Archive for Faithful Citizenship

Young Professionals Board of Legal Aid of Western Missouri: It’s Not Just for Lawyers

June 6, 2012 at 8:19 pm · Filed under Faithful Citizenship, Human Rights ·Tagged , , ,

By Blake Heath, Chair of the Young Professionals Board of Legal Aid of Western Missouri

Since September of 2011, I have had the privilege of serving as the chair for the newly formed Young Professionals Board of Legal Aid of Western Missouri (YPB).  The goal of the YPB is to support the mission and programs of Legal Aid of Western Missouri through social events, fundraising initiatives, and community outreach efforts.  Many people are unfamiliar with the work that Legal Aid does or they assume that the organization is just a bunch of lawyers so there is no need or way for them to get involved.  The YPB hopes to spread the message of what Legal Aid does and to change the perception that the organization is just for lawyers.   Below is more information about the YPB and a brief description of some of the work we have done and will be doing in the future.

In December of 2010, the staff at Legal Aid put together a small focus group of various young professionals in the Kansas City area to explore ways Legal Aid could raise awareness about the mission of Legal Aid, recruit volunteers, and raise financial support.  Legal Aid recognized that older more established attorneys made up the majority of its volunteer and financial support base.  Legal Aid wanted to expand that base to younger individuals, and Legal Aid wanted to find support outside the legal profession.  After several more meetings, the YPB was officially formed to help Legal Aid recruit young professionals willing to further the mission of Legal Aid.

While Legal Aid’s primary purpose is to provide access to the legal system for clients who are normally shutout of the legal system, the work has a much deeper impact on our community.  For instance, Legal Aid is a leader in converting abandoned properties in the urban core of Kansas City into occupied, high quality housing.  Every year, their Economic Development team works with the City and other not-for-profit agencies to bring litigation that brings 80-100 abandoned properties up to code.  Legal Aid’s work in obtaining Protective Orders and divorces for hundreds of victims of domestic violence every year has been proven to be one of the most effective ways of stopping the cycle of violence.  And, every year they get hundreds of people who are permanently and totally disabled access to long-term, pro-active medical care by getting them onto Medicaid when their benefits have been wrongly denied or terminated.

To help support these programs and the mission of Legal Aid, the YPB has been active since its formation in September of 2011.  We have participated in the annual Party with a Purpose, held informational sessions where Legal Aid staff attorneys described their practice areas, assisted with the construction of a one-of-its-kind playground for children with disabilities, and participated in the Run for Justice 5K put on by the Lawyers Association of Kansas City.  In addition to these events, we will be sponsoring a charity bingo event this summer, we have tables for our members at the Legal Aid Justice for All luncheon, we will promote and participate in Legal Aid’s annual golf tournament, and in the fall we will travel to rural Lafayette County Missouri to volunteer with Legal Aid’s Migrant Farm Workers Project Monday Night Outreach.

If you would like to find out more about the YPB or any of our upcoming events, then please feel free to contact me at blake@boughlawfirm.com.  You can also find us on Facebook at Young Professionals Board of Legal Aid of Western Missouri.

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Nuke Free Now plans weekend of action Aug. 3-6

May 4, 2012 at 12:07 pm · Filed under Faithful Citizenship, Nuclear Weapons ·Tagged

Introducing Nuke Free Now

Information about the group from their group page on Facebook:

The mission of this group is to raise awareness of the true costs and
consequences of nuclear weapons production, nuclear energy, &
corporate profiteering. We are transforming the nuclear narrative and
inspiring a life-affirming future.

We of the Occupy New Mexico Movement, nukefreenow.org, and allied
organizations worldwide invite you to join our 4-day event to
transform the nuclear narrative in the public consciousness and
inspire a life-affirming future.

The event will take place August 3rd through the 6th (Hiroshima
Commemoration Day). Please join us in Santa Fe and Los Alamos, New
Mexico, or coordinate an event in your community to call for the end
of nuclear weapons production and nuclear energy, disarmament, clean-
up and remediation, peace and justice.

