Thursday, February 08, 2007

Economic Decisions Serve People


That is a criterion of Catholic morality. The U.S. Catholic bishops expressed it well over 20 years ago:
Decisions must be judged in light of what they do for the poor, what they do to the poor, and what they enable the poor to do for themselves. The fundamental moral criterion for all economic decisions, policies, and institutions is this: They must be at the service of all people, especially the poor.
[Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy, U.S. Catholic Bishops, 1986, #24]
The news media have focused on the issue of increasing troops in Iraq. Jill Rauh pointed out at the end of last month that
the Iraq Study Group Report conclusions clearly demonstrate that nonmilitary solutions abound.
She cited the U.S. bishops' 1986 message at her posting, which is available at Catalyst, the blog of the nearly 36-year-old Center of Concern, a Jesuit initiative, pursuing God's justice for the entire globe.

[Yesterday's brief BBC report entitled, "Bremer quizzed over cash for Iraq," introduces the situation of "missing" money in Iraq.]
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Photo by Ma-eh, who licensed it under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0

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