The Pastoral Letter

Dan D'Agostino Religion Paper

In the pastoral letter, it declares that "basic justice demands the establishment of minimum levels of participation in the life of the human community for all persons." This small excerpt criticizes the church as well as society though.

This Catholic Framework for Economic Life represents a fundamental challenge to a "winner takes all, every person for oneself" economic ethic which leaves too many behind. It seeks to shape the national debate about how to balance our budget without further burdening the poor. It offers a different set of values. I have read the Bishops' pastoral letter, and I find myself feeling a little defensive and a little irritated at some of his principles. Some of his remarks criticize society and confuse me dearly. It is stated in the pastoral letter that when a person is marginalized or not allowed to participate in something, it is a violation of their justice. The Bishop tells us that the framework is not about political platforms or secular economic theories. Instead he says it's about the poor people who have to scrap and fight for any sort of economic freedom in this world. These are the poor people who basically have to do the dirty work in this world and are the people who are taken for granted by the more wealthy people. My question is; okay, what about them? Should we have to do absolutely everything ourselves so someone does not have to come in at night and clean up after us. Do working people have to take their own garbage out at night and vacuum their offices so someone does not have to clean up afterwards? This is in effect marginalizing the poor worker's jobs and is violating their justice. It is a bold contradiction and one that confuses me. On the other hand, should we leave garbage everywhere so after hours people have lots of work and more jobs are then provided for people with limited skills and education? Should we pay higher wages and provide better benefits to the people who clean up after us? How much higher? Maybe they should make the same amount the normal working person makes. There are poor people who can get around this though. I remember a job a few years ago where a number of janitors at my summer job made more money than some of the actual teachers that were fairly new in the district. The fact was that they made cushy deals to make a great amount of money and they were not even doing their jobs, which was maintaining the schools. Just from my experiences, I sometimes have a hard time feeling bad for the whole poor population as a whole. Yes, there are truly some people in this