Economic Justice for All
Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy.
(Excerpts from the 115-page pastoral letter)
The Church And the Future Of the U.S. Economy
Every perspective on economic life that is human, moral, and Christian must be shaped by three questions: What does the economy do for people? What does it do to people? And how do people participate in it? The economy is a human reality: Men and women working together to develop and care for the whole of God's creation. All this work must serve the material and spiritual well-being of people. It influences what people hope for themselves and their loved ones. It affects the way they act together in society. It influences their very faith in God.
The Second Vatican Council declared that ''the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these too are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.'' There are many signs of hope in U.S. economic life today:
Many fathers and mothers skillfully balance the arduous responsibilities of work and family life. There are parents who pursue a purposeful and modest way of life and by their example encourage their children to follow a similar path. A growing number of men and women, drawing on their religious tradition, recognize the challenging vocation of family life and child-rearing in a culture that emphasizes material display and self-gratification.
Conscientious business people seek new and more equitable ways to organize resources and the workplace. They face hard choices over expanding or retrenching, shifting investments, hiring or firing.
Young people choosing their life's work ask whether success and security are compatible with service to others.
Workers whose labor may be toilsome or repetitive try daily to ennoble their work with a spirit of solidarity and friendship.
New immigrants brave dislocations while hoping for the opportunities realized by the millions who came before them.
These signs of hope are not the whole story. There have been failures - some of them massive and ugly:
Poor and homeless people sleep in our church basements; the hungry line up in soup lines.
Unemployment gnaws at the self-respect of both middle-aged persons who have lost jobs and the young who cannot find them.
Hard-working men and women wonder if the system of enterprise that helped them yesterday might destroy their jobs and their communities tomorrow.
Families confront major new challenges: dwindling social supports for family stability; a driven pace of life among the successful that can sap love and commitment; lack of hope among those who have less or nothing at all. Very different kinds of families bear different burdens of our economic system.
Farms face the loss of their land and way of life; young people cannot choose farming as a vocation; farming communities are threatened; migrant farm workers break their backs in serf-like conditions for disgracefully low wages.
And beyond our own shores, the reality of 800 million people living in absolute poverty and 450 million malnourished or facing starvation casts an ominous shadow over all these hopes and problems at home.
Anyone who sees all this will understand our concern as pastors and bishops. People shape the economy and in turn are shaped by it. Economic arrangements can be sources of fulfillment, of hope, of community - or of frustration, isolation, and even despair. They teach virtues - or vices - and day by day help mold our characters. They affect the quality of people's lives; at the extreme even determining whether people live or die. Serious economic choices go beyond purely technical issues to fundamental questions of value and human purpose. We believe that in facing these questions the Christian religious and moral tradition can make an important contribution.
A. The U.S. Economy Today: Memory And Hope
The United States is among the most economically powerful nations on earth. In its short history the U.S. economy has grown to provide an unprecedented standard of living for most of its people. The nation has created productive work for millions of immigrants and enabled them to broaden their freedoms, improve their families' quality of life, and contribute to the building of a great nation. Those who came to these shores from across the sea often understood their new lives in the light of biblical faith. They thought of themselves as entering a promised land of political freedom and economic opportunity. The United States is a land of vast natural resources and fertile soil. ...
But we should recall this history with sober humility. The American experiment in social, political, and economic life has involved serious conflict and suffering. Our nation was born in the face of injustice to native Americans and its independence was paid for with the blood of revolution. Slavery stained the commercial life of the land through its first 250 years and was ended only by violent civil war. The establishment of women's suffrage, the protection of industrial workers, the eliminition of child labor, the response to the Great Depression of the 1930's, and the civil rights movement of the 1960's all involved a sustained struggle to transform the political and economic institutions of the nation. ...
Through their Government the people of the United States have provided support for education, access to food, unemployment compensation, security in old age, and protection of the environment. The market system contributes to the success of the U.S. economy; but so do many efforts to forge economic institutions and public policies that enable all to share in the riches of the nation. The country's economy has been built through a creative struggle; entrepreneurs, business people, workers, unions, consumers, and government have all played essential roles.
The task of the United States today is as demanding as that faced by our forebears. Abraham Lincoln's words at