by Tony Magliano
The Occupy Wall Street movement has a powerful ally in Catholic social teaching! Recently I became more convinced of this truth after spending a couple of hours with the Occupy Baltimore segment of this now global movement. In front of Baltimore’s pricey Inner-Harbor, I encountered a small tent city ranging from homeless persons to college graduates. Four of them talked with me about why they are there. In the shadow of a skyscraper with huge bold words Bank of America on it, one of the occupiers pointed to it and said “they, and the many other greedy corporations like them, control most of the wealth, while so many of the rest of us have so little.”
Since the federal government’s bailout of the mega banks and various other large companies, corporate profits have risen to an all time high. And yet, many pay little or no taxes. Hedge fund managers and CEO’s are raking in millions, while huge numbers of families continue to lose their homes, 14 million people remain unemployed, 50 million have no health insurance and a record 46 million Americans live in poverty – including 16 million children!
Another occupier cited Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz’s eye-opening calculation that the richest one percent of Americans now own 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. And that the gap between the rich and the rest of us – especially the poor – is wider now than at any time since the Great Depression! The occupiers unanimously agreed that with this tremendous concentration of wealth comes a tremendous concentration of power. Wealthy corporations, with their large campaign contributions, wield considerable influence with Congress and executive branch, whereas the shrinking middle-class and poor have very little influence with America’s policy makers.
Blessed Pope John Paul II addressed very strong words to these “structures of sin.” He said, “The all-consuming desire for profit, and … the thirst for power, with the intention of imposing one’s will upon others” is opposed to the will of God! The Catholic social teaching principle known as “the universal destination of the earth’s resources” insists that all people deserve a fair share of creation and the goods of humankind – certainly to the point of having each person’s basic needs entirely met. Pope Paul VI taught that God intends for everyone to adequately share in the goods of the earth, and that all other rights must be subordinated to this truth!
American society’s failure to fulfill this ethical principle is a moral indictment against most of Washington’s politicians, corporate America and liberal capitalism – which highly favors those with wealth and power at the painful expense of those with little or none. Blessed John Paul said the human inadequacies of capitalism are far from disappearing.
So much of America’s political and economic system is unjust. And yet for the most part, Catholics are silent. Silence supports the rich and powerful, never the poor and weak! But Catholic social teaching calls us to speak up for the poor and weak. So let us raise our voices together with our courageous brothers and sisters of the Occupy movement. Demand that our do-little Congress significantly raise taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations, drastically cut military spending, stop the wars, create millions of public service jobs, give small businesses – especially green energy companies – job-producing financial assistance, extend the efficiency of Medicare to everyone, pass strong anti-sweatshop legislation and greatly increase poverty-focused assistance to the nation’s and world’s poor!
Tony Magliano is a Catholic News Service columnist whose work appears in diocesan papers throughout the United States. If your diocesan paper does not carry his column, we encourage you to call them and request that they do.
Here in Canada, thousands of ordinary citizens have been speaking out locally in our major Canadian cities and acting in solidarity with this “now global movement” as you refer to it, since the “Occupy Wall Street” phenomenon and the “Stop the Machine and Create a New World” event in Washington. October 2011 represents an awakening of the human spirit. These are stirring echoes of the opening lines of “Gaudium et Spes” from the documents of Vatican II.
This spontaneous yet concerted grassroots public action, as well as the media coverage, has helped many of us to realize that although our national economic banking system has not been so tragically decimated as the American Wall Street model, nevertheless it is now more evident than ever before that much of Canada’s political and economic system is corrupt and unjust. We suffer from the same basic evils and social sin.
Systemic economic reform throughout the Americas is clearly and urgently needed right now. And yet for the most part, Catholics here are also silent. Your point is a brilliant insight into one of our common ecclesial struggles today.
Silence. Apathy. Unemployment. Fear abounds unchecked and escalates daily. Our shopping malls & commercial as well as industrial sectors are faltering and becoming shuttered or gated with new security fences and public/private police forces being deployed everywhere.
Furthermore, this unravelling of our society reveals a universal flaw here in the Catholic community of the Americas today: Silence always supports the rich and powerful, never the poor and weak!
Saint Oscar Romero of the Americas once publicly and prophetically diagnosed our fundamental social problem when he declared that: “La causa de todo nuestra malestar es la oligarquia”. Twenty five years ago, our Canadian Catholic bishops issued a pastoral statement called Ethical Reflections on the Current Economic Crisis.
We understand that Pope Benedict is expected to issue a letter or statement about this. But let’s be clear about this. Our Catholic social teaching calls all of us to speak up for the poor and weak. Subsidiarity and collegiality are central to our self-understanding as Catholics in a global community.
So let us not only raise our voices but also put our bodies (and invite our bishops) out on the streets together with our courageous brothers and sisters of the Occupy movement.
Thank you for helping to move this dialogue into our communities. You are an inspiration for many.
Larry Carriere
Pax Christi Toronto
Excellent reflection; would that all our bishops would see this as well.
AS Catholics we must remember – to keep our Faith alive both personally and socially is our predominant Social Responsibility 1 Whether we live and work under a capitalist or a socialist government should make little difference to us ! If the capitalists shoulder their fair share of social responsibilities or the socialists do not destroy human freedom – then we can live and work with either group ! Of course communists or nazis who wage warfare against class or race are anathema to Catholic Social Teaching – which emphasizes the Brotherhood of All Men (and women – of course ) and thus forbid separating men on these grounds ! Also – Fascism with its belief of the State as the highest Authority is verboten – too 1 Only GOD rules the Catholic ! So go out and make the rich pay – for the labor they daily exploit ! For the roads they and their employees drive to work on ! For all the government services they access for free ! For the pure joy of living in and for being AMERICAN ! Frank – PAX FRATER !
A place to voice your demands, unify on issues, and find the latest news.Occupy
Wall Street
We must remember not to engage in demonization and wealth envy. I recently read some research that showed that “percentage-wise”, a disproportionate number of saints came from privileged circumstances.
St. Francis and Louis IX, for one but there are many others. Have you seen a picture of the house that St. Therese(the Little Flower) grew up in? By some standards her family would be considered wealthy.
Let’s also be thankful for what we do have. Back in the Great Depression, there was no Social security, no food stamps, no unemployment insurance, no Medicaid and no mortgage insurance. Wehave all that today
Going back to St. Francis, he did not seek to reform the economic system of his day (which was not just), but rather himself and then the Church.
Going back to St. Francis, he did not seek to reform the economic system of his day (which was not just), but rather himself and then the Church.
St. Francis new( and God acting through him) that if you could reform the Church, and increase the spirituality of its members, then it would have a ripple
effect in society at large. I believe a Distributist system (advocated by GK Chesterton) would be the better way to go, but we have what we have now.
I think we should meditate on the fact that there are so many who are willing too enter this country with it’s “Evil” capitalism and that most of these
people are coming here from the Catholic country of Mexico and those
of Central America.
Furthermore, the Occupy movement has shone itself to be one of destruction,
mayhem,drug use, sexual assault, and sexual promiscuity-this is not good.
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