Undoubtedly, the best thing about the Pope’s trip to Argentina has been his visit to the “Little Cottolengo Don Orione”, since it means valuing the human being as it should be. And the worst thing was his meeting with politicians – I suppose inevitable – since they are the most toxic sector of any society.
By Alejandro A. Tagliavini
What obtained the most journalistic diffusion was the Mass that summoned some 2.5 million people, according to official data, with what would be the most multitudinous act of the pontificate of Leo XIV so far. Which, inevitably, recalled my times when I was the only parishioner – what a contrast! – in the Masses of Jorge Bergoglio, later Pope Francis, in the Archbishopric of Buenos Aires.
From a political point of view, it was a wear and tear for the ruling party, which already has a notorious disapproval (of 66.4% of the population, according to Pulso Research) given the poor performance of the economy that has not recovered from previous governments, which is logical given that the policies are practically the same.
Clearly, the political wear and tear of the government is based on the “academic” difference for Social Justice, which Leo XIV claimed at all times and which for the ruling party is an “aberration” and a “theft” because it implies using the coercion of the State and taxes to take resources from some and give them to others.
The expression “social justice” (giustizia sociale) was coined by the Jesuit Luigi Taparelli in the book “Saggio teoretico di dritto naturale, appoggiato sul fatto”, published in 1843. Later the term (“social justice”) was spread in England, at the end of the nineteenth century, by the Fabian socialists and then passed to the Labour Party. At the same time, in France, the Socialist Party, through Jean Jaurés, adopted the idea. And it arrived in Argentina through the Socialist Party, of Alfredo Palacios, elected deputy in 1904.
In 1931, the notion was incorporated into the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church, when it was used by Pope Pius XI in the Encyclical “Quadragesimo año” where he assures that “To each one… must be given his own in the distribution of goods… the division of created goods… (must conform) to the norms of the common good or social justice.” According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, society ensures social justice when it allows each person to achieve what is due to him according to his nature and the rights of the person that “… are before society… Without this respect, an authority can only rely on force or violence…”
Now, to fully understand what this implies, a non-ideological analysis of Aristotelian Thomism is necessary. An analysis that, if carried out, would bring both sides closer together.
If the natural order exists (nature created by God is ordered), if man is naturally sociable, and if justice exists, social justice exists. Since what corresponds to him according to his nature is just, everything that makes up the natural order is just, and it is justice that beings have what corresponds to them naturally, which is given naturally. It is right that a person can be and develop as such.
But, Aristotle says, and St. Thomas copies it, that violence is always and necessarily destructive of the natural order in that it supposes a force extrinsic to the person – to his nature – that tries to divert his spontaneous course [for an exhaustive analysis, since there is no space here, see “El Futuro de la Esperanza”, Alejandro A. Tagliavini, Eumed, University of Malaga, Part I, p. 11]. Thus, coercive state laws, based on the monopoly of state violence, the police power that, supposedly, make “social justice” are irreparably unjust and destructive of the economy, because they violate the natural market that is just.
For example, the minimum wage law causes the unemployment of those who would earn less, the humblest, which contradicts the natural social order that makes man participate in creation, starting with those who most urgently need it. On the other hand, coercive taxes are derived downwards, by way of price increases or wage decreases, causing the misery of the humblest.
Alejandro A. Tagliavini, Member of the Advisory Board of the Center on Global Prosperity, Oakland, California. In X @alextagliavini www.alejandrotagliavini.com
