okay, we'll get started.

So good morning, everybody.

My name is John McGeady, CEO of Social Justice Ireland, and welcome to the launch of Budget Choices 2027.

And all of a sudden they find that there could be hundreds of people who are doing the work that they're doing.

And then we hold this convening, and when they all show up at the institute, we have a hundred or 150 people all working in contemplation and education or spirituality and social justice or whatever we're convening on.

You get this incredible energy, and that kind of confirms that we're ready to launch a field.

Now we need to find funders to help support this and variety of other leadership.

And now that's-- Well, when we started, that was, uh, considered a, uh, not a mainstream thought, and now the idea of caring for your caregivers is much more of a mainstream thought.

And at any rate, field development is, is the, uh, I'd say the key methodology for our change work.

We most recently did a mapping of spirit organizations, frontline social justice organizations of all kinds, working in the prison system, working in education, working poverty and low-income communities, um, that are spiritually grounded and contemplatively grounded in their social justice work.

We mapped about three hundred of them.

Hello, and welcome back to the Smorgasbord.

Today, we are talking about an ingredient that often feels the most intimidating to bring into the supervision room: social justice.

Have you ever sat in a session with a supervisee and felt the weight of the world outside the door? Maybe there's a massive cultural difference between the therapist and the client, or a systemic injustice playing out right in front of you, and yet you both just keep talking about coping skills.

We call this the elephant at the table.

But here's the truth.

If we aren't talking about the world that the client lives in, we aren't doing deep clinical work.

Social justice in supervision isn't about being political.

It's about being accurate.

And I'm very aware of that.

And that's where I think for me, the want to call in and ask about this was is that I know that for me, I grew up, I was always kind of like that little social warrior, like social justice was like my thing.

And so that's just how I've always been.

And when I'm talking about these things, I feel like I'm coming off as just like, like disappointed in him or these things when that's not what it is at all.

And that's why I'm just, I'm replaying a conversation that somebody had directly with me and I'm doing it to you.

And it should feel uncomfortable because I remember feeling uncomfortable, but it was very instructive for me.

As a person who's committed to quote unquote social justice, and I'll come after him in a second, okay? Is the commitment to social justice an avenue where you have been able to feel better than other people and or win arguments in the past? Or is it a commitment that you wake up every day trying to figure out how can I feed hungry people? How can I make sure people who are not, who society has kicked to the margins, how do I make sure they're welcome at my house? Because what I'm finding, and on the other side, I'm assuming he's comically conservative.

Um, yeah.

But this isn't where his public service began.

Besides stints as a member of the city council in Atlanta, Georgia, Mr. Lewis was an active member in social justice issues.

He was inspired by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, who he was able to personally meet.

Mr. Lewis participated in non-violent marches and demonstrations, including as one of the Freedom Riders in the early 60s, and in the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in 1965.

In the absence of justice, None of us have justice.

Looking at the gospel from this perspective, looking at it through our call to service in Christ, what do we do when we as followers of Jesus have sinned against one of our brothers or sisters? What if we as members of this church remember what happened to Renee Good and Alex Preddy in Minneapolis in January? and not let their memory fade into history? What if we truly ask ourselves why we let this happen? And if we as a parish don't respond, what if we invite our diocese to witness these conditions? And if the diocese doesn't respond, What if we bring these atrocities before the entire Episcopal Church and ask, why have we let these people suffer? And if the church doesn't respond, then what is the church? What do we represent? What do we stand for? Are we just another source of pain? Should we be removed from the body of Christ because our words are hollow and our hands are empty? Now, I know I'm being hypercritical on us as a congregation, as a diocese, and a church, and I want to say that I recognize and know that St.

Mary's does amazing work in social justice issues.

I know our diocese is very motivated in social justice issues, and I know the Episcopal Church has done great works in dealing with these issues that face our society.