Catholic Family Campaign

Senator John Edwards spoke often about “Two Americas” during his past Presidential campaigns.  The same could be same about Rio de Janeiro.  Two weeks ago the city was awarded the 2016 Summer Olympics.  This is quite an accomplishment as the City, and the Nation, takes center stage in the international community.  Brazil is currently the 10th largest economy and is predicted to be the fifth largest by 2016.

Beyond the flashy presentation and beautiful sandy beaches lies another side of Rio.  Rio is a city with 2 extremes.  There is the bustling, vibrate business and tourist mecca which attracts millions to the city every year for expanding commerce and pleasure.  Then there is the other side; the slums, the violence and the hopeless.  It is also a dangerous city plagued by poverty, violence, and drugs

This past weekend 14 people were killed in fighting between rival drug cartels the required the dispatching of over 2000 military police to patrol the city.  Unfortunately, this is not an isolated occurrence.  Over 2000 deaths have been attributed to the fighting over the last couple of years.

The pattern of segregating the people of Rio by financial status has existed since the early 1800s. The government has become concerned as the slums have continued to grow into the countryside.  They are completing an ambitious project to build walls (Eco-walls) around the slums in an effort to protect the environment and to keep them from growing further.  Many believe the real reason is not to protect the picture hillsides but instead to keep the slum dwellers separate and divided from the rest of the community.  It has even been compared to the Berlin wall.

Time will tell if the Brazilian government is ready to become involved and address the underlying social forces and institutional failures that created the slums in the first place or if they will continue a lack of involvement and indifference to the conditions of these citizens.  The Olympics provide an opportunity for the country to step up to the plate on basic human rights and show to the world an exciting, vibrant community where everyone can prosper or to reveal the darker side of the country that is only discussed in documentaries and investigative reports.

Tags: Economic Justice, Family Values
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According to research by the London School of Economics, contraception is almost five times cheaper as a means of preventing climate change than conventional green technologies.

I’ve blogged about this in the past.  The population control radicals, such as the Optimum Population Trust are pushing contraception as a way to reduce climate change and to combat perceived shortages in food, water and energy.  They fail to mention that many of the shortages of water and food are politically created.  Unstable governments and an unequal distribution of wealth leads to many of the starvation that occurs around the planet.

Instead of pushing birth control and contraception, these groups need to put their efforts into ways to expand the distribution of food and water.  There are resources available to feed to world.  The question is whether the will to do so is there.

Tags: Economic Justice
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This story at CNN is reminder for all of us to be aware of what we are buying.  If the price seems too good to be true, maybe there is a reason for it!

Tags: Economic Justice, Fair Trade, Human Dignity
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Katerina over at Civilization of Love has a great post that includes an essay entitled “The Case for Utopia”.  Check out the essay along with her other posts.  There is a posting about shopping ideas for Christmas that we should all read.

Tags: Economic Justice, General, Pro-Life, Pro-Life
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Senator Sam Brownback has pulled his family’s money from investments in companies that do business in Sudan.  Sen. Brownback took the action as a tool to pressure the Khartoum regime to put a stop to the Darfur genocide.

Tags: Economic Justice, Human Dignity
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“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”

Interested in joining with others to promote Catholic Social Teachings?

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good is a non-partisan non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the fullness of the Catholic Social Tradition in the public square. Founded in 2004, their goal is to provide information to Catholics about Church social teaching as it relates to public participation in our society, and to advance the prophetic voice of the Catholic social tradition.

As such, it works to build and support the Catholic social justice movement through communication, grassroots outreach and coordination. Catholics in Alliance is a resource for Catholics inspired by our faith’s core teachings about justice, human life and dignity, peace, poverty and the common good. These teachings – to put community before self, principle before profit, and the public interest before political expediency – are central to our Catholic tradition. Catholics in Alliance is committed to creating the necessary conditions for a culture of life – a culture that reverences the life and dignity of the human person over greed and materialism, and over the politics of division.

Click here to find out more and to get involved.

Called to the Common Good Statement

• Helping promote religious formation within my parish and diocese which includes the tenets of Catholic Social Teaching and its articulation of the common good;
• Encouraging reflection within my parish, school and community on issues which are key to the promotion of the common good;
• Challenging media messages or candidate perceptions that narrowly define Catholic concerns by referencing only a narrow range of issues;
• Encouraging healthy debate and dialogue that examines the role that faith and values play within our political participation;
• Helping to build a network of Catholics in my parish and diocese who will work to make a commitment to the common good central to our nation’s policies at home and around the world.

Tags: Economic Justice, Human Dignity
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In economic matters, respect for human dignity requires the practice of the virtue of temperance, so as to moderate attachment to this world’s goods; the practice of the virtue of justice, to preserve our neighbor’s rights and render him what is his due; and the practice of solidarity,
in accordance with the golden rule and in keeping with the generosity
of the Lord, who “though he was rich, yet for your sake . . . became
poor so that by his poverty, you might become rich.”

Tags: Economic Justice
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Same story, different day. The New York Times has a story suggesting that there ahas been an increase of insider trading leading up to mergers. Analysis of the mergers in the last 12 months revealed that stock of 41% of the companies receiving bids saw abnormal trading in the days and weeks leading up to the announcement. Sounds kind of suspicious!

Why is the article on this blog? One of the principles of Catholic Social Justice is “Economic Justice”. No one is allowed to amass excessive wealth when others lack the basic necessities of life.

It is sometimes argued that this type of insider trading is a victimless crime, i.e. that Martha Stewart got in trouble for doing the same thing that goes on everyday. Unfortunately that is probably true. But that doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t work when my kids use that excuse; it shouldn’t work for a white-collar criminal either. It is a reality that if someone is making money off of this information; someone is else is losing money because they do not have the information.

Additionally, many of these mega-mergers result in folks losing their jobs, benefits, etc. Here lies the key to the issue. One individual is using information that is only had by a few to make a profit when others are going to be negatively impacted by not having access to the same information.

Tags: Economic Justice
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BP announced today that they have found corrosion in the Alaskan pipelines. 16 miles of the pipeline are going to be replaced which could keep the oil field closed for months. This is the countries largest source of domestic oil and could cause gasoline prices to go even higher.
This comes just a couple of weeks after the company posted record profits as crude prices soared.

Maybe BP should have used more of their profits for preventive maintenance rather than waiting for the pipeline to deteriorate to a point where it has to be shut down.

Tags: Economic Justice, General
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Bonnie CLAC was written up in the latest issue of Time magazine. I had never heard of the organization before but thought that it was a great idea.

CLAC stands for Car Loans and Counseling. Robert Chambers works to negotiate fair prices and to get low interest loans for the working poor. This is his way of helping people to get into a decent a car without being taken for every nickle and dime. His clients have saved an average of over $7,000 over the life of the loan. Bonnie CLAC has underwritten over 10 million dollars in loans in the last 5 years.

Tags: Economic Justice, Hall of Fame
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