Introductory Note:   The English word “economy” is derived from the Greek word “oikos” –“house.”   Economics is literally “household management.”  Economic justice is about establishing and maintaining a functional household for all who dwell there.  It involves not only media of exchange (money) but also the arrangements by which all are mutually supportive of one another, so that all might live.  Thus the admonition:  “Live simply, so that others may simply live.”  Another way of putting it:  “We’re all in this together.”

Labor and religion work hand in hand as they call forth common understanding of our life together as a “household.”  The world’s major religions share stories that underscore the value of human unity in a common life:  “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein….” –Psalm 24:1  (Hebrew scriptures)  Because “the earth is the Lord’s,” it is not exclusively for those who accumulate the most power, but for all creatures, to live in harmony. The vision of healthy religion is not private advantage, but mutual well-being.  Every recognized religion proclaims a form of the “Golden Rule”:  “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  Or “what is distasteful to you, do not impose upon others.”

The founders of the American experiment were deeply aware that “established religion” –meaning religion wielding the power of law–often imposed burdens on others rather than lightening them.  They were clear that America should not be a place where any religious establishment could impose its power or regulations upon the society at large.  The first section of quotations (below) comes from our country’s community of founders.  They speak clearly for themselves:

–David Hollenbach, SJ   “Claims in Conflict”

Poverty is the worst form of violence…  –Gandhi

Problems cannot be solved by the same consciousness that created them.  –Albert Einstein

The great debate is not between good and evil, it is between ignorance and awareness.                  –.Gandhi

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.   –St. Augustine

In teaching us charity, the Gospel instructs us in the preferential respect due to the poor and the special situation they have in society: the more fortunate should renounce some of their rights so as to place their goods more generously at the service of others.  –A call to action, Pope Paul VI letter Section #23

When machines & computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
–Martin Luther King, Jr.   (4-7-67 Meeting of Clergy & Laity NYC)

Poverty (should be seen) as a public issue rather than a personal failing.  (Author unknown)

Faith based charity provides crumbs from the table.
Faith based justice offers a place at the table.
–Bill Moyers (Introduction to FaithJustice)

Regarding statistics… Numbers have faces have names and names have stories. Statistics can numb the heart and keep us in a state of denial. The reality is we sew all kinds of safety nets for the personal wealth, not for family
–Dr. Antonia Coello Novello, M.D., M.P.H.,  former US Surgeon General

Widespread poverty and concentrated wealth cannot long endure side by side with democracy.
–Thomas Jefferson

Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.  –Will Rogers

Super development leads to a throwaway society and to enormous waste. Excessive access to all kinds of things, — sometimes called consumerism — enslaves people and does not make them happy. The more one possesses, the more one wants, while the deeper human hopes remain unsatisfied and even stifled. “Having” more things does not necessarily mean ‘being” more or being better. “Having” only helps us when it contributes to a more complete “being.”  –Encyclical On Social Concerns – (#28), 1987 – Pope John Paul II

The aide, care and support of the needy are public concerns and shall be provided by the state and by such of its subdivisions and in such manner and by such means as the legislature may from time to time determine.   -Section I – Article 17 of the New York State Constitution -(1938)

Types of Poverty:

• Material: no goods, services, disease, hunger. Reach out to those in need and you will find satisfaction for your soul and health for your society
• Intellectual – inadequate education – no mental interactions – intellectual isolation
• Spiritual – Absence of transcendent meaning including religious experiences. Caused by anxious striving and a sense of a life with no sense or meaning, emptiness.
• Aesthetic – absence of beauty
• Social impoverishment – absence of central relationship – family, friends, loved ones
• Civic – cynicism, political withdrawal and the coarsening of public debate     –described by Jim Wallis in his book Faithworks  p.68

Do your little bit of good where you are, it’s those little bits of good put together that can overwhelm the world!   — Desmond Tutu

Do all the good you can
By all the means you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
At all the times you can
To all the people you can
As long as ever you can.   –long attributed to John Wesley

About Peace:
It does not mean to be in a place
where there is no trouble, noise, or hard work.
It means to be in the midst of those things
and still be calm in your heart.   –author unknown

Happiness is when
What you think,
What you do
And what you say
Are in harmony.   –Mohandas Gandhi

If you are right and you know it,
speak your mind …
Even if you are a minority of one,
the truth is still the truth.
Someone has said:
There are no “others” in the world;
We are all living systems and
we are all part of each other.   –Gandhi

German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour—equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity.   –FB: Worldshift media

Germany, Europe’s industrial powerhouse, where renewable subsidies have been especially high, now generates 37 percent of its daily electricity from wind and solar; and analysts predict that number will rise to 50 percent by 2020. (Indeed, one day this year, renewables created 74 percent of the nation’s electricity!)   –news report

