The bishops and the economy: round two.

The Bishops and the Economy: Round Two

WHEN THE U.S. Catholic bishops began drafting their pastoral letter on the American economy in 1984, they called on the Catholic lay community to join in the discussion of what constituted "economic justice." A group of laymen led by William E. Simon and Michael Novak took the bishops at their word. Last month, just before the bishops' national meeting in Washington, they issued a thoughtful and charitable statement of their own, entitled "Liberty and Justice for all."

The Lay Commission notes that the American bishops, while avoiding the temptation to embrace socialism, have nonetheless, under cover of a "preferential option for the poor," in fact urged "a preferential option for the state." Rather than investigate the conditions conducive to the creation of wealth, the bishops tend to see America's GNP as pennies from heaven, leaving only the question of how to distribute them. But, says the Lay Commission, "Experience shows that God gives abundant economic latent to the poor, and that, where the law and institutions favor enterprise, the poor can in massive numbers and in short time exit from poverty, through the use of their God-given talents."

The frustrating thing about the pastoral letter is the opportunity the bishops missed. There is an important moral dimension to the debate over the American economy, one which Catholic social teaching particularly addresses. Half of America's seven million poor families are poor because of separation, divorce, or out-of-wedlock births. In contrast, of America's 50.4 million intact families, only 7 per cent are poor. "No other cause of poverty ranks as high as family break-down," the Lay Commission points out. Then too, capitalist institutions require, if they are to be successful, individuals with strong moral character--with discipline, enterprise, and the ability to delay gratification. The U.S. Catholic bishops missed the chance to say what any struggling Afghan cabbie or Vietnamese restaurateur knows in his gut: Economic liberty and self-reliance are the groundwork not only of material wealth, but of human dignity.