ABSTRACT
This chapter directly tackles Macau Catholics' interpretations of social justice and its relevance to their religious identity and social lives. The single most important source of interpretation comes from the Catholic social teaching, which constitutes not only the spiritual and ideological basis of social activism and democratic movement, but also the locus of misunderstanding and confusion among the lay Catholics in Macau. The beginning of modern Catholic social teaching was often attributed to Rerum Novarum, the 1891 encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII. In adapting the gospel messages to the peculiar settings of modern society, Reum Novarum served as an exemplar for all subsequent contributions to the corpus of Catholic social teaching. In 1995, the United States' National Conference of Catholic Bishops identified seven themes lying at the heart of the Catholic social tradition: human dignity, realized in community; the common good; participation; solidarity, subsidiarity and socialization; social sin and structures of injustice; option for the poor; and human rights.
