Church factions need to work together says director of the Edmund Rice Institute of Social Justice.
By Robert Hiini
Parish Reporter
Social justice needs to be compelling and credible to the average person for the sake of those suffering poverty and abuse, says Edmund Rice Institute of Social Justice (ERISJ) Director, David Freeman.
His organisation has just completed a series of seminar intensives addressing environmental anxieties, advocacy and media skills and the core insights of social justice thinking.
Mr Freeman says that the institute is keen to bridge the gulf between how social justice is seen, both in the Church and in the wider society, and the intellectual and ethical depth that is possible with the right formation.
The ways that “conservative” and “social justice” sections of the Catholic Church perceive each other do have some grounding in reality, he says, but Catholics ought to find a way of working together for those in need. “The work of justice requires more people in the community to step up their vocation to include social justice in their life,” Mr Freeman told The Record.
"That also requires social justice to step up and be more mature and less adolescent," he said.
There are some who "just externalise or project the dark side of humanity onto corporate or government behaviour rather than recognising it as part of the human condition” and “you need a force bigger than you to address that in yourself and also in the world”.
It is a challenge to overcome, he says, the negative public perception of social justice as “a culture of rights, entitlement, complaint and victimhood”, but it is one he is happy to take up.
Given the scale of human need and the inevitable presence of error in all traditions, however, Mr Freeman says that the imperfection of people in the social justice field is no reason not to get involved.
From the opposing side, those in the “social justice” camp, Mr Freeman says, point to Scripture’s admonishment of people who worship flamboyantly while their brothers and sisters are in need.
“It seems self-indulgent to not be responsive,” he says, adding however, that for Christians, justice work cannot be sustained without a deep inner life.
When he was younger he suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome and says that his own spiritual interiority was a large part of getting through that period.
“Feeling created and loved by God goes to the core of who I am and what I try to do, however much I come up short,” he says.
Quite apart from any "one size fits all" mentality, there are legitimate debates about how to reduce suffering regarding the role of the corporate sector and of governments and community groups although there are core components to any successful approach to social justice, he says.
"An integrated ethics, a reflective inner life and activism; with those things combined, we can change the world."
For more info on the Edmund Rice Institute for Social Justice, visit www.erisj.org.au,
phone 9432 2400 or email admin@erisj.org.au.