This powerful booklet is a reprint of the first four chapters that appeared in SOCIAL JUSTICE REVIEW, with the addition of a fifth chapter and the preface. Greaney starts with a frank discussion of the neoconservatives' approach to social justice, compares it with that of the liberals and shows that both miss the mark of expressing the genuine papal teaching on social justice. Somewhere along the line somebody forgot to read the second title of Pope Pius XI's encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, which pointedly states the message of the encyclical: On Reconstructing the Social Order. Pius XI wasn't satisfied with talking about this or that aspect of social justice; he insistently tried to bring us to realize the whole order had to be transformed in order to be brought into conformity with the Gospel.

Greaney brings us through our paces, explaining thoroughly the differences between the various positions and that of the great Pontiff. Just a "free" market will not suffice; retaining the "wage slavery" system of remuneration for work will not meet his standards; neither will denying the right to access to ownership of the means of production or the right to private property. Solidarity and subsidiarity are primary in seeking the just rights of the workingman. And Greaney shows how the laborer must be given primary consideration in reforming the social order.