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[Woodstock Report, March 1997, No. 49]
This issue of the Woodstock Report features highlights from our recent forum on the tenth anniversary of the U.S. Bishops' Pastoral letter on the economy, Economic Justice for All. At their meeting here in Washington last November, the Bishops commemorated this anniversary by publishing a ten-point checklist of principles, A Catholic Framework for Economic Life. Its aim is to help people make their own evaluation of our economy.
To help us--and you--to make such an evaluation, we asked the panelists in our recent forum to share with us their reactions to this ten-point statement. They complement one another beautifully.
Bishop William Skylstad, who headed up the committee that drafted this statement, fleshes out and illustrates the urgent needs and human values that underlie each of these principles. His is clearly the heart of a pastor. As a careful and caring economist, Dr. Margaret Blair sees both the limitations and virtues of this framework of principles. A key limitation is that the criteria are much too general to ground recommendations for public policy. But they have the enormous value of keeping us focused on the fundamental human goals that any econ-omy or public policy must meet. Finally, as a person of action, Woodstock Fellow Gasper Lo Biondo, S.J., shows us how to use these principles in three different, but closely interrelated, areas: personal life, public policy, and economic theory.
How well do you think the economy is working? How ethical is it? Who is prospering, and who is suffering? Why? How do you feel about your own situation? It was precisely to encourage us to raise and answer these kinds of questions that the Bishops gave us their Catholic Framework for Economic Life in the first place. I hope the reflections of our panelists are helpful to you in your own continuing review.
Also in this Report you will find, in addition to the activities of the permanent fellows, an introduction to two visiting fellows this semester: Father Dean Brackley, S.J., from the Jesuit University in El Salvador and Professor Michael McCarthy of Vassar College. Dean is doing a book on Ignatian spirituality and the poor. Michael is assisting us to develop our Ignatian method of theological reflection and social analysis.
Three new grants are enabling three new projects, as you will see reported on page 10: a study of ethical issues in the managed health care system (thanks to $269,894 from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), a three-part series on the role and nature of forgiveness in conflict resolution (thanks to $37,000 from the U.S. Institute of Peace), and a conference on business ethics for executives in Eastern Europe (thanks to a $123,000 grant in memory of a very good friend and colleague, John T. Garrity). More than simply money, these grants give us the encouragement that others recognize the worth of what we are trying to do. THANKS so much!
With prayerful best in this springtime of Easter joy,
James L. Connor, S.J.