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"A Catholic Framework For Economic Life"
(An Affirmation of Economic Justice For All)
The National Conference of Catholic Bishops
November 13, 1996
As followers of Jesus Christ and participants in a powerful economy,
Catholics in the United States are called to work for greater economic
justice in the face of persistent poverty, growing income-gaps, and increasing
discussion of economic issues in the US and around the world. We
urge Catholics to use the following ethical framework for economic life
as principles for reflection, criteria for judgment and directions for
action. These principles are drawn directly from Catholic teaching
on economic life.
1.The economy exists for the person, not the person for the economy.
2. All economic life should be shaped by moral principles. Economic
choices and institutions must be judged by how they protect or undermine
the life and dignity of the human person, support the family and serve
the common good.
3. A fundamental moral measure of any economy is how the poor and
vulnerable are faring.
4. All people have a right to life and to secure the basic necessities
of life (e.g., food, clothing, shelter, education, health care, safe environment,
economic security.)
5. All people have the right to economic initiative, to productive
work, to just wages and benefits, to decent working conditions as well
as to organize and join unions or other associations.
6. All people, to the extent they are able, have a corresponding
duty to work, a responsibility to provide the needs of their families and
an obligation to contribute to the broader society.
7. In economic life, free markets have both cleat advantages and
limits; government has essential responsibilities and limitations; voluntary
groups have irreplaceable roles, but cannot substitute for the proper working
of the market and the just policies of the state.
8. Society has a moral obligation, including governmental action
where necessary, to assure opportunity, meet basic human needs, and pursue
justice in economic life.
9. Workers, owners, managers, stockholders and consumers are moral
agents in economic life. By our choices, initiative, creativity and
investment, we enhance or diminish economic opportunity, community life
and social justice.
10. The global economy has moral dimensions and human consequences.
Decisions on investment, trade, aid and development should protect human
life and promote human rights, especially for those most in need wherever
they might live on this globe.
According to Pope John Paul II, the Catholic tradition calls for
a “society of work, enterprise and participation” which “is not directed
against the market, but demands that the market be appropriately controlled
by the forces of society and by the state to assure that the basic needs
of the whole society are satisfied.” (Centesimus Annus, 35).
All of economic life should recognize the fact that we all are God’s children
and members of one human family, called to exercise a clear priority for
“the least among us.”
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