Justice Matters

The Catholic Church has never opposed science, but then what prevents the church from embracing modern science? Pope Pius XII opened the door to evolution in his 1950 encyclical Humani generis, and Pope John Paul II spoke of the need to reconcile science and religion, saying they can mutually enrich one another.

Female head porters are unskilled, uneducated migrant women, usually from poverty-stricken families of northern Ghana who move down to southern Ghana for work. They generally live in very poor conditions and lack social protection; they are exposed to all forms of sexual and physical exploitation, resulting in unplanned pregnancies and children being raised on the street. Because their job involves lifting and carrying heavy goods for long distances, most of them suffer physical ailments.

The problem with social justice is that we have made it a human work when in fact social justice is, in a sense, a definition of nature itself. Social justice cannot exist as an independent phenomenon because it is the underlying principle of all phenomena. By highlighting social justice as a particular area of concern, we unwittingly confess our deep disconnect from nature.

Malaysia is the destination country of thousands of migrant persons known as Rohingya, an ethnic group long settled but denied citizenship in their birth country of Myanmar. The Rohingya ethnicity implies Muslim religious identification, making them a double minority in Myanmar. This column reflects the experiences of our Good Shepherd Sisters' shelters in Malaysia, giving a small glimpse of the vast perils and occasional small victories of the human spirit told through stories.