Francis urges judges from the American and African continents to work in reshaping of social justice

By La Croix International staff | Vatican City

Pope Francis in a special video message to judges from North and South America and Africa urged them to promote justice, dignity and equality.

“I congratulate you on this initiative of thinking, decoding and building the “new” social justice,” the pope said in his November 30 video message, commending them for taking a break from their regular work to reflect and acquire a “more complete dimension of their mission and social responsibility”.

The judges were taking part in a virtual meeting Nov. 30-Dec. 1 on “”The construction of social justice. Towards the full application of the fundamental…

Social justice is not a spectator sport

It involves personal reflection on how far its insistence on respect for the dignity of persons and of the natural world are embodied in our personal relationships

By Andrew Hamilton | Australia

It is both tempting and risky to name significant events as watersheds in their effect on public attitudes. Tempting, because they have such immediate impact; risky because in many cases nothing seems to change.

With that qualification, later Australian historians may see the bushfires as a turning point in people’s attitudes to the environment and to what they demand of politicians.

At a more abstract level, too, they may mark a shift in the way we think about social justice. As we commemorate the International Day of Social Justice on the 20th of February, leading to the Catholic Social Justice Council conference, this bears reflection.

Thought about social justice has developed over many centuries, as can be seen even in a broad and vastly over-simplified summary.

In the pre-modern world justice was set in the context of relationships between individual persons