Catholic social tradition is as old as our faith. The roots of our Judeo-Christian teaching on justice and service take us all the way back to the creation story in Genesis. Because God created humankind in his image, we believe that people deserve both life and dignity.

Jesus taught us about living as people of justice in the world. He painted an even more vivid picture of the Kingdom of his heavenly Father than did the prophets of the Old Testament. Jesus imagined a world in which everyone was treated with dignity and respect, where everyone had a place at the table, where all had what they needed to live lives of dignity and hope. Think about the people to whom Jesus gave special attention—the Samaritan woman, the tax collector, the woman caught in adultery, the lepers, the blind and the lame, the powerless. He made the Samaritan woman the first evangelizer of her village; he had dinner with Zacchaeus. He saved the adulterous woman’s life, and cured the lepers and the blind and the lame.

Jesus challenged us to live as one human family.

Catholic social teaching began to be articluated more concretely in 1891 when Pope Leo XIII wrote Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of Labor). The Church’s understanding of justice and service has evolved and deepened over the last 123 years, with Pope Francis telling us in 2013 that even “he must open his arms to protect all of God’s people and embrace with tender affection the whole of humanity, especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important, those whom Matthew lists in the final judgment on love: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and those in prison (cf. Mt 25:31-46). Only those who serve with love are able to protect!” Pope Francis speech on 3/19/13