Dear James:

It is a mistaken idea that the Church does not consider the sanctity of life a social justice issue. Abortion and all issues of human dignity, from conception to natural death, are intrinsically a social justice issue.

The Church specifically affirms this in the Catechism:

2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:

"The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death."

"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined.... As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child's rights."

The bold sections above especially refer directly to social justice. Social Justice is the "virtue that inclines one to co-operate with others in order to help make the institutions of society better serve the common good."

Concerning social justice itself, the Church says, for example:

1929 Social justice can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man. The person represents the ultimate end of society, which is ordered to him...

1930 Respect for the human person entails respect for the rights that flow from his dignity as a creature. These rights are prior to society and must be recognized by it. They are the basis of the moral legitimacy of every authority: by flouting them, or refusing to recognize them in its positive legislation, a society undermines its own moral legitimacy. If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to obtain obedience from its subjects. It is the Church's role to remind men of good will of these rights and to distinguish them from unwarranted or false claims.

We have a moral obligation to pursue social justice in all its forms. The violation of human dignity and respect of the human person in abortion is the ultimate social justice issue.

It must be remembered that social justice is not just about the poor and disadvantaged. That may be the popular conception of social justice, but the Church defines it as including all issues of human dignity and societal structures that must be approached according to the moral Truth and the common good.

In this sense the issue of abortion may be discussed separately from the typical social justice issues. This is because the fundamental issue of human dignity that is destroyed by abortion is FAR more important than other issues of social justice. This is why procuring an abortion suffers an automatic excommunication while violations of other social justice issues do not.

Abortion is it own subject apart from any other subject or sin. Social justice, however, is involved and promoted each time we come together as a group or as an individual to fight for the right to life.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary