Amid our own unprecedented wealth, as the bishops note, a quarter of our pre-school children live in abject poverty. Independently and in collaboration with other industrial and financial powers, one of the ways we increase our wealth is to impose on third world nations levels of debt so burdensome that they cannot feed, provide health care for or educate their own people. We have the capacity to feed the hungry, yet private profit has more influence on our agriculture policy than public responsibility. Our nation has a nuclear arsenal sufficient to flatten the earth, and American arms merchants hawk weapons used in brutal and genocidal conflicts across the globe. The First Amendment was not designed to tongue-tie American bishops on the moral dimensions of issues such as these.
Most parishes have social justice and social concerns committees.
The values and views of these individuals can add a moral dimension to our political debates, as those of Helen Prejean, C.S.J., the author of Dead Man Walking, have helped prick the American conscience about the death penalty. In many respects, the relationship between religion and politics has long been intimate. For most of our history, being Protestant was as much a qualification for the presidency as being 35 years old and born in the United States. This year Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut is the first Jew on the national ticket of either major party. Candidates for the nation's highest office and many of the lower ones have long sought the Catholic vote and the Jewish vote.