When I do good, I feel good.
When I do bad, I feel bad.
That’s my religion.   –Abraham Lincoln

Fundamentalism, violence, self-righteousness, ethnocentrism, ‘My way or else’ — are any of these traits exclusive to one religion?
Humility, gentleness, respect for differences, warm-heartedness, hospitality–are any of these exclusive to one religion?
In my experience, not at all. At the climate march, all religious traditions gathered in harmony to love ‘our mother’ earth.
Religious leaders who tear apart the human family, rather than caring for it, need to be called back to the fold: to the maternal heart of creation.             –Gary Doupe

Don’t carry your mistakes around with you. Instead, place them under your feet and use them as stepping stones to rise above them.   –anonymous writer

The more anger towards the past you carry in your heart,
The less capable you are of loving in the present.   –anonymous writer

Always show more kindness than seems necessary, because the person receiving it needs it more than you will ever know.   –anonymous writer

Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them.   –Nikola Tesla

No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin or his background or his religion. People learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.   –Nelson Mandela

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. –anonymous

(Speaking of the world economy):

In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which becomes the only rule.   (This problem is fundamental to every problem.)   Inequality eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot and never will be able to resolve.   –Pope Francis

Faith and violence are incompatible.

The Holy Father then turned his attention to another phrase in Sunday’s liturgy, which he said needed to be explained so as not to lead to confusion or misunderstanding.

Pope Francis was referring to the words that Jesus spoke to his disciples “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division “(Luke 12:51).

“But what does this mean?”   the Pope asked.

He explained that “it means that faith is not something decorative, or ornamental, it is not there to decorate your life with a little “of religion.” No, faith involves choosing God as the centre of one’s life, adding that God is not empty, he is not neutral, God is love.   
Jesus does not want to divide people from each other, on the contrary, Jesus is our peace. But he lays down the criterion: live for oneself, or live for God.

So, said the Pope, “the word of the Gospel does not authorize the use of force to spread the faith. It is ‘just the opposite: the true strength of the Christian is the power of truth and love, which leads to the renunciation of all violence.” Faith and violence are incompatible”.

Ω

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.   –Upton Sinclair

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.    –Mary Anne Radmacher

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.   –Ezekiel 16:49

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.     –Edmund Burke’s message to the electors of Bristol

“The function of Congress,” he explained, in a farewell speech to House colleagues on his retirement, “is not to convert the will of the majority of the people into law;  rather its function is to hammer out on the anvil of public debate a compromise between polar positions acceptable to a majority.”   (In contrast to the direct democracy of a town meeting) “It is less clear that there is a losing side.”   “Anyone, of course, can introduce grandiose legislative schemes,” he noted on another occasion. “But reaching for the sky, rather than aiming for the possible, is a form of showmanship we don’t wish to engage in. Reality is what we live by and accomplishment is what we seek. For only in compromise, moderation and understanding are we able to fashion our society into a cohesive and durable structure.”   –Republican Congressman William Moore McCulloch–a strong supporter of Civil Rights legislation  (displayed on his district office wall in Piqua, Ohio)

Everybody, almost to a person, in every party, comes to Washington initially for the right reasons. But some people, and it’s not a small amount, lose sight of why they came there. It becomes, for a significant portion, a quest for more power.   –Jay Carson, a well-connected former press liaison for Hillary Clinton, a former chief deputy mayor of Los Angeles and a political consultant to the show House of Cards

Christianity is not about the divine becoming human so much as it is about the human becoming divine. That is a paradigm shift of the first order.    –John Shelby Spong, retired bishop of the Episcopal Church

Seduction comes in many forms. One is accepting injustice as justifiable or necessary. Nothing is inevitable. Last night I listened to a video lecture by Walter Bruggeman, speaking about the Exodus from Egypt–the founding story of Judaism. He said something like this: “When the cry of the oppressed is given public expression, that begins to change the order of things.” All in our society, and world, are affected by the attitude of entitlement  that accompanies egregious wealth. It is not optional for people of conscience to voice objection and begin a necessary change.    –Gary Doupe

In South Africa, we could not have achieved our democracy without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the apartheid regime. The same issues of inequality and injustice today motivate the divestment movement trying to end Israel’s decades long occupation of Palestinian territory and the unfair and prejudicial treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government ruling over them. Those who turn a blind eye to injustice actually perpetuate injustice. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.   –Archbishop Desmond Tutu

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.
–Henry David Thoreau

There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good.  The bad patriots are the uncritical lovers and (on the other hand) the loveless critics of their country.  The good patriots are those who carry on a lover’s quarrel with their country, a reflection of God’s eternal lover’s quarrel with the entire world.    –William Sloan Coffin, in A Passion for the Possible