Volume > Issue > Toward a More Christian Economy

Toward a More Christian Economy

CHRIST & NEIGHBOR

By John C. Cort | December 1984

By the time this appears in print, two state­ments on “Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy” will be in public circulation. One will be the first draft of the U.S. Roman Catholic bish­ops’ pastoral letter, and the other, made public first, will be a statement of the Lay Commission on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy, which is a creation of the American Catholic Com­mittee, an organization of politically conservative Roman Catholics who were apparently nervous about the bishops’ pastoral.

The Lay Commission is co-chaired by William Simon, former Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, and Michael Novak, a senior staff member of the Amer­ican Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington, D.C. Alexander Haig, former Secre­tary of State, is a member. Of 32 members, 17 are corporate executives.

The following are excerpts adapted from the testimony of this writer before the commission at a hearing on September 17, 1984.

In the Book of Leviticus (19:13, 18), written at least a thousand years before Christ, we read: “You shall not oppress your neighbor…but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”

Disagreement followed as to who was a neigh­bor, some maintaining that it included the stranger, the non-Jew, and others that it referred only to fel­low Jews. Jesus settled this argument with the Par­able of the Good Samaritan. Even the despised for­eigner must be regarded and treated as a neighbor, with love. And to make this obligation more bind­ing Jesus raised it to the level of a commandment second only but similar to the first and greatest commandment, the love of God.

Enjoyed reading this?

READ MORE! REGISTER TODAY

SUBSCRIBE

You May Also Enjoy

The Workers of Weirton Steel: Putting Catholic Social Teaching into Practice

Moliere’s Bourgeois Gentleman was amazed to learn that all his life he had spoken prose.…

Business Ethics According to Pope John Paul II

All our actions in enterprise must be, according to John Paul II, "in conformity with the dignity and integral vocation of the human person."

European Journal of an American Christian Socialist

Armed with a Eurail pass, insufficient funds, inadequate French, and a prepared talk on “Christian…