Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.
Interpretation
Violence is counterproductive in achieving social justice, as it undermines the very goals it seeks.
Pope John Paul II's quote emphasizes the idea that resorting to violence in the pursuit of social justice is inherently self-defeating. Instead of fostering positive change and creating a just society, violence destroys the potential for understanding, cooperation, and constructive dialogue, ultimately leading to more division and suffering. The quote suggests that non-violent approaches are essential for true and lasting progress in achieving fairness and equity.
In practice
In a speech advocating for peaceful protest, one might quote this to encourage dialogue over conflict.
True freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality. It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values, and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace.
Like so many pilgrims before us, we kneel in wonder and adoration before the ineffable mystery which. was accomplished here... In This Child - the Son who is given to us - we find rest for our souls and the true bread that never fails - the Eucharistic Bread foreshadowed even in the name of this town: Bethlehem, the house of bread. God lies hidden in the Child; divinity lies hidden in the Bread of Life
And everything else will then turn out to be unimportant and inessential except this: father, child, and love. And then, looking at the simplest things, we will all say, Could we have not learned this long ago? Has this not always been embedded in everything that is?
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
Man matures through work which inspires him to difficult good.
United with the angels and saints of the heavenly Church, let us adore the most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. Prostrate, we adore this great mystery that contains God's new and definitive covenant with humankind in Christ.
The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.
I would suggest the taxation of all property equally, whether church or corporation, exempting only the last resting place of the dead and possibly, with proper restrictions, church edifices.
After the war people said, 'If you can plan for war, why can't you plan for peace?' When I was 17, I had a letter from the government saying, 'Dear Mr. Benn, will you turn up when you're 17 1/2? We'll give you free food, free clothes, free training, free accommodation, and two shillings, ten pence a day to just kill Germans.' People said, well, if you can have full employment to kill people, why in God's name couldn't you have full employment and good schools, good hospitals, good houses?
The sudden hand of Death close up mine eye!
I think there is a tendency for people to get rigid and caught up in their beliefs of what is right and wrong, and they lose sight of humanity. Being human has to come first before right or wrong.
In living in the world by his own will and skill, the stupidest peasant or tribesman is more competent than the most intelligent worker or technician or intellectual in a society of specialists.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.