Last Christmas, nearly 600 poor and homeless people were treated to a festive meal at the church of the Protection of the Mother of God in Lviv. Organized by the lay community of Sant’Egidio and the parish, these Christmas repasts have been held since 2006. Similar ones are offered in Kyiv and Ivano-Frankivsk. Founded in Rome in 1968, the community of Sant’Egidio has held Christmas lunches since 1982, at last count serving some 240,000 needy people in 77 countries. (Patriyarkhat No. 1, 2019, p. 30)
Various initiatives serve the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the sick, the disabled, the substance-dependent and other marginalized people in Ukraine. Caritas Ukraine has been active since 1992. Women’s monastic orders such as the Basilians and the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate conduct valuable work. Every Christmas, students of the Ukrainian Catholic University invite the homeless to a “Bethlehem reception.”
Some Ukrainian Catholics, however, believe charity is not enough. They also believe that it starts at home. For us, that means right here in America. The St. Mary of Egypt Social Justice Fellowship, which is the mission group at St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Church in Chicago, is a case in point. “We are quite intentional about our name including ‘social justice,’ because we don’t want to be a charity service, as if we were wealthier people coming into the neighborhood and transforming it from without,” writes Justin Tse. “We are using the theological resources of our church to imagine what justice where we worship might look like. …Our patron is St. Mary of Egypt because we wish to repent of our church’s complicity with such processes of assimilation that wreak material havoc on these places (desertification in our neighborhood, gentrification in others). To that end, we are going to start a community garden by which we can learn more about how our neighborhood can get justice, as we will be able to share with our neighbors in planting food, understand the frustrations with structural abandonment in the area, and work with partners where we are located to alleviate material deprivation.”
Julian Hayda, a co-founder of the project, explains that “Social justice is an awareness that culture, society, institutions, government, etc. are often built on systems that deny the fullest dignity of human beings …Usually …that dignity is withheld through economic injustice.” Working in the church, these lay activists aspire to “incubate solutions to [socio-economic] problems using everything our Church has to offer.” This includes helping new immigrants in their struggle against assimilation. “It’s not about benevolence and charity,” Mr. Hayda points out. “It’s about solidarity and justice.”
Critics will say this smacks of socialism. In fact, Catholic social teaching, enshrined in a series of encyclicals beginning with Pope Leo XIII’s celebrated Rerum Novarum (RN) of 1891, condemns socialism as a false remedy (RN 3-12). For socialism is basically a materialist philosophy. Christian justice, on the other hand, means solidarity with the poor. St. John Chrysostom writes, “Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs.” (Discourses on Lazarus 2,5). Excess wealth should be used for the benefit of all, especially the poor (RN 19).
Of course, some will reply, voluntary sharing is fine. But should the state compel it? Catholic social teaching does not sanction a state-controlled economy. But it does maintain that the state has both a right and a duty to intervene in the economy to protect the poor, and especially workers (RN 26-28, Centesimus Annus 15).
Is Catholic social teaching against capitalism? It is neither for nor against it. But it has criticized certain forms of capitalism (see Quadragesimo anno 107-109, Populorum progressio 26). Pope John Paul II condemned radical capitalist ideology and the consumerism, alienation and unjust “structures of power” that it fosters (Centesimus annus 42, 58). Is Catholic teaching against private property? Not at all. Private property is a natural human right (RN 5). But “private property does not constitute for anyone an absolute and unconditioned right. No one is justified in keeping for his exclusive use what he does not need, when others lack necessities.” And in balancing private rights and community needs, the public authorities have a responsibility to seek fair solutions. (Populorum Progressio 23). What about the free market? There is much to recommend it – provided it is kept within just limits (Centesimus annus 34).
Do the Orthodox churches have a social doctrine? Although not unified and systematic, it can be gleaned from the Mission Statement of the 2016 Pan-Orthodox Council of Crete. For its part, the Russian Orthodox Church has its own social concept.
While social justice is important, for many of us the priority is Ukraine. But there is something inauthentic about us armchair patriots concerning ourselves exclusively with the problems of a faraway country of which we are neither citizens nor residents, while neglecting the real and pressing problems that lie, like Lazarus, on our doorstep. True, some Catholics and Orthodox will rightly point out that for America’s “social justice warriors,” a socio-economic and political creed has replaced religious faith. It has been observed, for example, that yesterday’s mainline Protestants have become today’s secular liberals. Certainly to Christians, works without faith are no better than faith without works.
Yet in a time of glaring hypocrisies, when churches are suspect and political parties corrupt, while neither liberals nor conservatives can be trusted to adhere to their own principles, it is not enough – if it ever was – to “talk the talk.” Christians need to save their credibility by walking the walk.
SOURCES: Encyclicals Rerum Novarum (1891), Quadragesimo Anno (1931), Populorum Progressio (1967), Laborem Exercens (1981), Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987), Centesimus Annus (1991), Caritas in Veritate (2009). A brief, readable summary of Catholic social teaching is Thomas Storck, An Economics of Justice and Charity (2017). On Orthodox social teaching, see https://publicorthodoxy.org/2017/03/14/orthodox-social-thought-primer/.
Andrew Sorokowski can be reached at andrewsorokowski@gmail.com.