The Virtue of Justice
time and personal convenience to that end. We receive much from society, and to it we are indebted. The true Christian is aware of the many ways he benefits from the common good, and does what he can to promote and maintain it. When one's concern about the common good is motivated by Christian charity, it is a building up of the Mystical Body of Christ.
As Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., points out "the equity (Latin - epikeia) that legal justice establishes considers not only the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law, and that not only of civil laws, but of all those that govern Christian conduct. . . . It is attentive not only to the letter of the law, but especially to its spirit, to the intention of the legislator. As it considers chiefly the spirit of laws, it does not interpret them with excessive rigor, in a mechanical or material manner, but with a superior understanding, especially in certain special circumstances in which, according to the intention of the legislator, it would not be advisable to apply the letter of the law. . . . " (Three Ages, II, 91,94; St. Thos. II II,120,2) Such an interpretation, however, of the mind of the legislator applies only to human laws, and never to obligations of divine or natural law - forbidding such actions as the use of contraceptives, divorce, premarital sex, or anything forbidden by the ten commandments.*
We must be careful of the word "legal" in our day, for there are certain actions which are legal by civil law, but which are condemned by divine law, and are destructive of the common good, such as abortion and divorce. The former deprives the unborn of the right to life, and the latter destroys the family which is the foundation of society. There is abundant proof from history that a general corruption of morals is a form of national suicide.
DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE
While
legal justice, as we saw,
inclines the individual to fulfill his
duties to the state or community for the
common good, distributive justice
inclines those who govern the state or
community to distribute public benefits
and burdens among its members according
to the merit, ability and needs of each
citizen or group. Among those burdens
the state can impose are taxes and
military service. Violations of
distributive justice would be the
distribution of public benefits or the
imposition of
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