Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor. Justice toward God is called the "virtue of religion." Justice toward men disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good. The just man, often mentioned in the Sacred Scriptures, is distinguished by habitual right thinking and the uprightness of his conduct toward his neighbor. "You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven." CCC 1807.

Justice, like the other cardinal virtues, is something that we should try to integrate into our daily thinking and actions. Also, like the other virtues, it is the human person that can practice justice. To think of it we need to separate the personal integration of the virtue of justice from what we typically think about through the encyclopedia oriented term “social justice”. Social justice is a body of teaching from the Catholic Church that is sometimes more applicable to societies than individuals, and whereas that body of teaching is highly relevant and valuable, it is a cause of great distraction to the individual in today’s church due to it’s broad nature and it’s vast misinterpretation by a variety of people that prefer to put having a feeling of caring (regardless of actual cause and effect) ahead of violating a commandment in terms of moral importance. This is not true and if something is not true it cannot be just.

Think of justice in the same manner as you would prudence, temperance, or fortitude. Saint Augustine said that justice is one of the four primary ways of loving God. The question to ask is “am I being just?” The starting point is the 10 commandments. Just when we thought it was difficult to understand the Catholic Christian faith and pursue what the saints pursued, we find out that it is very easy to understand but the difficulty comes within the individual will to enforce the habit on his person. Jesus Christ died on the cross because people were and are not just. People commit sins and break his commandments. Every time that we break a commandment, we are acting unjustly either towards God (first 3 commandments) or towards neighbor. But every time we resist temptation or practice beatitude then we are practicing the virtue of justice. Think of the benefits of requiring your will to do something good every time you are tempted to do something bad. What would the fruits of such a habit bring to your life and those around you?

Today’s society is plagued by an unfortunately convenient relativism which holds no belief system to be definite. It is convenient because it allows any personal thought or action that the beholder perceives to be just to satisfy the condition of justice and to make that person feel better temporarily. But like all the other virtues, which are the hammers of goodness extracting out the nails of evil, justice is not based on acting on or achieving a feeling. It is based on the truth that is Jesus Christ. A just action is practicing right thinking regardless of feeling. Defending someone from rape or murder is just. Committing rape or murder is unjust. This may shock you but the truth can hurt and sharpen. How many men today are more complicit in the prevalence and occurrence of the latter than the former? After all, the great Pope John Paul II declared we live in a culture of death. The reality is we don’t know all the negative consequences of the sin we commit but the devil does. We cannot overcome sin by feeding the poor or being kind to our neighbor although we should do both. We can only be individually just by putting God first, prudently studying and following His laws and teaching, resisting temptation and sin, and choosing good actions towards our neighbor. By the way, we should pick up glistening hammer of fortitude to the defense of someone in peril

There are still some basic principles of social teaching which are applicable here however. One often misconstrued principle is subsidiarity which addresses a problem of injustice at the lowest level first where the individual can be remedied by those closest to him or her. The family is the best place for an individual to receive his care because God modeled the family after both the Trinity and the Holy Family. If the members of the family are acting in justice, it is not the government or any other bureaucracy’s role to intervene. It is not edifying or progressive to an individual to be in a situation where the only possibility of achieving an acceptable spot in life is to depend on a revolving door of randomly caring people that have inconsistent belief systems and are not biologically or as emotionally attached as a family member. Conversely, we as members of a family need to ensure that we are acting the most just towards our own family. It is because so many have abdicated their responsibilities as family members that we have the prevalence of cold institutions toiling and bumping into each other to fill the gap

Another principle is solidarity where we are to try to see the world from the perspective of another. An example is where people in the Church should, if at all possible, give to those that are truly hungry, naked, or in need of shelter because they are members of God’s human family that are suffering. Tithing is a necessary and just act and when it is done within the context of the beautiful teaching of Christ, it can be precisely positioned to where it is needed the most. Contradictorily, it is not just to try to force another person to see the world from your perspective by deciding what to do with their money ideologically. The vast majority of individuals cannot be just to societies because we don’t have that kind of influence or power. Many often think they do as they run around with their feelings of grandeur but even great presidents and kings can have the most effect only on the people that they directly interact with the most. But we can, as individuals, see the perilous plight that someone is on and we can positively impact and take action, in prayer, to help that person – and we should. In fact, that is a primary purpose of our existence.

Justice is about right relationship with God and neighbors. The signs that say “no justice no peace”, are really true because it is through acting justly that peace occurs. However there is no justification for reactionary sin in the name of perceived injustice. The buck stops with the virtuous man that makes a decision that goodness will win the day. This man can affect harmony by taking something that appears terse like justice and weave it into a beautiful effect that is longing in our souls. Augustine indicated that justice starts with being interiorly correctly ordered to God and that this interior struggle is ongoing but until this order is achieved, man’s happiness will be wanting. My wife and I often talk about the “right order of things”. Whenever something gets out of order, bad things happen. When a leader acts unjustly, the organization starts to crack and could even crumble. Augustine said we have to think of God in our thoughts to become just so if we deny the faith or portions that we don’t like then we are derailed on our path to integrate the virtue of justice in our person. This goes hand in hand with loving God to the best of our ability – not coincidentally the very first commandment after which all others follow. If all else fails, work to love God above anything else, and justice will surely follow.