SFO Domestic Social and Economic Issues
The Catholic Church has a long tradition of trying to organize social and economic life in ways that liberate rather than oppress people. Jesus was asked by the disciples of John the Baptist whether he is “the one who is to come.” Jesus replied, “Go back and tell John what you hear and see; the blind see again, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life and the Good News is proclaimed to the poor.” (Mt 11:4-6) Jesus is saying that people can recognize that he is “the one who is to come” because his life has made a real difference for the poor. We are united in a faith that recognizes Jesus as God, and we are inspired by God’s preferential option for the poor.
Moral values must be translated into practice. Sometimes the same moral principle is advocated by the leaders of both political parties, but each political party recommends a different course of action. Sometime a long range program is put in place, but while we are waiting for results short term needs must be met. We must examine the proposed means carefully. Some means will accomplish the end and some will not. That is where our judgment comes in. When making our judgment we rely on the advice of Church leaders.
The Economy - Many scripture passages in both the Old and New Testament remind us that the Lord hears the cry of the poor. St. Francis is known throughout the world as the Poverello, which means little poor man. As Secular Franciscans we accept all people—the rich and the poor—as a gift of the Lord and an image of Christ. However, we have a preferential option for the poor.
During the last two thousand years the Catholic Church has existed in and worked with many different economic systems. There is no one officially endorsed Catholic economic system. The Church looks at the characteristics of any system in terms of how well the system conforms to Gospel values. According to the U.S. Catholic Bishops in Economic Justice for All #24 “…all economic decisions and policies must be judged in light of what they do for the poor, what they do to the poor, and what they enable the poor to do for themselves.”
At the present time, Catholic social teaching favors a system of controlled and regulated capitalism. The Church recognizes that competition can be beneficial and spur people on to greater efforts. However, a firm juridical framework for capitalism is necessary in order that competition be fair. The Church defends the right to private property while, at the same time, insisting that excess wealth must be used to build up the community. Government is seen as a positive force that must intervene when individuals or groups are denied their share of the world’s goods. Intervention is part of the responsibility of the state to advance the common good. According to John XXIII, “The whole reason for the existence of civil authorities is the realization of the common good.” (Pacem in Terris, #54)
Human dignity and the common good need to be protected and defended. Human dignity, according to the Catholic communitarian world view, exists in the complex set of relationships in which every person is involved. No single individual exists outside of a community of some kind. It is within the community that the individual’s dignity is realized. The common good also exists in community. The good of each person is connected to the good of other persons. An economy which serves the common good serves the human dignity of each person in the community.
Living wage – John Paul II has said that the justice of any economic system is determined by the justice of the wages paid to workers. (Laborem Exercens #19) Every document of modern Catholic social teaching asks that workers be paid a living wage. No document says what that wage should be. John XXIII has said that the amount of the living wage will very from time to time and from country to country. It must be determined according to the principles of justice. It cannot be left to the free market to determine. (Mater et Magistra #71) By this John XXIII meant that the amount of the wage should not be decided by the number of persons who are available to do the work. When this happens the wage drops, sometimes to a level below what is necessary to sustain life. When few persons are available, the wage rises. Instead, a just wage should take account of living conditions that are beyond the control of the worker, such as rents and the price of food.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church #2434: “A just wage is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse or withhold it can be a grave injustice. In determining fair pay both the needs and the contributions of each person must be taken into account. . . . Agreement between the parties is not sufficient to justify morally the amount to be received in wages.” Secular Franciscans support efforts to make the minimum wage a living wage.
Unemployment – Unemployment is an issue of great concern. Lack of work strikes at the heart of family life. When unemployment benefits run out, families with young children sometimes find themselves homeless. This is wrong. In the richest country in the world no child should live on the street or grow up in a homeless shelter. According to John Paul II, a fundamental responsibility of the state is providing work for all who are capable of it. (Laborem Exercens # 82-87). If there is no work for people, the state is obligated to provide unemployment benefits. The Holy Father considers this responsibility of the state to arise from the human beings right to life and substance. The state must participate in planning to see that workers have the skills that society needs. Everyone who is capable of working is expected to do so. To deny individual persons or classes of persons of the opportunity to work is unjust.
Migrant Workers - Migrant workers, many of whom have entered this country illegally, receive lower wages and have fewer worker protections than any other workers in our country.
About 150,000 undocumented migrants enter the United States each year to work in agriculture, service industries, entertainment and construction. They risk death crossing the desert now that new border regulations have closed off the safer routes. They come because there is work here, and there is no work where they live.
If all of the migrant workers in our country received just wages, as asked by the Catholic Church, our food, our hospitals, our nursing homes, our domestic help, our hotels, and many other commodities and services would all cost more. Secular Franciscans would be willing to pay a higher price for these services if the money were used to increase workers’ wages. Change will come when all of us, businesses and consumers, acknowledge the dignity of foreign workers. Secular Franciscans who “accept all people as a gift of the Lord and an image of Christ” (Rule #13) advocate for just conditions for migrant workers.
Health Care - At the time this is being written, the nation is engaged in a great debate about health care. Persons of all political persuasion agree that the health care system in the United States has completely broken down. Catholic social teaching calls for basic health care for every citizen, something that has been realized in every other industrialized country. The discussion now is about how to provide the care to all persons, not whether it should be provided.
We do not have a preference for private markets, or non-profit organizations, or government programs. We do have a commitment to the common good and a communitarian point of view. We do advocate for universal affordable health insurance.
Crime and the Criminal Justice System – More than 2 million people, nearly one in every 142 U.S. residents, were in prison in 2000. An increasingly large proportion of our resources are spent on building and maintaining prisons. Longer sentences and “three strike” laws mean that soon we will have large numbers of elderly persons in prison who have long passed the time when they would be a danger to society. They do not require the expensive custodial care of a prison. Non-violent drug offenders are another group that does not need expensive custodial care.
The shift in penal philosophy from rehabilitation to punishment means that more and more persons leave prison no better able to function in society than they were before they went to prison. These are some of the reasons why the Catholic Bishops of the United States have referred to our criminal justice system as broken and in need of repair. Secular Franciscans support the recommendations of the Catholic bishops in their pastoral statement entitled “Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Punishment.” It is available at http://www.nccbuscc.org/sdwp/criminal.htm.