Midterm Elections & Social Justice, part 2

For a couple of decades now, negative campaigning has been commonplace in the US. Negative campaigning is marked primarily by a candidate saying how they are not like their opponent. Sometimes it goes further by using innuendo, half-truths, out-of-context statements, and even name-calling in an attempt to turn the voters off to the other candidate. The sad truth is that this strategy has been statistically proven to work, despite the un-Christian character of the approach.
       Recently, as campaigns began in Australia, the main television network in Australia invited the two candidates for prime minister to be interviewed (separately) for the morning news program. The network did one thing to make the interviews compelling: they insisted that each candidate talk only about themselves and their political views. Furthermore, when either candidate began saying things like, "My opponent says…," the interviewer cut them off and did not permit them to proceed. From the standpoint of these American eyes and ears, it was remarkable.
       Perhaps the approach of the Australian television network is a good approach for us: look only at what each candidate says about herself or himself and cut them off (or tune them out) when they start the negative rhetoric. Once we know what a candidate stands for, then we can apply our well-formed consciences to make a good decision.
Copyright © 2010, Deacon Carl D. Smith. All rights reserved. Reprint permission granted to parishes for use in Sunday bulletins. (http://bit.ly/16p8ws)
  

Midterm Elections & Social Justice, part 1

As we move into fall, we start seeing and hearing campaign rhetoric once again. This year is not a presidential election year, but it is a year in which all members of the US House and a third of the US Senators are elected. In addition, there may be other state and local races, referenda, and initiatives.
       The US bishops update their document Faithful Citizenship (www.faithfulcitizenship.org) only in presidential election years, but it is nonetheless applicable for the midterm elections, as well. In the campaign period leading up to every election, Catholics should review Faithful Citizenship, form their consciences on the issues, and then vote their consciences on election day. It is time-consuming and at times difficult, especially to figure out what a candidate's stand is (or isn't) on an issue. However, it is what we must do to truly live our faith in the public square.
       (Next week: Negative campaigning.)
Copyright © 2010, Deacon Carl D. Smith. All rights reserved. Reprint permission granted to parishes for use in Sunday bulletins. (http://bit.ly/16p8ws)
  

Buying the Poor for a Pair of Sandals

Hear this, you who trample upon the needy
and destroy the poor of the land!…

Never will I forget a thing they have done! (Amos 8:4,7LFM)

In the first reading for this Sunday, the profit Amos decries the neglect of the poor and lists some of the abuses, such as adjusting weights and measures to cheat the poor out of what is justly theirs. 
       The line that should catch our attention in these days refers to "buy[ing]… the poor for a pair of sandals." How often do we prefer shoes that were made in foreign sweatshops just because we can get away with paying a lower price for them? When we defend doing so by claiming that the people who work in those sweatshops are at least doing better than their neighbors, isn't that like buying the poor for a pair of sandals?
       Furthermore, wouldn't our country be better off economically if we would search out domestically produced goods, made by factories that pay just wages?
Copyright © 2010, Deacon Carl D. Smith. All rights reserved. Reprint permission granted to parishes for use in Sunday bulletins. (http://bit.ly/16p8ws)
 

Building Hope through Social Justice

This weekend in the Archdiocese of Seattle, parishes will be taking up the annual Build Hope collection. This special collection supports the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) and the Catholic Communication Campaign. CCHD is the organization nationally that the US bishops has established to fund and promote social justice activities in the US. CCHD fight poverty and injustice by investing in organization that involve the poor in the development and execution of their programs. This principle was reaffirmed in Pope Benedict's encyclical Caritas in veritate as the only way to truly solve problems and bring about the development of peoples.
       Please see the CCHD web site (www.usccb.org/cchd/) for more information, and please be generous when the baskets are passed this weekend.
Copyright © 2010, Deacon Carl D. Smith. All rights reserved. Reprint permission granted to parishes for use in Sunday bulletins. (http://bit.ly/16p8ws)
 

The Bishops' Annual Labor Day Statement

Each year for Labor Day, the US bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development issues a Labor Day Statement. At over four pages in length, this year's statement is the longest of recent years. Yet, this is for good reason, as the opening paragraphs of the statement point out. With the West Virginia mine disaster, the explosion of the oil rig in the Gulf, and high unemployment, this past year has been marked by some significant events and conditions. As the bishops review the history of papal writings on the matter — from Pope Leo XIII's Rerum novarum to Pope Benedict XVI's Caritas in veritate — the bishops conclude that the protecting the life and dignity of each worker should be at the heart of a new "social contract" for the growth and governance of our economy.
       This year's statement (and other statements by the bishops on labor) can be found at http://bit.ly/9vcbkG.
       Happy Labor Day!
Copyright © 2010, Deacon Carl D. Smith. All rights reserved. Reprint permission granted to parishes for use in Sunday bulletins. (http://bit.ly/16p8ws)