The Pope ratified before the judges of America and Africa that the right to private property “is secondary”

Pope Francis on Monday ratified that the right to private property is “a secondary natural right derived from what everyone has”, which in turn derives from the “universal destiny of created goods” and asserted that “Christian tradition does not ‘never recognized as absolute and the right to private property untouchable “.

At the same time, he emphasized in terms of property that Christian doctrine “has always emphasized the social function of one of its forms”.

The Pontiff also asked that “rethink the idea of ​​social justice” be done “in solidarity and equity” and “fight against those who deny social and labor rights, against this culture which leads to the use of others, to enslave others, and ultimately take away the dignity of others. “

In a video message he sent to the International Conference of Judges, members of the Committee of Social Rights in Africa and America, who adhere to Franciscan doctrine, the Pope underlined the need to assume “unconditional commitment” to “take charge of the pain of the other and not slip into a culture of indifference. “

He said that “righteous” are “those who do justice, knowing that, when we decide the law, we give to the poor what is indispensable, we do not give them our property, nor that of third parties, but we give them back. what belongs to them “. And he assured that “we have repeatedly lost this idea of ​​giving back what belongs to them”, reflecting on “the construction of a new social justice”, the central theme of the meeting.

“It is very difficult to build social justice without being based on the people,” he said, noting that “from the Gospel what God asks of us believers is to be the people. of God, not the elite of God. the path of the “elite of God” ends with the well-known elitist clericalisms who, there, work for the people, but nothing with the people, without feeling like one. people ”.

In his recorded message to the magistrates, the Pope enumerated “a set of ideas and situations” which, in his opinion, constitute the bases on which “a global conceptual revision of the idea of ​​justice should be supported”, and a suggested that “for the moment rethink the idea of ​​social justice, do it with solidarity and equity”.

He asked that they be “united by fighting against the structural causes of poverty, inequalities, lack of work, land and housing. Roofing, earth and work, the three T’s which anoint us worthy, fighting, in short, against those who deny social and labor rights “, against” this culture which leads to use others, to enslave others and ends up by take away the dignity of others ”.

Jorge Bergoglio called for building the “new social justice assuming that the Christian tradition has never recognized as absolute and untouchable the right to private property and has always emphasized the social function of one of its forms”.

He then underlined that “the right of property is a secondary natural right derived from the right of each one, born from the universal destination of the created goods. There is no social justice that can be based on the iniquity that the concentration of wealth supposes ”.

The Pope asserted that “one cannot think out of touch with reality” to build a new social justice, for which he pointed out to jurists that “they should not lose sight of the distressing picture in which a small part of mankind live in opulence, while for a growing number their dignity is unknown and their most basic rights are ignored or violated “.

In a previous greeting message, he defined jurists as “poets, who face each sentence have the happy possibility of writing poetry, which heals the wounds of the poor, which integrates the planet and protects Mother Earth. , which repairs, redeems and nourishes ”, and that“ no punishment can be just and no law legitimate if it produces more inequalities, loss of rights or violence ”.

Janet Tello Gilardi, judge at the Supreme Court of Peru, then Archbishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences of the Vatican, welcomed the participants to the meeting, which was held by video conference, stressed that the judiciary must be “independent of other powers” and that for Catholics one of the main virtues is to be fair “.

The president of the Pan American Committee, Argentinian judge Roberto Gallardo, reassessed the role of magistrates in rethinking a new social justice. At the end of the panel on Monday, Eugenio Zaffaroni, former judge of the Supreme Court of Justice of Argentina, took the floor.