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Sacrifice And Society: Addressing Inequality And Alienation

Sacrifice And Society: Addressing Inequality And Alienation

Last updated on: November 13, 2025 at 6:39 am by Henry Karlson

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Sacrifice And Society: Addressing Inequality And Alienation 2025-11-13T06:39:35-05:00 Henry Karlson

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Pieter van Aelst: The Sacrifice At Lystra (Acts Of The Apostles Tapestry At Vatican) / Wikimedia Commons

Pope Leo XIV, continuing on and developing some of what Pope Francis taught concerning society and its relationship with the poor, explains how society often tells the poor that they need to sacrifice themselves, their own well-being, for the good of all, saying they shall be rewarded for their sacrifice. That is, they are told their sacrifice is needed for the good of all. But, sadly, they will receive little to nothing of the fruit of their labor. The rich and powerful will take most of it, leaving them only the left-over crumbs. This is what happens when society follows “trickle-down economics.” This leaves the poor and vulnerable, the oppressed, more and more alienated. That is, though the rich and powerful will claim the poor are doing their part for the common good, what happens is that only an elite few truly receive what the poor helped establish:

In his Encyclical Dilexit Nos, Pope Francis reminded us that social sin consolidates a “structure of sin” within society, and is frequently “part of a dominant mindset that considers normal or reasonable what is merely selfishness and indifference. This then gives rise to social alienation.” It then becomes normal to ignore the poor and live as if they do not exist. It then likewise seems reasonable to organize the economy in such a way that sacrifices are demanded of the masses in order to serve the needs of the powerful. Meanwhile, the poor are promised only a few “drops” that trickle down, until the next global crisis brings things back to where they were. A genuine form of alienation is present when we limit ourselves to theoretical excuses instead of seeking to resolve the concrete problems of those who suffer. [1]

The way the poor and vulnerable, even those in the middle class, are often told to make sacrifices for the good of all shows that even secular governments cannot do away with religious sentiments. This is one of the reasons why Marx, and others like him, ended up being critical of religion, for he saw how religion was used to promote alienation and abuse. To be sure, there is some truth in suggesting that people will need to make a sacrifice, from time to time, in order to support and promote the common good; the problem is the kind of sacrifice and how the notion of the common good is being used. We need to make sure the sacrifice being asked is just, that is, it is being asked from the right people, and what is asked is proportionate to the good which is expected to come from the sacrifice. We also need to be sure that all society receives their proper share of what is achieved instead of having only an elite few receive it.

We all need to make sacrifices from time to time. It is a way in which we can grow as a person, especially as we learn to move beyond selfishness and the evils a selfish lifestyle brings. We need to develop ourselves following the way of love, which sometimes means to selflessly give of ourselves, especially for the sake of those in need. But, what we often find, especially in our current economy, is that those in extreme need are the ones who are being told to make such sacrifices, and those who are without need are the ones being offered the sacrifices, thus subverting justice

We need to understand that the world we live in, the society we live in, has limited resources. Once we do, we will understand why all of us, but especially those who have the most, must from time to time willingly sacrifice of themselves for the good of all. Joshua Nunziato suggests Augustine, and Augustine’s notion of sacrifice is connected to this point:

I argue that Augustine’s conception of sacrifice as the work of parting does not merely achieve a greater good through loss. It embodies and acknowledgment of our common good in limited, mortal flesh. Sacrifice thereby teaches us how to die well. Suffering and death challenge us to recognize the good in the midst of the economy that links these terms together. The limits of our flesh commit us to a shared responsibility for one another’s well-being.[2]

We must recognize the limits of temporal, conditioned being; even if we can, in some ways, transcend the limits of the past, thanks to scientific advances and grace, new limits emerge. In our temporal existence, we will always be bound by some sort of limit, including limits to the resources which we have to use. We are called to share the limited goods of the earth with each other. We must not be selfish, seeking to possess and take for ourselves all those limited resources. We must balance out our use of the goods of the earth, use which can and should include enjoyment of them, with the needs of others, and that means, we might sometimes have to sacrifice something we might want or possess, and give it to others, while other times, we must accept the gift of others when they offer us something which we need. We must live our lives offering ourselves to others, but not in a way which denies the value of our lives. That is, we should not be told to sacrifice ourselves for the good of all in such a way our own good is ignored or denied. On the other hand, we must not suggest our private desires, and the good which they seek, can and should trump everything else. While this is true for us as persons, it is also true with institutions, including the institutional church. It must be willing to make sacrifices, and if it does not, it will hinder its mission in the world:

The Church, as a community called to represent the universal economy of sacrifice against its demonic permutations, must be willing to accept whatever partings are necessary to bring justice and show compassion to past victims and prevent the sacrifice of future victims – irrespective of the institutional cost in doing so. If the consequences includes bankrupt dioceses, shuttered parishes, and defunct social programs, so be it. Such are the offerings of compassion that acknowledge a common good in the face of violence. [3]

Augustine tried to live this out; he was known to sell of goods owned by the church to help members of his community. He understood the church could and should follow the example of Christ’s kenosis, and diminish itself, living out the proper understanding of sacrifice, when needed for the promotion of justice. He could, of course, and would also affirm in other situations and contexts, it is right for the church to build beautiful building, to have gold chalices, to honor God in such a fashion, but he would always remind us that God is more interested in our care for each other than for our buildings being filled with costly trinkets. The church must lead the way; it must promote a proper understanding of sacrifice, one which honors the sacrifices people make, and this, alas, is something we see is lacking, and as it is lacking in the church, it is not surprising it is lacking in the secular sphere. We have inverted the notion of the common good, having us equate the good of an elite few as the common good, be it the church and its clergy, or the rich and powerful in society, and in doing so we have turned sacrifice into a means of abuse, further alienating the people who should be the ones receiving its benefits.

[1] Pope Leo XIV, Dilexi te. Vatican translation. ¶93.

[2] Joshua S. Nunziato, Augustine and the Economy of Sacrifice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 19.

[3] Joshua S. Nunziato, Augustine and the Economy of Sacrifice, 98.

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