In unequivocal terms, the pope condemned the free market liberal ideology that has become the conventional wisdom of this post-modern world: "Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say 'thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape."
The pope continued his lament that, "Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a 'disposable' culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society's underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised - they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the 'exploited' but the outcast, the 'leftovers.'"
Pope Francis observed that, "In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people's pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase; and in the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.
The new idolatry of money, the pope contended, was among the root causes of this phenomenon: "One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption."
The pope also expressed his distress at the growing economic inequality and he placed the blame squarely upon the ideological proponents of unbridled market capitalism: "While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules.... 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 become the only rule."
As an antidote to the deification of market liberalism, the pope encouraged financial experts and political leaders to ponder the words of St. John Chrysostom: "Not to share one's wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs."
In his inaugural address on January 30, 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke of the "millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day...I see one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished." Seventy-six years later, Roosevelt's message should still reverberate among all but the most indifferent.
In October of this year, the lingering effects of the Great Recession continued to be felt across the country. According to the U.S. Bureau Labor Statistics, the number of unemployed persons, at 11.3 million, and the unemployment rate, at 7.3 percent, showed little improvement. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was 4.1 million and 8.1 million individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job while another 2.3 million persons were described to be marginally attached to the labor force."
Equally distressing, according to the Census Bureau as of September, 2014, 15.4 percent of people lacked health insurance, which, while down from 15.7 percent in 2011, at 48 million, was not statistically different. A US Department of Housing and Urban Development report noted there were 663,0000 sheltered and unsheltered homeless nationwide on a single night in January in 2013. Further, the US Department of Agriculture reported last month that 17.4 million U.S. households struggled to get enough food to eat because money and that in more than a third of those households - around one in eight US homes - at least one person did not get enough to eat at some time during the year. Lastly, as of the end of 2012, 46.5 million Americans (15.0 percent of the population) were reported to be still living in poverty. These statistics reflect what Michael Harrington described in the 1960s as, "The Other America."
What has caused the misery index in the United States to increase so exponentially? The public policies of the Reagan administration and the successor administrations of Bush 41 and Bush 43 expressed the three verities of classical liberal economic orthodoxy (or, at very least, its libertarian strand): deregulation of business, tax cuts for the wealthy, and free trade that would enable businesses to seek the lowest costs for labor and to pay lowest prices for the purchase of goods and commodities anywhere in the world. Each of these policies was sold to a gullible American public on the basis of sonorous platitudes such as "A rising tide lifts all boats." They are the very policies that Pope Francis has identified as the among the root causes of misery throughout the Western world. The net effect of these callous and harmful policies has been to unravel the safety net stitched together by Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.
An equally important and baffling question is why so many Americans appear to be indifferent to the suffering of their neighbors?
Historically, Catholics in the United States, who now number approximately 80 million or a quarter of the U.S. population, were overwhelmingly enrolled in the Democratic Party and were a force for political change, given their experiences with pervasive religious bigotry and economic exclusion. As subsequent generations became acculturated to the American ethos, many appear to have forgotten their ancestors' collective historic experiences and have now become proponents of the very political and economic policies that are loggerheads with Catholic social philosophy.
Today a number of prominent right-wing Republicans such as House Speaker John Boehner, Congressman Paul Ryan, former Senator Rick Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich claim to be inspired by Catholic ideals. However, their advocacy for budget-cuts that hurt the poor and their trickle-down economics cannot be squared with traditional Catholic social teaching about our collective responsibilities to one another and the need to use government as a positive instrument to promote the public good.
Also interesting, four of the five most reactionary members of the U.S. Supreme Court - John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas - identify themselves as Catholics but share an ideology that is hostile to any notion of the public interest and which is based upon an extreme version of anti-social individualism. By their judicial decisions, these four jurists have sanctioned pervasive gun violence, endorsed the corruption of our political system by monied interests, and permitted states to continue to deny medical coverage to the most needy and vulnerable citizens through an expansion of Medicaid.
The Gospels admonish us, "To whom much is given, much is expected in return " and "What you did for the least of my brothers, you did for me." More than sixty three years ago, in his only inaugural speech, a Catholic president, John Kennedy, echoed those sentiments and emphasized that "here on earth, God's work must truly be our own."
This Thanksgiving, in addition to our giving thanks, we might commit ourselves to the message of Pope Francis who insists that our collective capacity to promote social justice is greater than the sum of reckless individuals and corporations who have chosen to pursue only their short-term, selfish objectives.
