2 “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, 3 and do not show favoritism to a poor person in a lawsuit.
The court is not the place to correct past wrongs, or societal inequities. We must do what is right, no matter the circumstances or the direction of public opinion. Justice must rule. There are other ways to correct the past. It starts with repentance by those who actually did the wrong. We cannot repent for another person. Proxy repentance is what the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages called indulgences. We can only repent for our own sins. So what do we do about past inequities? As believers we can choose to redistribute the advantage gained by the injustice. As believers we are already called to see to the needs of the poor, the orphaned and the widowed. We might not be able to undo the past injustices, but we can deal with justice now. Notice that even in our passage today it is the individual who is responsible for their actions. The crowd gets it wrong. Notice also, that we must not side with the poor simply because they are poor. Justice must prevail.
The Arnold Journey 