Google AI overview: Fr. Ernest Fortin ’s critique reveals that "social justice" is structurally distinct from classical virtues because it shifts moral responsibility from the individual soul to an abstract entity—society itself. By tracking this concept from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's philosophical origin through Pope Pius XI's papal encyclicals and Fr. William Ferree's institutional breakdown, Fortin argues that modern Catholic social teaching inadvertently adopted a secular, Enlightenment framework of social engineering over personal moral transformation. [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] 1. How Rousseau "Invented" Social Justice Rousseau did not coin the specific phrase "social justice," but Fortin argues that he invented its underlying philosophical paradigm . [ 1 ] The Shift from Soul to Structure: Traditionally, human flaws and suffering were blamed on personal vice or original sin (a matter of the individual soul). Rousseau inverted this in his Discours...
"Fr. Fortin warned that by defining justice as something belonging to 'structures' (even when modified by Catholic concepts like subsidiarity), Pius XI and Ferree shifted the focus of the Church away from the interior life, salvation, and the cultivation of classical virtues"
Google AI overview: The critique leveled by Fr. Ernest Fortin (a prominent Straussian Catholic political philosopher) centers on the argument that modern "social justice" has hidden, secularized roots in the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau , which ultimately distorts the traditional Catholic understanding of justice, natural law, and human rights . [ 1 , 2 ] To unpack Fr. Fortin's critique of how Rousseau "invented" the baseline concepts of social justice—and how Pope Pius XI and Fr. Leo-Paul Ferre (or thinkers of his lineage) attempt to remedy or clarify it—we must trace the transformation of justice from classical virtue to a modern institutional demand. [ 1 ] 1. How Rousseau "Invented" Modern Social Justice Classical and Christian philosophy (such as that of St. Thomas Aquinas) viewed justice primarily as a personal virtue —a habit of the soul where an individual gives to others what they are due based on natural order. Jean-Jacques Rousseau...