Over the weekend our event in northern New Mexico will include
educational workshops, inspiring speakers, celebrity activists, hard-
hitting films and music, large-scale non-violent direct action, a
march to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), a hunger strike
(beginning July 16), and more.

It was in the small town of Los Alamos that the first atomic bombs Fat
Man and Little Boy were created, and from there sent to destroy
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Forty-plus years after the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty was signed and with 5200 thermonuclear warheads
in our arsenal, LANL is still in the business of making bombs. We say
“business” because corporations like Bechtel and Lockheed-Martin are
profiting from the production of these genocidal weapons.

Carcinogenic runoffs from LANL contaminate hundreds of miles of the
Rio Grande, the drinking water source for hundreds of thousands of
people. Native American communities are closest and receive the most
contamination. Radioactive releases poison our air, water, and food
and cause disease. Huge forest fires regularly threaten the Lab,
including one last year and one in 2000 that came within a thousand
yards of setting ablaze 42,000 barrels of radioactive waste stored
under canvas canopies.

In our view, there is no starker example of economic disparity created
by the Military-Industrial Complex than Los Alamos County. Of our
nation’s 3,142 counties, Los Alamos county is among the richest, has
the highest income per capita, the lowest poverty rate in the nation,
and is tied for the lowest unemployment.

Yet it is surrounded by some of the poorest communities in the U.S.,
and LANL’s “contribution” to our economy has not kept New Mexico from
having the highest child poverty rate in the country.

We need your help! We know in our hearts that global cooperation and a
world of compassion is possible. Now is the time to create the
critical mass for disarmament and transformation. We are at the
tipping point.

You don’t have to come to New Mexico to make your voice heard. Any
Bechtel office or subsidiary, any University of California campus,
(which shares administration of LANL with Bechtel), or any nuclear
power plant, arms manufacturer, or public space is a perfect site for
local action in coordination with us and our brothers and sisters
around the world. We will help with material and logistics, and love.

In the coming weeks we will offer a tool kit with key talking and
organizing points both here and on our website.

Together we can create a global action to transform humanity’s
narrative and create the world of beauty that we know in our hearts is
possible.

For further information and to contact us go to:

www.NukeFreeNow.org

http://www.facebook.com/NukeFreeNow (Nuke Free Now on Facebook)

https://twitter.com/#!/nukefreenow (Nuke Free Now on Twitter)

http://www.facebook.com/groups/226519817418501/ (OSF LANL Working
Group on Facebook)

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hunger-Strike-Los-Alamos-August-2012/310869175590442
(Hunger Strike Los Alamos 2012 on Facebook)

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The 2012 Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace is… Ruben Garcia

May 4, 2012 at 11:58 am · Filed under Catholic Worker, Faithful Citizenship, Human Rights, International Justice, Mexico, Peacemakers ·Tagged , , , ,

Pax Christi USA, the national Catholic peace movement, has recognized the life and witness of Ruben Garcia, naming him the 2012 recipient of the Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace Award.  Pax Christi USA first gave the award to Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, in 1978 and has since recognized some of the most significant U.S. Catholic activists for peace and justice of the past 3 decades, including actor Martin Sheen; poet and priest Daniel Berrigan, S.J.; and Dead Man Walking author Sr. Helen Prejean, C.S.J.  Garcia is one of the founders and the current director of Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas.

During his career at Annunciation House, Garcia has personally welcomed more than 100,000 migrants to his home and community, putting into practice and personally embodying the radical hospitality that Jesus exemplified to the poor, the marginalized, and the excluded. In his nomination of Garcia, Scott Wright, author and biographer of Archbishop Oscar Romero, wrote that Garcia “teaches peace by embodying peace, welcoming the stranger, and inviting others to share in this community where the least have a place at the table. From the experience of welcome and hospitality, comes an awareness and a commitment to address the root causes of injustice that push migrants to flee from the political violence in their countries, or conditions of economic disparity that condemn their families to die in conditions of extreme poverty and misery.”

