Section — Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology
Appendix I. On Distributive Justice in Particular
I. Distributive justice requires that the ruler of a society justly distribute offices and other goods among its members (n. 381). It is said:
The ruler; namely, "the act of distribution, which concerns common goods, belongs only to him who presides over common goods; but nevertheless distributive justice is also in the subjects, to whom distribution is made, insofar, namely, as they are content with a just distribution" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 61, a. 1, ad 3).
Of a society; under this name here come both perfect societies, namely the Church and the State, and those which are subject to them and are organic parts of them.
Offices and other goods, for example the distribution of taxes received, the guardianship of minors, the regulation of hereditary succession, and other things, although at times it can be doubted whether they pertain to distributive justice or to legal justice.
II. To distributive justice is opposed the acceptance of persons, as it is called.
"For the equality of distributive justice consists in this, that different things are assigned to different persons according to proportion to the dignities of persons. Therefore, if someone considers that property of the person on account of which that which is conferred on him is owed to him, there will not be acceptance of the person, but of the cause. ... For example, if someone promotes another to a teaching office on account of sufficiency of knowledge, here the due cause is considered, not the person; but if someone considers, in him on whom he confers something, not that on account of which what is given to him would be proportionate or due to him, but only this, that he is this man, for example Peter or Martin, there is here acceptance of person, because something is attributed to him not on account of some cause which makes him worthy, but is attributed simply to the person.
"Moreover, whatever condition does not make toward the cause on account of which he is worthy of this gift is referred to the person: for example, if someone promotes another to prelacy or to a teaching office because he is rich, or because he is his blood-relative, there is acceptance of person. Yet it happens that some condition of a person makes him worthy with respect to one thing, and not with respect to another; as blood-relationship makes someone worthy that he be appointed heir of an estate, but not that an ecclesiastical prelacy be conferred on him. And therefore the same condition of person, considered in one matter, makes acceptance of person, but in another does not make it.
"Thus, therefore, it is clear that acceptance of persons is opposed to distributive justice in this, that action is taken apart from proportion" (St. Thomas, II-II, q. 63, a. 1).
III. An unjust distributor of offices also injures commutative justice, as follows:
With respect to the society he injures commutative justice by conferring an office on an unworthy person, because he cooperates toward damages that will come upon the society; upon the society, I say, which has the right that the distributor not cooperate toward its damages. He does not injure commutative justice by conferring an office on a worthy person, even though less worthy, because the society does not have a strict right, but only a broad one, that the distributor cooperate toward its greater good; nor is the distributor judged by a tacit contract to have bound himself to confer the office on the more worthy person (St. Alphonsus, III, 342).
With respect to those to be nominated, he sins against commutative justice when the election is made after a competition has been established, because then a contract intervenes. For all receive it in this way, because the general conditions under which the competition is held require that expenses be incurred for the competition itself. If a competition is not established, a contract is lacking, and therefore the distributor is held only from distributive justice with respect to the one to be nominated.1
1 As to the distribution of ecclesiastical offices it is established: 1° To a vacant office there must be promoted a cleric endowed with those qualities which are required for the same office by common or particular law or by the law of foundation (can. 153, § 1). 2° The local Ordinary, with his conscience gravely burdened, is held by the obligation of conferring a vacant parish on him whom he shall have judged more suitable for ruling it, without any acceptance of persons (can. 459, § 1). 3° Clerics or laymen who knowingly have presented or nominated an unworthy person lack, by the law itself and for that turn, the right of presenting or nominating (can. 2391, § 3).