A Critique of the Second Draft
CHRIST & NEIGHBOR
The second draft of the U.S. bishops’ pastoral letter on Catholic social teaching and the U.S. economy is on the whole a magnificent statement. I am especially grateful that the bishops held firm on the major points of the first draft, despite the critical barrage directed at them by Michael Novak and his band of merry capitalists.
Nevertheless, I think there are internal contradictions in the second draft that weaken it seriously. Two, to be exact, as follows:
(1) Again and again, and rightly so, the bishops emphasize the right to work, not in the perverted sense of a right to work in a nonunion shop, but the right of everyone to a decent job at decent pay. They also add the duty to work, a duty much ignored by a society in which the idle rich are more likely to be described as “the beautiful people.”
The bishops solidly document the failure of private industry to provide decent jobs and they conclude that “current levels of unemployment are morally unacceptable,” particularly so in the case of minorities (34 percent for black youth).
Again and again, and rightly so, the bishops emphasize the long-established and repeated principle of Catholic social teaching that the state must intervene when private industry is unable to provide fundamental human rights.
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When the Church is in crisis we do not always fully understand what is happening while it is happening. Nor do we see where it is all leading.
A real difficulty with the bishops’ pastoral letter on the U.S. economy is the ignorance and apathy of both laity and clergy.
The average Catholic will ask himself, “What can I and my parish do for economic justice? How should my spiritual life affect my social behavior and my habits of consumption?”