“PCUSA is pleased to be honoring Ruben Garcia with the 2012 Teacher of Peace Award. For more than 35 years, he has been an inspiring teacher of peace, exemplifying by his life witness the teachings of the Gospel and the spirit of the Beatitudes,” stated Sr. Patty Chappell, SNDdeN, Executive Director of Pax Christi USA. “Ruben’s faith continues to be an inspiring witness to the best of Catholic traditions, social teachings and practices.”

In addition to his work at Annunciation House, Garcia has welcomed and met with hundreds of delegations to the border, teaching by inviting them into the world of the poor and the migrant, and allowing them to see and hear firsthand the stories of immigrants.  He invites them to commit themselves to address the root causes that deny to the immigrant the justice that is due to them in their homeland and in the United States.

“Ruben’s commitment to the radical hospitality of Jesus, welcoming all to the table, with preferential option for migrants, teaches peace moment by moment,” stated Cathy Crosby, Pax Christi USA National Council member and chair of the Teacher of Peace committee. “The PCUSA National Council celebrates the opportunity to recognize Ruben’s many years of humble service.  We hope that the work of Ruben and Annunciation House continues to inspire others to work for justice and peace, as we each recognize the countless small ways we are called to build God’s kingdom here and now.”

The Teacher of Peace award will be presented at a special ceremony honoring Garcia in Washington, D.C. in September 2012.

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Lobbying Congress for a Faithful Budget

April 9, 2012 at 3:48 pm · Filed under Faithful Citizenship ·Tagged , ,

Note:  I participated in these days and was energized by the significant number of young adults who participated.  It give me hope for the future!  Jeanne Christensen, RSM

At the end of March, over 700 persons from many religious denominations participated in the 2012 Ecumenical Advocacy Days in Washington, D.C. Ecumenical Advocacy Days is a movement of the ecumenical Christian community, and its recognized partners and allies, to strengthen Christian voices and to mobilize for advocacy on a wide variety of U.S. domestic and international policy issues.

The highlight of the three-day gathering was the release of a Faithful Budget. This promotes comprehensive and compassionate budget principles that will “protect the common good, values each individual and his or her livelihood, and helps lift the burden on the poor, rather than increasing it while shielding the wealthiest from any additional sacrifice.”

On Monday, March 26, EAD participants delivered the Faithful Budget to their Senators and Members of Congress, and lobbied for restoring economic opportunity, ensuring adequate resources for shared priorities, prioritizing human security, meeting immediate needs, accepting intergenerational responsibility, environmental reform, access to health care, and the role of government.

Key talking points included:

  • Restoring economic opportunity: invest in programs that promote economic mobility and security, like high-quality, affordable education, sustainable jobs with living wages, policies that help families to build assets, and international aid programs that build economic security in the world’s most vulnerable places.
  • Ensuring adequate resources for shared priorities: reinstate a just tax system that calls for shared responsibility, among individuals and corporations, to ensure sufficient revenues to meet our needs and priorities.
  • Prioritizing true human security: make investments in growth, not destruction, in order to build meaningful security for individuals, families, and communities.
  • Meeting immediate need: protect the funding and structure of core safety-net programs while ensuring investments in critical human needs, social service, environmental protection, and humanitarian and poverty-focused international assistance programs.
  • Recognizing a robust role for government: we need the government’s continued partnership to combat poverty, reduce extreme inequality, restore economic opportunity for all, and rebuild a robust middle class. The faith community cannot meet the need alone.
  • Caring for God’s Creation sustainably and responsibly: make budget choices that protect air, water, and land – the entirety of Creation – that they might be preserved for future generations.

