Twenty-five years ago, the U.S. Bishops issued a landmark 99-page pastoral letter entitled Economic Justice for All: Catholic Social Teaching and the US Economy. Today, with a record number of people suffering in a flailing economy, the letter’s call to promote human dignity in economic, policy and individual actions is as relevant as ever.
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WASHIGNTON—Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, expressed disappointment in today’s Supreme Court decision on Janus v. AFSCME. The 5-4 decision struck down an Illinois law that required non-union workers to pay fees that go to collective bargaining, overturning a 1977 law that required employees to pay “fair share” fees.
Bishop Dewane’s full statement follows:
California’s Legislature this week approved a new $183 billion dollar State Budget and in the process established priorities that encompass “profound moral questions about who are we as a society, how we view our future and whether as a people we can look beyond our own self-interest to the interest of the larger society.” (In Search of the Common Good)
California’s Legislature this week approved a new $183 billion dollar State Budget and in the process established priorities that encompass “profound moral questions about who are we as a society, how we view our future and whether as a people we can look beyond our own self-interest to the interest of the larger society.” (In Search of the Common Good)
California’s Legislature this week approved a new $183 billion dollar State Budget and in the process established priorities that encompass “profound moral questions about who are we as a society, how we view our future and whether as a people we can look beyond our own self-interest to the interest of the larger society.” (In Search of the Common Good)
During the next few weeks, the California legislature will focus on the state budget. With a supermajority, California Democrats will be in full control of the process but it is unlikely to be smooth sailing for them.
State tax revenue is coming in significantly below projections. A recently enacted gas tax increase has put some Democrats on the hot seat. Even within the Democratic Party business interests have helped elect more “moderate” Democrats who do not always have the same priorities as the state party.
While California is known for being one of the nation’s wealthiest states with a median household income of approximately $61,818 per year, and with a larger economy than all but five nations worldwide, we are also becoming the United States’ leader in poverty and childhood poverty rates.
“Be attentive to the needs of the poor, the suffering, the lonely, for whoever has chosen to love Jesus cannot but love his neighbor.”
-Pope Francis, December 18, 2014
The word ‘cultivate’ calls to mind the care which the farmer has for his land in order that it bear fruits and that they be shared: how much passion, how much attention, how much dedication in all that this demands! That familiar relationship is formed and the earth becomes “sister” earth. -Pope Francis, January 31, 2015
The following statement was released by Mr. Edward ‘Ned’ Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, in response to California Governor Jerry Brown’s 2017 Budget Proposal: