Catholics Must Reclaim the Term 'Social Justice'

While in Catholic high school, I was required to take a class called "Social Justice," which taught students about Catholicism's role in advancing social reforms. At the time, I was a libertarian with a skepticism toward religion, and I thought the class was just an attempt to indoctrinate young people in progressive ideology. Now, I realize that the problem was not so much what the class taught, but rather what it didn't teach. We spent time examining Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum and its criticisms of capitalism, the evils of racism, and environmental stewardship. However, not one word was uttered about the horrors of abortion, the role of the family, or the relationship between Christianity and government. The version of social justice presented was incomplete, including only the ideas that most young people today would find palatable and sweeping Catholicism's "hard sayings'" under the rug.