Education Resources

Distribute to the Director of Religious
Education and School Principal

In November, 1986, the Catholic bishops of the United States issued a landmark pastoral letter on the U.S. economy called Economic Justice for All. It challenged our nation to put concern for the poor and vulnerable and pursuit of the common good at the center of our economic life.

Ten years later as they marked the pastoral letter's anniversary, the bishops recognized that while our economy has changed dramatically, the challenges facing us are no less compelling, and the principles they outlined ten years ago are no less important. At a time of growing national attention on such issues as globalization, income stagnation, and increasing wage disparities, the Catholic tradition of ethical reflection on economic issues has much to offer. In November, 1996, the bishops issued a brief ten-point summary of Catholic teaching on the economy titled A Catholic Framework for Economic Life. They called on the Catholic community to share these ten principles as broadly as possible.

The most important place to share Catholic social teaching is in the parish, not as an optional or fringe aspect of our faith, but as a central element of what it means to be Catholic. This resource provides general suggestions and a sample lesson plan focused on A Catholic Framework for Economic Life that can be adapted for use with junior high and high school students, as well as with adults.

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General Suggestions

1. Share the Catholic Framework for Economic Life with teachers, catechists, and youth ministers and ask them to consider how it might be incorporated in their ministry and lesson plans.

2. Sponsor a special adult education session on the Catholic Framework for Economic Life.

3. In appropriate small group discussions held in connection with various parish programs, distribute the Catholic Framework for Economic Life and use the following questions:
   • Did anything surprise you about the Framework?

   • How are our economic lives and our faith lives connected?

   • In what ways is our nation's economic life consistent with the Framework? In what ways would our economic life have to be changed to be consistent?

   • In what ways are our personal lives consistent with the Framework?

   • How would we need to change our personal lives to be more consistent?

4. Highlight economic justice themes in scripture study sessions. (See the Homily Suggestions included in this packet for ideas.)

5. Incorporate economic justice principles in sacramental preparation programs (e.g., discuss priorities for family finances in marriage preparation; explore options for dealing with gifts and for contributing money or time in connection with first communion, confirmation, and marriage preparation.)

6. Distribute the Framework and encourage those preparing for confirmation to participate in service projects that address economic justice.

7. Offer study and reflection sessions focusing on the Framework for those involved in the parish's social ministry to the poor.

Sample Lesson Plan

BACKGROUND

Central to our Christian belief is the sacredness of the human person. Created by God in His image, the human person is the clearest reflection of God among us. Our human dignity comes from God, not from our nationality, race, sex, economic status, or any other personal accomplishment. At the same time however, we believe that the human person is not only sacred but also social. How we organize our society then -- in economics and politics, in law and policy -- directly affects human dignity and the capacity of individuals to grow in community.

Through Scripture and the teaching of our Church, we come to understand that every society can be judged by what its economic system does for people, to people and whether it permits everyone to participate in its economy. The obligation to "love our neighbor" has an individual dimension, but it also requires a broader social commitment to the common good.

All people have a right and an obligation to participate in the economic life of society. Basic justice demands that people be assured a minimum level of participation. It is wrong for a person or group ignore their responsibility. It is also wrong for them to be unfairly excluded. For example, people who are both able and willing to work, but cannot get a job, are deprived of the participation that is so vital to human development. For it is through employment that most individuals and families meet their material needs, exercise their talents and have an opportunity to contribute to the larger community. Such participation has special significance in our tradition because we believe that it is a means by which we join in carrying forward God's creative activity.

Building on the legacy of their pastoral letter of a decade ago, Economic Justice for All, the American bishops released the following statement in 1996:

A CATHOLIC FRAMEWORK FOR ECONOMIC LIFE

As followers of Jesus Christ and participants in a powerful economy, Catholics in the United States are called to work for greater economic justice in the face of persistent poverty, growing income gaps, and increasing discussion of economic issues in the U.S. and around the world. We urge Catholics to use the following ethical framework for economic life as principles for reflection, criteria for judgement and directions for action. These principles are drawn directly from Catholic teaching on economic life:

1. The economy exists for the person, not the person for the economy.
   
   
2. All economic life should be shaped by moral principles. Economic choices and institutions must be judged by how they protect or undermine the life and dignity of the human person, support the family, and serve the common good.
   
   
3. A fundamental moral measure of any economy is how the poor and vulnerable are faring.
   
   
4. All people have a right to life and to secure the basic necessities of life (e.g., food, clothing, shelter, education, health care, safe environment, economic security).
   
   
5. All people have the right to economic initiative, to productive work, to just wages and benefits, to decent working conditions as well as to organize and join unions or other associations.
   
   
6. All people, to the extent they are able, have a corresponding duty to work, a responsibility to provide for the needs of their families, and an obligation to contribute to the broader society.
   
   
7. In economic life, free markets have both clear advantages and limits; government has essential responsibilities and limitations; voluntary groups have irreplaceable roles, but cannot substitute for the proper working of the market and the just policies of the state.
   
