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GAZETTE
SEPTEMBER 1987
Annual Law Services
We set o u t he r eunder t he add r esses by t he A r c h b i s h op o f
Dub l i n, t he Mo s t Reve r end D. A . Ca i r d, and by t he Mo s t
Reve r end De smo nd Wi l l i ams, D.D., Au x i l i a ry B i s hop o f
Dub l i n, g i ven at t he Ch u r ch o f I r e l and a nd Roman Ca t ho l ic
Se r v i ces t o ma r k t he c omme n c eme nt o f t he M i c h a e l mas
T e rm on 5 t h Oc t ober 1 9 8 7 .
Most Reverend D. A. Caird
Justice, like other virtues, is usually
conspicuous only in its absence.
Those who would find it difficult to
define or even to discuss justice in
the abstract, find no difficulty in
seeing the injustice in a situation
presented, for instance, by one of
those teams of investigative re-
porters on radio or television,
where an old couple are cheated
out of their life savings by the false
promises of a crook, and are
brought to face penury and disaster
at the end of their lives. We see the
injustice clearly and we boil with in-
dignation, because the dignity of
another human being has been
assailed and hurt. But to define
justice in the abstract is another
matter which has engaged the
most subtle minds recorded in
history, engaged and often
defeated.
The
Republic
of Plato is a sus-
tained attempt to define Justice
both at the level of the Greek city-
state and at the level of the in-
dividual citizen. Following the
Socratic method he reviewed and
dismissed various contemporary
definitions of Justice, including the
cynical definition of Thrassy-
machus that justice is the interest
of the strong party; he reached his
own definition that Justice is "the
harmony of the virtues", that it is
the quality which enables the in-
dividual to live at peace with
himself and which enables all the
classes and denizens of the State
to live in peace and co-operation
for the good of the whole.
Such a wide definition is perhaps
of little help to us in our search to
discover what justice requires in
given specific circumstances. But
it does turn our mind in the right
direction, and through its emphasis
on the community as well as the in-
dividual, it balances another defini-
tion of Justice which has had great
influence in Western society: the
classical definition of St. Thomas
— reddere suum cui —
to every
man his due.
Again we are not really helped
forward by this definition, for the
very fount of our dilemma is to
determine what is due to a man or
woman in the particular circum-
stances of their lives. It is for the
wisdom and insight to determine
this within the great framework of
the system of laws which has
grown up over centuries, indeed
millenia, and which embodies the
experience of society through the
ages, that we pray.
Though
"reddere suum cui"
can
only be a very rough guide to the
nature of just dealing at the com-
plex level of sophisticated modern
society in determining, for in-
stance, a just pay level in relation
to the work which various groups
and individuals in society do, in
relation to one another: e.g., the
miner and the stockbroker, the
dentist and the deepsea fisherman,
the home help and the actress,
where incomparable values are in-
volved, where taste and choice are
active and where no common unit
can be employed; this definition is
significant, however, at the level of
basic human rights, in the context
of what is due to each human be-
ing, as a human being, irrespective
of race, creed, class, colour,
education, work, religious or
political outlook or affiliation.
The attempt to define and list
those basic human rights may be
traced to the Decalogue (Ex-
odus 20). The six commandments
defining one's duty to one's
neighbour could well be cast in
terms of human rights, while the
first four commandments may be
regarded as the theological pro-
logue to the declaration. The
Decalogue was given when the na-
tion of Israel was reduced to its
bare bones in the desert. These
were the minimum moral require-
ments to maintain the life and
harmony of the nation at the level
of its desert wanderings, when all
superfluous social structures had
been abandoned and rock bottom
reached in the life of a people.
José Bonino, reflecting on the
present deep concern of the Chris-
tian world with this issue of human
rights, writes: "When this joint
origin, Hebrew, Greek and Chris-
tian, of modern freedom is
recognised, it becomes possible to
explore the Christian element in it,
although it is impossible to isolate
it from other moments in this
dynamic. It is this Christian ele-
ment that gives Christians a strong
basis to stand for human rights in
the critical situations which are fac-
ed in many areas of the world. The
search for theological foundations
has gravitated in the direction of
securing a firm basis for the univer-
sality of human dignity and rights.
It has rested basically on the doc-
trine of creation and/or the doctrine
of redemption. The human being as
God's creation and his image, has
his or her dignity as God's steward
and representative, the unity of the
human race constitutes a strong
basis for asserting the rights of
all."
For theologians like Jurgen
Moltman the quest for human
rights has resolved itself largely
into a question of human dignity,
witness his book "On Human
Dignity". All human rights derive
from the dignity of mankind. "The
task of Christian theology," he
writes, "does not lie in presenting
once again what thousands of
jurists, parliamentarians and
diplomats in the United Nations
have already completed. However,
Christian theology also cannot
dispense itself from the discussion
of and the struggle for the
realisation of human rights. In the
name of the creation of man
according to the image of God, in
the name of the incarnation of God
for the reconciliation of the world,
and in the name of the coming
Kingdom of God for the fulfilment
of history, the Church is charged
with the responsibility for the
humanity of man as well as for his
rights and duties in time. We see
the theological contribution of the
Christian Church in the grounding
of the fundamental human rights
upon God's right to man. The
Christian faith has over and above
the different rights and duties of
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