The Faithful Budget was spearheaded by a coalition of leading Christian, Jewish, Muslim and other faith-based organizations affiliated with many of the major religious denominational movements.  It is a continuation of the Faithful Budget Campaign, an effort launched in July by the religious community during the height of the congressional debt ceiling battle to lift up faithful voices on behalf of the nation’s most vulnerable in order to encourage the administration and Congress to maintain a robust commitment to domestic and international poverty assistance programs.

The full document as well as additional details about the Faithful Budget Campaign can be found at www.faithfulbudget.org.

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An Invitation to hear Father Roy Bourgeois in Kansas City

April 9, 2012 at 3:39 pm · Filed under Faithful Citizenship, Peacemakers ·Tagged ,

Note:  the following is taken from a letter sent by local event organizers to Call to Action (CTA) members and others. The letter was sent to CTA members and others known to be open to goodness and courage in the Kansas City metropolitan area.  For goodness and courage are surely the combination that Father Roy Bourgeois, MM brings to every place he visits with his message that Catholic women who are called to priestly ordination should not be denied that Sacrament.  As Father Roy says, “To deny ordination to women is sexism, and sexism, like racism, is a sin.” 

As you know, Father Bourgeois has put at risk his priesthood, his inclusion in the Catholic community, his standing as a member of the Maryknoll Order, his reputation– just about everything of value that he holds dear — to bear witness to this message, which his conscience has compelled him to promulgate.  For his efforts, he has been threatened by the Vatican with excommunication, expulsion from Maryknoll, removal from the priesthood, and likely other forms of censure and/or exclusion.  He is resisting with all the powers of Canon Law, with the Rev. Thomas Doyle as his counsel.  His defense is primacy of conscience.  We might ask is his fight our fight?

Father Roy will spend the weekend of April 26-27 in the Heart of America.  Organizers of his visit are hoping to get him a spot on Steve Kraske’s Up to Date on April 27.   An op-ed piece has been submitted to the KC Star as well as a blurb for the Faith Calendar.  This calendar notice should appear the Saturday before the event on April 27.

Father Roy will speak at Colonial Church of Prairie Village under CTA sponsorship on Friday evening, April 27, at 7:00 p.m. and at First Congregational Church in Topeka at 9:00 a.m. April 28 at the invitation of Catholics for Renewal there. We will also be showing the powerful new documentary, Pink Smoke Over the Vatican, both places.  This is a documentary about women’s ordination as priests.

For additional information, call 913-432-3675.

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Why I Sit and Eat with our Guests: A Reflection on Breaking Bread at Holy Family House

February 8, 2012 at 12:03 am · Filed under Catholic Worker, Faithful Citizenship, Poverty ·Tagged , ,

by Rachel Hoffman

Thursday, January 20, 2011

“And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:19

As Christians, we strive to follow in the example of Jesus during the Last Supper – as he shared himself deeply in the breaking of the bread.  I am bold in saying that we attempt to the do same during supper time at Holy Family House.  We spend hours planning menus, sorting food, rinsing fruit and veggies, cooking meals, serving meals, and enjoying the fruits of our labor.  Indeed, our work centers on this sacred act of eating- this is how we recognize each other.  I have learned that sharing a common meal, sitting down face to face with a volunteer or guest, is the easiest way to see Christ in another.  This is when I hear about a new job or place to stay, an ill friend or relative, worries and joys.

But we are at Holy Family House to serve, right?  There isn’t enough food to go around, is there?  I have food at home, can’t I just wait till I get home?  I’m so different than the guests, will we have anything to talk about?  I feel guilty about how much I have and how little the guests have, isn’t it just easier to keep my distance?  Whatever your reasons are- we ask that you take a leap of faith with us and join in the breaking of the bread.  Listening is a form of ministry, there’s plenty of food to go around, just take some salad and sit down if you’re not hungry, and we promise there are plenty of things that you have in common with anyone who walks through our door—we are all human after all!

