An Introduction to Catholic Social Thought

JUSTICE-SEEKING IN A CHANGING WORLD

This book by a Catholic layperson and sociologist has been written with the aim of contributing to the on-going and developing debate about the search for social justice. I commenced writing it in the week following the devastating attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on 11 September 2001. This was a brutal act of violence which shocked the world but which also raised important issues of justice. It demonstrated the interrelatedness of the issues of peace, human rights, economic structures and inequalities, the uses and misuses of technologies, and power differentials in a global context. It pointed to the need not only to react with compassion but also to analyze and understand the causes of the persistent structures of injustice and the conflicts and violence they promote.

When there are evident injustices the traditional Christian response has been one of compassion for the poor, suffering and oppressed and the attempt to ameliorate their suffering. But in recent years there has been a growing awareness that this is not enough. The causes of persistent structures of injustice and sin need to be analyzed and understood so that social, political and economic policies to address those causes can be sought. It is the first aim of this book to offer such an analysis, however tentative, as an aid to those seeking a more just society and world.