Social Justice - Periodicals and Publications

Periodicals and Publications

Published originally in Italian in 1848, the founder of the Society of Charity Rosmini's seminal work Costituzione secondo la giustizia sociale "The Constitution under Social Justice" was translated into English in 2006 by Alberto Mingardi. This work of political philosophy links representative justice to territorial property rights held in trust by a monarch, and asserts a social justice of no taxation without representation. Historically income tax was not levied on an individuals' industry or labor but rather on profits realized by title holders of real estate. Such an injustice—withholding wages from a worker—would have been inconceivable to 18th century liberal democrats.

Social Justice was also the name of a periodical published by Father Coughlin in the 1930s and early 1940s. Coughlin's organization was known as the National Union for Social Justice and he frequently used the term social justice in his radio broadcasts. In 1935 Coughlin made a series of broadcasts in which he outlined what he termed "the Christian principles of social justice" as an alternative to both capitalism and communism. Some Catholic contemporaries, such as the Catholic Radical Alliance, felt that he misused the term, and was too supportive of capitalism. The president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson acknowledges that terminology used in the Church's social teachings needs glossing for US audiences where the adjective social may have a negative connotation of collective arrogation of responsibility for individual well-being.