Given from the Catholic Broadcasting Station 2SM Sydney Australia
Choose a topic from Vol 3:
Granted the existence of certain rights, that is just which safeguards and satisfies those rights. And justice is that quality possessed by those who fulfill what is just. Justice, therefore, is a quality in itself, independently of men's ideas on the subject. If the baker has supplied you with bread, the fact that he has supplied you is a fact in itself; and justice is every bit as much a thing in itself as that fact. It cannot vary with any personal dispositions in you. You either pay your debt, or refuse. If you pay, you observe justice. If you do not, you violate justice.In the end, of course, the rights of men will be traced back to the rightness of God. And the quality of justice is a reflection in our midst of the justice of God. And as, in the infinite plenitude of His perfection, qualities are not distinct from His very nature, we can say that God is not only just, but is justice. God, therefore, is absolute justice. Justice amongst men is a quality by which they can cultivate a likeness to God, and their justice will be genuine only insofar as it safeguards the rights of God either in His own direct relations with us, or indirectly through the just claims of our fellow beings. And those rights and claims have their own objective value independently of our attitude towards them.