“Practise what you preach” are words that may intimidate and silence a potential prophet from speaking out or acting for justice.

Standing up for justice and challenging unjust societal structures require the inspirational courage of the Spirit.

Such Spirit-filled courage was seen when the Episcopalian bishop, Mariann Budde, confronted her president, Donald Trump, last January in Washington Cathedral.

In her prophetic address, she urged him to show mercy to “gay, lesbian and transgender children” who are fearing for their lives and to “families fearing deportation, fleeing war and persecution.”

Two days previously at Trump’s inauguration, the Catholic Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, prayed for wisdom for the president and ended with a rousing “God bless America” cheer.

Unlike Bishop Budde, he failed to challenge his president from pursuing unjust policies against minorities and immigrants.

Is justice relevant to Christians?

Very many Catholic Church leaders avoid becoming involved in what they perceive as secular issues. From their ivory palaces they turn a blind eye to blatant injustice and give a deaf ear to the cry of the poor—people who are crying out to heaven for justice.

Throughout the 1980s, the Vatican, instead of supporting Catholic liberation theologians, marginalised and silenced them for teaching that the preferential option for the poor was God’s will.

For the institutional Church, social justice has never been fully embedded but overshadowed by an emphasis on sexual morality.

Justice in the world

One of the most potentially transformative social justice texts of this century has lain dormant since 1971.

It emerged from the 1971 Synod of Bishops in Rome, appropriately called “Justice in the World.”

In Article 6, it stated that “Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel.”

Commitment to and promotion of justice based on biblical teaching is not an optional extra for Christians but an essential dimension of our Christian commitment.

Credibility

The Synod recognised that its message would lack credibility unless the messenger was seen to be just.

It stated:

“While the Church is bound to give witness to justice, she recognizes that anyone who ventures to speak to people about justice must first be just in their eyes. So we must undertake an examination of the modes of acting, of possessions and lifestyles found within the Church.”

Over fifty years later, such an examination as recommended by the 1971 Synod is more imperative than ever. The outcome of such a review should incorporate a charter of human rights where the rights of women and all those unjustly treated in the Church are not just tolerated but vigorously promoted.

Incarnating justice

Justice must become present not just in Church structures but incarnated in the lives of all the People of God.

Their commitment to the work of justice must become the hallmark identity of all Christians as they seek to transform our contemporary world.

• Brendan Butler is a former secondary school teacher who specialised in teaching Religious Education. His postgraduate degree was in theology from the Antonianum University in Rome. In 1979, he co-founded “The Irish El Salvador Support Committee” and later “The Ireland Algeria Solidarity Group”. He was the co- ordinator of “The N.G.O. Peace Alliance” which was active in the Irish peace movement. He helped to revive the Catholic Church reform movement “We are Church Ireland”, of which he was joint co-ordinator and spokesperson for several years.
• He published: My Story by Jesus of Nazareth, As narrated by Brendan Butler.
• Brendan is also active in contributing articles, letters to Irish Newspapers on Church and human rights issues.
• Flashes of Insight is an international publication. The editorial policy is that spelling reflects the country of origin.