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The Gospel’s justice ‘challenges and refines human justice’: papal jubilee address
September 22, 2025
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CWN Editor's Note: Pope Leo XIV addressed participants in the Jubilee of Justice in St. Peter’s Square on September 20 (video).
“Tradition teaches us that justice is, first and foremost, a virtue, that is, a firm and stable attitude that orders our conduct according to reason and faith,” Pope Leo said. Citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Pope said that “the virtue of justice, in particular, consists in the ‘constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor.’”
Justice in the Gospel “does not take away from human justice, but challenges and refines it,” the Pope added. “It prompts human justice to go ever further, impelling it towards the pursuit of reconciliation. Evil, in fact, must not only be punished but also repaired, and to this end, it is necessary to look deeply at the well-being of individuals and the common good.”
The Pope also spoke of “the reality of so many countries and peoples who ‘hunger and thirst for justice’ because their living conditions are so inequitable and inhuman as to be unacceptable.” Quoting St. Augustine, he said, “Without justice, the state cannot be administered; it is impossible to have law in a state where there is no true justice.”
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