   
8. Society has a moral obligation, including governmental action where necessary, to assure opportunity, meet basic human needs, and pursue justice in economic life.
   
   
9. Workers, owners, managers, stockholders and consumers are moral agents in economic life. By our choices, initiative, creativity and investment, we enhance or diminish economic opportunity, community life, and social justice.
   
   
10. The global economy has moral dimensions and human consequences. Decisions on investment, trade, aid and development should protect human life and promote human rights, especially for those most in need wherever they might live on this globe.

According to Pope John Paul II, the Catholic tradition calls for a "society of work, enterprise and participation" which "is not directed against the market, but demands that the market be appropriately controlled by the forces of society and by the state to assure that the basic needs of the whole society are satisfied." (Centesimus Annus, 35) All of economic life should recognize the fact that we are all God's children and members of one human family, called to exercise a clear priority for "the least among us."

As Bishop William Skylstad, the chairman of the bishops' Domestic Policy Committee, pointed out in his report to the bishops, a lot has changed in the decade since the pastoral letter. Communism has collapsed. Our nation debates trade agreements, not arms treaties. But ten years later we are still haunted by how the "least among us" are faring. By this measure, our society is seriously failing.

The signs of our failures are all around us. A fourth of our preschoolers grow up poor in the richest nation on earth. The gaps between rich and poor are growing in our nation and across the globe. For the first time most Americans believe their children will not have the same economic security they have. Too many neighborhoods and rural communities are islands of economic despair and disinvestment. Our nation ranks at the top in the arms we sell to poor countries and near the bottom in the development assistance we offer them. We are a long way from "economic justice for all."

We live in an economy of paradoxes. Profits, productivity and the stock market grow, while many workers income and sense of security decline. Our economy is among the most powerful and productive on earth. But it is pulling us apart. The bishops point out that we are one nation, but three economies.

One economy is prospering, growing more productive and affluent as some seize the opportunities created by a global marketplace and information age. They are moving ahead.

A second economy is left behind. Families without jobs, fathers, or a living wage struggle to survive. The homeless and hungry are the signs of an economy which leave millions behind.

In a third economy, the shrinking, middle are increasingly anxious, wondering whether they'll keep their jobs or health care, how they can afford a decent education for their children or an adequate retirement for themselves. They are being squeezed.

This economic framework based on Catholic teaching represents a fundamental challenge to this winner take all, "every person for oneself" economic ethic which leaves too many behind. It offers a different set of values. It provides American Catholics with a distinctive criteria for economic dialogue that calls us to focus on the human and moral dimensions of economic life.

Ten years after the bishops' economic pastoral letter, they renewed their commitment to share the Church's teaching on economic justice and its moral challenges.

Icebreaker (about 10 minutes)

Using newsprint or chalkboard, take a few minutes to brainstorm the meaning of the word "economy." As you give the group the formal definition underline key words from the brainstorm.

Definition: An economy is the social structure of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services in a country, area or region.

Reflect (about 20 minutes)

Have a volunteer read the passage from Economic Justice for All on "work." Analyze and discuss the meaning of this message. What are the three fold dimensions of work? List them on Chart paper or chalkboard. Elicit and chart examples of each from the group.

Excerpts from Economic Justice for All, paragraphs 96-97.

The economy of this nation has been built by the labor of human hands and minds. Its future will be forged by the ways persons direct all this work toward greater justice. The economy is not a machine that operates according to its own inexorable laws and persons are not mere objects tossed about by economic forces. Pope John Paul II has stated that "human work is a key, probably the essential key, to the whole social question."(On Human Work) The pope's understanding of work includes virtually all forms of productive human activity: agriculture, entrepreneurship, industry, the care of children, the sustaining of family life, politics, medical care, and scientific research. Leisure, prayer, celebration, and the arts are also central to the realization of human dignity and to the development of a rich cultural life. It is in their daily work, however that persons become the subjects and creators of the economic life of the nation. Thus, it is primarily through their daily labor that people make their most important contributions to economic justice.

All work has a threefold moral significance. First, it is a principal way that people exercise the distinctive human capacity for self-expression and self-realization. Second, it is the ordinary way for human beings to fulfill their material needs. Finally, work enables people to contribute to the well-being of the larger community. Work is not only for oneself. It is for one's family, for the nation and indeed for the benefit of the entire human family.


Challenge (about 25 minutes)

Distribute, and ask the participants to quietly read A Catholic Framework for Economic Life. When everyone is finished, divide the group into clusters of 3 or 4, have each group discuss how the economy, work, and responsibility interact. After about 10 minutes, ask the whole group to discuss the differences between the obligations or duties of society and those of individuals.


Summary (about 10 minutes)

Ask for a volunteer to read Matthew 19:16-25

Discuss the passage in relation to the bishops economic framework. Is Jesus saying that a rich person can't get into heaven? Reflect on the 1st Commandment and the idolatry of material things.