The Ryan-Romney Budget Plan and Catholic Moral Criteria

By Fr. Fred Kammer, SJ

Social Security critical to income of millions of Americans

By Fred Kammer, SJ

Over twenty-one million Americans—including 8.7 million women—are saved from poverty each year, 2.6 million of them in the Gulf South.  Without Social Security, the poverty rate among those 65 and older would be 43.6 percent; with Social Security it drops to 8.7 percent.   Overall, almost 90 percent of elderly Americans receive some of their family income from Social Security: 38.3 million elders.

On October 26, 2012 in Chart of the Day: The price of inequality, The New Statesman provided a graphic look at the impact of inequality on the United States in comparison with five developed nations—Japan, Sweden, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.  The results reiterated the thesis of the 2009 book The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett that rising levels of inequality were leading directly to unhappier, unhealthier societies.  See infographic

A Framework for Faithful Citizenship

Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.

Celebrating The Church in the Modern World

by Fred Kammer, SJ

On October 11, 2012, we observed the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council—an event in Church and world history that is unprecedented in many ways.  It was the largest and longest meeting ever held—over 2,000 bishops, cardinals, and other prelates meeting for four months every fall over the course of four years.  Moreover, the tone and texture of its documents were like nothing before and have shaped public discourse in the Church ever since.

Some policy-makers have cited the 1966 replacement of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFCD) program with the Temporary Assitance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant as a model for dramatically restructuring other federal programs for low-income families.  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report provides abundant caution about block-granting these essential safety-net programs. See their report here.

Governors play politics with health of low-income citizens

By Fr. Fred Kammer, S.J.

As the recession and Federal and state cutbacks hit localities, there is an increasing turn to close local budget gaps by jailing and adding fees on poor people for minor infractions.  As a recent New York Times article explains, this turn to private probation companies and Courts is having an impact on the poor in Alabama, Florida, and Texas, among other states.  

Pope Benedict  XVI ‘s Caritas in Veritate

By Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.

(Note: Following the tradition of Catholic encyclicals, this commentary cites the numbered paragraphs in the text for easy reference, i.e., (#1, 2, 3, etc).)

Pope Benedict  XVI ‘s first social encyclical Caritas in Veritate, “Charity in Truth,”  advocates a new economic discourse and global economic order advancing a person-centered rather than profit-centered approach to globalization.

Surprisingly, the United States lags in income mobility

By Fred Kammer, S.J.