We at Holy Family House are hoping that people from all walks of life can build relationships with one another, understand in little ways how we each think and feel, enjoy each other’s company and in the words of co-founder Dorothy Day; “build a new society out of the old.”  This means doing things differently than we have in the past, sharing resources and time, and interacting in new ways.

So please, humor us- take a break from serving and sit down in our dining room during supper time.  Strike up a conversation, or eat slowly in silence.  Just be with us and our guests in a new way.   We look forward to breaking bread with you soon.

“Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?”  Corinthians 10:16

 

 

                                                             

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High Interest Rates Drain Local Wealth

January 8, 2012 at 10:08 pm · Filed under Community, Faithful Citizenship, Poverty, Values ·Tagged , , , ,

By:  Molly Fleming-Pierre

Communities Creating Opportunity Policy and Development Director

“On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act.   One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they journey on life’s highway.”

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Every day, thousands of families in Missouri struggle to stretch their wages across mounting bills.  Times are tough, within our faith communities we are finding too many families who lack the income to meet their basic needs.  In these difficult times, social service agencies, church emergency assistance funds, and food banks are all but tapped out.  As the financial woes for our working families mount, many Missourians turn to high interest credit, like payday and car title loans, to meet their short term credit needs.

Payday loans are small, short-term loans that are secured by a borrower’s personal check.  Payday loans typically cost $17 for every $100 borrowed and must be repaid in full before the borrower’s next payday—which translates to an annual percentage rate (APR) of 445% for a two-week loan, meaning that many borrowers pay more in fees than they actually borrow. For a “typical” payday loan in Missouri, a borrower completes eight back-to-back transactions before fully repaying an average loan of $300. This accrues $410 in interest fees.

These loans cause a predatory cycle of debt that traps our families into a spiral of recurring high interest fees. Exorbitant interest rates on payday loans ensnare our struggling families into spirals of debt so usurious that a $300 loan for the month’s groceries typically ends up costing our families a whopping $710.[1]  With these rates, the average borrower pays more in interest than the original loan amount.  The triple-digit interest rate is a product of the payday loan’s very unfair design: a loan that is due in full, plus interest and fees, in two short weeks and is secured by access to a family’s banking account.

These high cost loans don’t reflect the family values of our communities, and they dishonor the old adage that hard work and persistence create prosperity.  Even individuals who are able to repay their astronomical payday and car title loan debts are unable to build credit as these lenders refuse to report positively to credit agencies.  Small dollar, high interest borrowers are therefore trapped in a financial subclass that does not allow them to maintain income or build wealth.

There are now over one thousand payday lenders in Missouri, not to mention the hundreds of car title lenders and pawnshops.  That’s more than McDonald’s and Starbucks combined.  While these loans are marked as a short term fix for unexpected expenses, they tend to trap people in debt.  Because the loans (and fees) are due in full within two weeks to a month, the borrower is forced to come up with a sizeable amount of cash in a short time.

Especially in these difficult economic times, we know that Missouri families deserve better.  In order for lending to build assets in our communities, lending products must abide by a fair interest rate.  As an interfaith community, we are building a grassroots base to outlaw the triple digit interest rates that cause the debt rap.  Lowering the APR to a reasonable figure, like 36 percent APR can be accomplished by either lowering the fees charged, or by giving families more time to repay the loan.  In either case, it means a family will be given a fighting chance to succeed, rather than being ensnared in a product that by its very terms makes it almost certain the family will fail.

This month as we celebrate the life and the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, we are called to “transform the Jericho Road so that men and women and not constantly beaten and robbed along life’s highway.”  The Jericho Road in Missouri is broken.  Our rural, suburban, and city roads across the state run rampant with predatory lenders that charge triple digit interest, robbing our families of the wages they need to survive.  Faith community efforts are critical to freeing our neighbors from the payday debt trap.  Religious and community groups throughout the state are building a movement to Cap the Rate on these triple-digit interest products.  Visit www.cco.org or www.moresponsiblelending.org to learn how you can get involved.  Together, we can transform the Jericho Road.

