“The Society has held from the beginning,” our Manual reminds us, “that the funds donated to the Conference belong to the poor…members should never adopt the attitude that the money is theirs, or that the recipients have to prove that they deserve it.” [Manual, 23] When we describe the Society as pursuing both charity and justice, this is what we mean: the money given to us for the poor belongs to the poor.

In this, the Society lives the basic understanding of justice taught by our church: the “constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor.” [CCC, 1807] To give them, in other words, what they deserve. As Christ Himself taught, we should share our extra coat with the one who has none, and “whoever has food should do likewise.” The Lord created no one in order that they should starve to death, and he gave the abundance of this earth to all of us, for all of us.

We often view, and rightly so, our works in the Society as a fulfillment of the Corporal Works of Mercy to which Christ calls us. And yet, as St. Gregory the Great teaches, “when we administer necessaries of any kind to the indigent, we do not bestow our own, but render them what is theirs; we rather pay a debt of justice than accomplish works of mercy.” [Pastoral Rule, III:25] In other words, the poor need not prove themselves deserving – God’s abundance, given to us, is theirs already, and this is a matter of simple justice.

To understand this teaching is not to find a way to demand the donations of others. It is rather a much more challenging demand: to find our own second coats. It is terribly easy to demand good works of others, but our church does not teach us to make such a demand of others. Justice compels us to love the neighbor, in strength, in kind, and in the same degree as our self-love and our love of God.

So, justice by itself is not enough. As Blessed Frédéric wrote, we must “make charity accomplish what justice alone cannot.” [136, to Lallier, 1836] As. Pope Saint John Paul II further explains, “justice is frequently unable to free itself from rancour, hatred and even cruelty. By itself, justice is not enough” for “justice must find its fulfilment in charity”. [JPII, 2004 Message]

Our call to justice precedes our call to charity, but does not obviate it, for while “justice and love sometimes appear to be opposing forces… they are but two faces of a single reality”. [Ibid] Justice does not call us to make demands of others. Justice levies its own demand upon us, a demand that gently leads us away from self-interest, that enables us to truly love the neighbor exactly as we love ourselves, as people deserving of all the fruits of God’s creation, fruits that belong to them as much to us. And our Conference treasuries, which exist only to be given away, are definitionally our extra coat.

Contemplate

Do I allow myself to see Conference funds as “ours” to be saved for later, or for the more deserving?

By Timothy Williams,
Senior Director of Formation & Leadership Development
Society of St. Vincent de Paul USA.