Argentina: Mons. Buenanueva responds to Milei’s criticism about social justice

The Bishop of San Francisco (Argentina), Mons. Sergio Osvaldo Buenanueva, responded to the statements of President Javier Milei, who during an event of evangelical churches affirmed that social justice is “a capital sin.”

The prelate recalled that, in Christian humanism, social justice “is not only distributionism in charge of the State”, but implies active participation in the search for the common good.

He President’s speech It occurred at the close of an evangelical church congress, in the “Portal del Cielo”, a temple with capacity for more than 15,000 faithful, opened last Thursday.

There, evoking economist Thomas Sowell, the president referred to the concept of social justice, which he described as “one of the viruses that have put people in the head and that full of envy, hate and resentment of each of the people.”

“In the background, social justice is neither more nor less than envy with rhetoric. That is, it is the envy disguised as well thinking, but it is still a capital sin, as Thomas Sowell would say at some point: ‘Since when did the envy cease to be a sin capital and became a virtue?’ They will not bend us.

In addition, Milei considered that “there must be nothing more unkind than the idea of ​​social justice, because social justice, basically, is to rob a person the fruit of their work and give it to another.”

“It is the charity imposed by force, and charity cannot be at the tip of the gun. Charity has to emerge from the heart, the soul, from the spirit of one, and not with a gun in the head. And in that sense, social justice is frankly against the seventh and tenth commandment, because stealing is bad and coveted the assets of others too,” he continued.

“Resentment is that envious who does not have the means to steal the other what he has, and that is why that false God is created that is the State, to which the envious and resentful use to worship, to steal people well, the fruit of their work,” said Milei.

Then, citing biblical passages, the Argentine president described the State as “the representative of the evil one”, and “a golden calf” and said that “the antivalores of the left” want to “replace our god of heaven with his damn god State.”

Social Justice: a “richer, complex and valid concept”

Before these statements, Mons. Buenanueva said That, as on other occasions, the president “attacks social justice,” and clarified: “Actually, against a deformation.”

In favor of the president, the Prelate acknowledged that “in the name of that cartoon many folly have been made that we all pay today, in addition to opening the door to corruption.”

However, he focused on the concept “richer, complex and valid” of social justice within Christian humanism, where “it is not only distributionism in charge of the State, but, settling in the dignity of each person seeks an architecture of justice in society, attentive to the participation of all citizens in the search for the common good.”

In that sense, he called “to shy away from simplification” and, on the contrary, harmonize the dimensions of justice: “General justice, commutative, distributive and also social justice.”

When referring to the biblical quotes enunciated by Milei, the bishop warned about the “risk of fundamentalism”, or “avoid the mediation of reason” both “in the interpretation of the biblical message” and, above all, “in the construction of the best possible order possible.”

“This accent is very strong in the Catholic tradition: there is no direct line between writing and the political construction of society,” he explained, and advised “to go to the Magisterium of Benedict XVI”, for example, in his speech before the Bundestag of Berlin, where he faces this issue.

The prelate observed that today “not only in Argentina, also in other latitudes we see some sector of politics to wrap itself in broad religious sectors rather fundamentalist,” and stressed that “that does not do well either religion or politics.”

Mons. Buenanueva called the public debate in pursuit of “the legitimate plurality of ideas, the respect of another as a fellow man and the rejection of all forms of violence that reduces the dignity of others.”

In that line, he considered necessary an “anthropological debate”, clarifying that “the model of freedom that encourages the Judeo -Christian tradition is the man, image and likeness of God.”

“In Christianity, that model is Christ, his freedom of incarnate verb and the redemption of our freedom that, as St. Paul teaches, can only be lived in the love of others and in the service, especially the poorest,” he summarized.

“The Christian freedom is, at the same time, Don of the Creator; wounded by sin and always threatened, has been redeemed and has in his favor the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit,” he developed, and stressed that “it is done in love and virtue (notions evoked by Milei).”

The prelate concluded that “the supreme model of the freedom of the human person cannot be that of economic transactions, as legitimate as insufficient to do justice to the free human being.” Therefore, a few days of celebrating the 209th anniversary of National Independence, he advised to “celebrate our History of Shared Freedom”, seeking a common territory “especially in our yearning for freedom.”