[1] The average payday borrower in Missouri has 8 loans each year, most often taken out in back-to-back transactions. They therefore pay $48 in fees eight times, or $384, for what is essentially the original $290 line of credit. These data are from the Center for Responsible Lending.

 

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Statement of Solidarity with School of the Americas Watch

December 4, 2011 at 9:34 pm · Filed under Faithful Citizenship, International Justice, Peacemakers, Uncategorized ·Tagged ,

November 23, 2011

Sister Michelle spoke at the School of the Americas vigil on November 21, 2011 accompanied by Mercy Associate Nelly del Cid from Honduras, Sister Tita from Panama and Sister Anita from Argentina. 

Good morning,

I am here to represent the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, Mercy Associates, Mercy Volunteers, Mercy College Students, and Ministry Partners who are standing in solidarity with you and with all those negatively affected by the graduates of the SOA. We come with mercy, compassion, and hope, but also with a sense of urgency and impatience:

  • As the Mercy Family, we are scandalized that we, the USA, who are 4% of the world’s population, have 50% of the world’s military;
  • We are scandalized that the US has troops in 130 or so countries currently;
  • We are scandalized that in a country where 80% of us claim to be Christian, many seem to have forgotten the words of Jesus- that we should actually love our neighbor as ourselves.

We all know whose interests our numerous military bases are protecting.

And yet there is hope:

  • There is hope in our Honduran Mercy Sisters and Associates who are part of the “women resisting violence” movement inHonduras;
  • Our Panama sisters gave us hope, when in 1984, their efforts and those of others succeeded in getting the SOA out of Panama;
  • And there is hope in you, who come here year after year to say NO to the oppressive, unjust structures of a military culture.

You know what solidarity is:  standing with our brothers and sisters in love and compassion- to the end.

So we must continue this SOA Watch here and at home- as our sisters from Latin America have reminded us, we must connect the dots and be awake and alert to what’s happening around us.

Let us continue until that day when right relationships, non-violence, the common good, and finally, peace, will prevail in the Americas and all over our planet.  Thank you!

Experiencing the SOA Watch the First Time

By Sister Michelle Gorman, R.S.M,  Sisters of Mercy West Midwest Community Leadership Team Justice Liaison,

November 29, 2011

After many years of being aware of the annual School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC) protests at Fort Benning, GA, I finally was able to attend.  I was inspired by the presence of so many Catholic groups as well as the intergenerational mix of college students, middle aged activists, and older people aided by canes and wheelchairs. Fr. Roy Bourgeois and Martin Sheen were the celebrities who spoke from a long history of efforts to close the SOA. Mercy Sisters Anita Siufi (Argentina), Tita Lopez (Panama), and Mercy Associate Nelly del Cid (Honduras) were the Mercies who have lived daily with the effects of the SOA in their respective countries.

The continuing existence of the SOA and its history of militarization in the Americas violates every one of our Critical Concerns, i.e., the practice of non-violence, anti-racism, reverence for Earth, and concern for women and immigrants. The causes of violence, racism, and disrespect for immigrants, women, and Earth itself lie in the greed and inhumanity of ‘the few’ who continue to maintain control over resources in many parts of our world, with complete disregard for the needs of ‘the many’.

In one of her several talks during the protest event, Nelly del Cid reminded us that the three most lucrative issues on our planet today are trafficking in persons, drugs, and arms. This scandalizing fact awakens in us a sense of urgency to act and a renewed support for all those resisting the devaluation of human life for the sake of greed and profit. . . .

How do we, as U.S. citizens and taxpayers, get in touch with our own complicity which results in the denial of basic human rights in so many parts of our world? When we and many other groups beyond the U.S. commit ourselves to work for systemic change, we encounter a system that privatizes land and water, seeds and crops, the very basics of life itself?

