Posted on 01/20/2014 2:04:50 PM PST by Welchie25
Maryland’s Catholic bishops released a joint statement Jan. 20 urging fair treatment of workers. The statement coincides with Poverty Awareness Month and the state’s legislative session, where increasing the minimum wage and mandating paid sick leave for low-wage workers are already in the spotlight.
The bishops make clear they want Maryland to enact legislation promoting “just compensation and a healthy work environment.” “While we hope one day the issue of raising the minimum wage will be addressed at the federal level, we cannot afford to wait in Maryland,” they stated.
Titled “The Dignity of Work,” the one-page statement was released in English and Spanish. The following are five points Catholics can take from the piece.
1. The church’s call for a living wage is nothing new. “Throughout the history of the social teachings of the Church, the right of all people to fair compensation for their labor has been upheld as an essential element of a just society,” the bishops stated. In “Rerum Novarum,” published in 1891 and considered the first of the modern social encyclicals, Pope Leo XIII argued that workers should be paid a wage sufficient to support a family, according to the bishops’ statement.
2. Minimum wage is not a living wage. “A full-time worker earning the state’s minimum wage of $7.25 earns little more than $15,000 annually, hardly enough to pay for food and rent, let alone support a family,” the bishops stated, adding that more 80 percent of the state’s low-wage workers are adults, many with children. “They deserve the comfort of knowing that their hard work can provide the means they need to achieve economic stability for themselves and their families.”
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicreview.org ...
Lest there be any misunderstanding: These Bishops are NOT speaking Ex Cathedra. Their understanding of economics is on a par with Barack Al-Obama’s.
If Pelosi does not get kicked out for ignoring the prolife message of the Catholic Church -—
I should not get kicked out for ignoring the Socialist stupidity of the Church.
Any time the government is willing to resort to violence to set economic policy, all the world is poorer. It is trivial to demonstrate that people are always WORSE off in such circumstances.
The Church agrees private property is the best to allocate and distribute resources. But it also teaches Christians must give to someone in need. One must always serve God, not Mammon. We can afford to pay who those work for a living a wage sufficient to support themselves and their families. Its really about priorities.
6. There's a Presbyterian church right down the road, if you don't like socialism.
But is the government in need? After the government takes its “share,” will most people have anything left to give to the poor?
American bishops flap their lips as the churches of the new catholic religion empty.
Capitalism is bad, saith the new pope as America turns itself inside out to accommodate socialism. Satan is winning and God is not pleased.
No souls are being saved, but slaves to socialism are being shackled together.
Catholics are not socialists. But Catholic Social Teaching does not believe an unfettered free market is a moral good. We are entitled to earn and keep the fruits of our labor. But what we don’t use, we should give to others so they can benefit from us. We all see the effects of poverty. Improving the lot of those less fortunate than us draws us closer to God.
People are in need not government.
We are not to confiscate from others but simply to share what we have so all be part of the KIngdom Of Heaven.
True equality comes from people acting from their faith not from the dictates of an all-powerful and distant bureaucracy.
The answer is to poverty isn’t to do nothing or have the government run our lives; its somewhere in between.
Really?, then who is the 'we' in your next post?
We can afford to pay who those work for a living a wage sufficient to support themselves and their families.
YOU can and should do that, but what about those who don't work for you? Where does that money come from?
Economic insanity continues to spread unabated. We continue to abandon a system that made us the strongest and richest country in history in favor of a failed system that cannot work.
What do mean by, “what we don’t use?”
Are you referring to savings deposited into a bank after the bills are paid?
“For the poor always ye have with you; but Me ye have not always.”
There is no “answer” for poverty in this world and time period. We are exhorted to have Charity, but I have never seen it written as a commandment to give to someone who refuses to try to provide his own needs.
Money isn’t everything, you know.
What I don't use, the government takes away for the benefit of itself and for the benefit of those it deems worthy of its largesse. If the Church feels the poor in the USA are not adequately provided for, it needs to petition the entity that took the tithe it otherwise would have had. My 10% Church tithe resides in the coffers of US governments, State and Federal.
I beseech the Church to plead its case for the poor to the legislators that know better than myself how to care for the needy.
A wage sufficient to support a family I put at $75,000/yr. minimum with a 5 or 10 percent increase yearly. Sounds good to me!
Does it teach that government should give in their place after taking their "private property" under threat of prison?
In other words, if I take $20 from your wallet by force and give it to a poor person, have you committed a moral act?
The Church [and you, apparently] confuse forced income redistribution with charity. I'm sure Planned Parenthood would disagree with me, though.
Our vocation was to work hard and be responsible for ourselves and our children. Though not rich by any means, we avoided debt and always saved money for unexpected expenses and, eventually, for our retirement years. We never wanted our children OR the government to have the burden of supporting us.
Frankly, many poor people don't HAVE to be poor. They make poor choices and pass them on to their offspring. It can become a way of life and I doubt God expects workers to carry them.
Or rather, if you want a bigger dose of it.
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