Some may answer this question with a definitive yes. They say that the privilaged few are too powerful to overcome and too hard hearted to convert. Others point their fingers at human history and opine that over time different societies became more just, though injustice there still is a plenty. Isn't South Africa more just to day then when apartheid ruled the state?

Don't we have more justice in Europe to day than there was fifty years ago? Some point fingers at the state, politicians, unions, employers and churches. They are the ones who should make the dream come true. Others look at individuals and say that we can only have a just society if each Dick and Tom does his utmost to be just.

The debate is evergoing.

An episcopal incursion in the fray

This debate was recently joined by Mgr Mario Grech, Bishop of Gozo. He has a knack for intelligently weaving together things which prima facie do not seem to be interconnected. He just did this on the occasion of the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven. Mgr Grech turned his pastoral letter into a manifesto for a more just society. The Bishop of Gozo tackled both the micro and the macro dimensions of justice. He challenges the readers to examine whether justice is being respected in our society by looking both around themselves and, also, inside themselves. The facets of a just society are legion, he explained.

What follows is a check list built on the Pasoral Letter of Bishop Grech. Try reading and ticking your yes or no answers.

Are you being unjust?

An episcopal checklist.

The micro and macro levels of justice and injustice intertwine. It is difficult to make two different checklists as a number of items will be on both when considered from different perspectives.

• Justice is not respected when some person or group tries to soil the name or the memory of a person by spreading rumours. I touched this subject last week, but no one was eager to comment.

• "We have families that are no longer families because of the unjust way family wealth has been distributed; siblings that do not talk with each other because of abuses connected with inheritance; families who, through interference by third parties and legal manipulations, found themselves robbed of the family patrimony; families that are victims of usury."

• Isn't unfaithfulness in marriage a source of many injustices? Doesn't infidelity deprive men, women and children of what is rightfully theirs?

• The financial crisis has hit the world due to unjust and incorrect administration is an example on the societal level. A lot of new social poverty should have been avoided.

• Bishop Grech says that just and unjust actions by several play a part in determining the level of the price index. He posits a number of questions: how just are the prices being set? How just is the cost of services we provide? How free of dishonesty is the product or service we are paid for? How honest are we in the preparation of legal documents? In the same way that just remuneration is important, one must not be careless or abusively absent from work.

• "Distributing wealth and burdens equally for everyone would not be a just choice. It would not be justice if, in the case of social services, the State helps everyone in exactly the same way, or if the citizens expect the State to support everybody using the same weighting across the board. The consequence of that would be that those who have a genuine need would not be helped to the extent they deserve!"

• Bishop Grech mentions EU funds, saying that it is the responsibility of Government and the people themselves to ensure that these funds are used in the best interest of our people.

• "Whoever tries to evade these laws (on taxation) or to associate with those who want to avoid them is acting against justice."

• The Bishop of Gozo notes both the right of the State to collect money and the right of the citizen to monitor how public funds are being spent. He praised good administration of public funds as a blessing and encourages building of the culture of personal accountability of administrators.

• From the latest encyclical letter of Pope Benedict, Bishop Grech refers to the principle of gratuitousness, "which implies the giving and self-giving in a spirit of fraternity." He continues: "the abusive use of social services is an injustice. There are those who cheat the authority to qualify for social assistance. A typical case is when one takes unemployment benefit when, in fact, one is working for gain."

How did you score? Are you a net contributor or a net loser in the task to build a just society? Do you think that Bishop Grech was realistic in making all these questions and observations? How practical is his position?