Where can we find the courage to continue to seek the welfare of our brothers and sisters if not in the placing of our hope in the God of Mercy, Wisdom, and Mystery, whose compassion extends to the fall of a sparrow?  We must be in solidarity with all of those who, past and present, resisted and continue to resist the unjust structures created by a military culture that is becoming more and more pervasive in our world.  Our planet is too beautiful to be destroyed; our brothers and sisters worldwide are too beautiful to be dominated by those who only seem to value the bottom line.

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Deficit Reduction Committee Members Were Right to Reject Dangerous Plans

December 4, 2011 at 9:26 pm · Filed under Faithful Citizenship, Poverty, Viewpoint ·Tagged ,

Statement by Deborah Weinstein, executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs, November 22, 2011.

We applaud members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction who stood firm and ultimately rejected cuts that would harm Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and food stamp beneficiaries. We thank those who opposed still more tax giveaways to millionaires and insisted that fair revenue increases had to be part of any emerging plan to cut the deficit.

A bad plan would have been worse than no plan – and some very bad plans were put forward. These included a $643 billion Republican proposal that would have resulted in just $3 billion in tax increases from ending tax breaks on corporate jets. Democrats were right to reject this proposal, which reportedly cut $216 billion in domestic appropriations. The plan once again targeted programs that serve low- and moderate-income families, such as education, job training, housing and public health, while asking nothing of upper-income Americans.

Likewise, Democrats were correct to take a pass on a proposal by Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) that contained $250 billion in net new tax revenue but masked a large low-to-middle-income tax increase, with almost all of the new revenue paid right back out in tax cuts disproportionately benefiting millionaires and billionaires. The plan, which also would have made the Bush tax cuts permanent, amounted to a massive tax decrease for those at the top, while those lower down the economic ladder would have paid with higher taxes and cuts to Medicare and other critical programs.

The public overwhelmingly supports closing tax loopholes and increasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations to reduce the deficit. It also opposes cuts that negatively affect Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries. In a poll this month by Lake Research Partners/Tarrance Group poll of swing states, 89 percent of those surveyed said they were either strongly or somewhat in favor of closing tax loopholes to make the tax code fairer and 66 percent supported increasing taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations. In contrast, only 19 percent favored making hundreds of millions of dollars in beneficiary cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

The best way to reduce the deficit is to get people back to work, buying goods and services and paying taxes.  The Joint Select Committee should have approved a plan with job creation initiatives in the short term, followed once the economy strengthens by tax increases and spending cuts that spare low-income and vulnerable people from harm. Extending the federal Unemployment Insurance (UI) program for the long-term unemployed is must-pass legislation for Congress before federal UI expires in December. Abandoning the jobless with unemployment stuck at 9 percent would be unthinkably cruel and a severe blow to the economy.

Regrettably, too many members remained intransigently opposed to such a sensible and productive plan. They insisted instead on service and benefit cuts that would weaken our economy and jeopardize our future, while shifting the tax burden so that the rich benefit even more. Over the coming years, such a plan would leave more of our young people unprepared for employment, more of our population lacking health care and more of our seniors economically insecure. The members of the Joint Select Committee who rejected that approach should feel proud of their success in staving off a dangerous course of action.

The Coalition on Human Needs (CHN) is an alliance of national organizations working together to promote public policies which address the needs of low-income and other vulnerable populations. The Coalition conducts analyses of federal budget proposals and policies to determine their impact on people in need. The Coalition’s members include civil rights, religious, labor and professional organizations and those concerned with the wellbeing of children, women, the elderly and people with disabilities. CHN is located at 1120 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite 312, Washington, D.C. 20036. For more information please visit www.chn.org.

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ECONOMIC JUSTICE: Occupy Wall Street and Catholic Social Teaching

November 5, 2011 at 10:16 pm · Filed under Faithful Citizenship, Poverty, Viewpoint ·Tagged , ,

Posted on October 25, 2011 by paxchristiusa

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, and 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.

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