Can we light the way?:

...First, let us admit that many criticisms of the church as economic agent, both from within and without, are based on ignorance of the facts...

...Nevertheless, the church controls significant wealth, and in its role as economic agent it affects the lives and well-being of many people...

...Those who serve the church by their labor, including priests and religious, should receive a sufficient livelihood and enjoy that social security which is customary in their region...

...An analysis of the weaknesses and defects of the church as an economic agent in American life and step by step proposals for the elimination of injustice and irresponsibility in its practices in the future would do a great deal to undergird and strengthen the appeal to the wider community...

...I see the development of one section as crucial — and as that most likely to fill us with hope if it is developed...

...The attention was gratifying to the bishops, I am sure, and to Catholics in general...

...It would be "the path of penance and renewal...

...Is it enough to say at this juncture that "we would be foolish were we to deny this need for renewal in the economic life of the church itself' when in the same document it is noted simply by the citation of date that the call to "undertake an examination of the modes of acting and of the possessions and life-style found within the church herself" was issued more than a decade ago...

...We reiterate the recommendations that lay people should exercise more important functions with regard to church property and should share in its administration...

...THE CHURCH AS ECONOMIC AGENT THE members of the ad hoc committee of the Catholic bishops who developed the first draft of the pastoral letter on Catholic social teaching and the American economy had a remarkable day in the sun...

...I participated as a panelist on the NBC special program devoted to the pastoral, and if I could have had my way — something TV moderators cannot allow to panelists — we would have spent most of our time on the pastoral's recognition of the church as economic agent and institution...

...Example can be the strongest form both of leadership and moral persuasion...

...It is also more than a decade, and well into a second one, since the quoted 1971 Synod made the following statement: ' 'No one should be deprived of his ordinary rights because he is associated with the church in one way or another...

...The attention has now subsided — almost faded away...

...Most people do not realize that the church has no unified financial structure within the United States — that each diocese is independent—and that many Catholic institutions which are not diocesan — hospitals, colleges, and universities, for example — have independent financial structures...

...From coast to coast they were front-page and prime-time news, as was the group of laymen and women who hitched their wagon to the bishops' star and quite successfully pre-empted media attention with their own version...

...There are eight cautiously worded sub-sections (and, interestingly enough, far fewer decisive "shoulds" than in the discussion of some other economic agents...

...Change cannot be divorced from historical context...

...What attention it will attract when it is published will probably depend on whether these revisions and Commonweal: 70 expansions are seen as significant or as a watering down of the original...

...Presumably the committee staff and the bishops are at work on the second draft which will take account of the various critiques and expand certain sections which were only sketchily treated in the first...

...Their effort, in fact, probably intensified interest in the bishops' message...

...Now is the time for a total effort and a comprehensive plan...

...The Catholic church in America has made progress as a moral economic agent — often under the pressure of government, unions, and grantors — often in the persons of visionary religious and a few far-sighted bishops — but the progress is not the progress of the whole community and its practices are not always sound or wise...

...My friends in various parts of the country tell me that there is little or no discussion of the pastoral in their parishes — planned or otherwise — at least as yet...

...Still no one can quarrel with the unequivocal tone of the following: "All the moral principles that govern the just operation of any economic endeavor apply to the church and its many agencies and institutions" (Subsection 143) ; and "Indeed the church should be exemplary in its fidelity to the principles of economic justice and its commitment to the protection of the rights of all who are associated with it'' (a quotation from Justice in The World, 1971 Synod...

...In this country a number of dioceses are still "mission territory," depending on alms from outside for survival...

...And whenever the topic of the church and money is raised there are almost as scary unplumbed depths of lay resentment of which we catch glimpses...

...The residual anti-Catholicism in this country can be frightening when it surfaces...

...If expanding this section of the draft sufficiently enough to make it a practical set of guidelines would overweight the document, then perhaps it should be done as an accompanying paper...

...Lay people should be given fair wages and a system of promotion...

...Never mind that it might evoke a flood of old and present horror stories from callously exploited religious and clergy, and from devoted laity who have served the church in poverty and insecurity with no prospect of tenure, rank, health, or retirement pay...

...It is not so long ago that such a statement would have been granted cursory mention in the Saturday religion pages of the metropolitan dailies...

...If it is, new injustices may result from efforts to remedy the old...

...But I think that younger clerics and lay persons were probably unprepared for the furious and cynical criticism launched both by columnists and by the man and woman in the street...

...Last, but surely in our minds not least — number 6 — the church...

...Even when all the components of Catholic church wealth are put together, the church has far less wealth under its control and disposal than its foes and critics ascribe to it...

...ABIGAIL McCARTHt 8 February 1985: 71...

...Hearings and documentation on the sins of omission and commission in relation to the tenets listed above would be illuminating for young clergy and religious athirst with the desire for social justice as well as for those who have come to realize that charity rests on justice, that injustice is yours if it is the injustice of the institution of which you are a part...

...There it was in Section II, "Ethical Norms for Economic Life," part C, — its rights and responsibilities being discussed right along with (1) working people and labor unions, (2) managers, investors, businesses, and banks, (3) citizens and government, (4) transnational and international economic actors, and (5) consumers...