Issues For Our Times

Contents

• Introduction
• Protecting Human Life
• Abortion
• Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia
• War and Preparation for War
• Peace and Sustainable Development
• Global Trade in Arms
• Death Penalty
• Promoting Family Life
• Marriage
• Just Wages
• Education
• Communications
• Pursuing Social Issues
• Economic Justice
• Workers’ Rights
• Poverty
• Living Wage
• Social Security
• Health Care
• Housing
• Agriculture
• Hunger
• Farm Workers
• Environment
• Immigrants
• Education
• Private and Religious Schools
• Violence
• Discrimination
• Prisoners and Prisons
• Civil Rights
• Practicing Global Solidarity
• Debt Relief
• Global Poverty
• Human Rights
• Religious Liberty
• United Nations
• Refugees
• Immigration
• Regional Conflicts
• Northern Ireland
• Eastern and Central Europe
• The Middle East
• Latin America and the Caribbean
• Africa
• Asia
• Afterword

Introduction

Note that these are issues.  They become moral or ethical issues when judged according to some standard (e.g. Catholic Social Teachings or the Gospels).  I have tried to avoid both judgments and solutions.

The categories used for this list originated with the list of issues in the version of the USCC document: "Faithful Citizenship" issued for the 2000 election. They have been altered and others added where that seemed reasonable.  The original intent was to express each issue as one or a few simple declarative sentences but, when I began copying text from the references, some of the items have grown longer.

A good general reference is Professor Joseph M. Incandela's resource notes for his course on Catholic Social Thought although it, understandably, focuses more on ethics than on the issues themselves.  The National Center for Policy Analysis has good summaries of issues, especially those that are the subject of federal legislation.  It tends to be on the conservative side.  The Electronic Policy Network, a project of The American Prospect magazine is similar but with more of a liberal slant.  Finally, for the truly dedicated, may I suggest Volume I of the Encyclopedia of World Problems which states: "The number of world problems described is now 9,832, with a further 2,380 referenced by index only."

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Protecting Human Life

Abortion

• In 1997-JAN, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data indicating that the abortion rate in the US had dropped to its lowest level in 20 years. They recorded 1.3 million abortions in 1993 and 1.2 million in 1994.  US Abortion data provided in 1995 by Planned Parenthood indicated that the number of abortions for every 100 live births has shown a gradual decline since 1980 (35.9) to 1992 (33.5).  This number is highest for women under 15 (77.5 in 1992) and over 40 (47.0 in 1992); it is lowest among women 30 to 34 (18.3 in 1992). This may reflect differences in the rates of unexpected pregnancies among women in these age groups.  Abortions are relatively rare among married women (8.1 per 100 live births) vs. those by unmarried women (75 per 100 live births).  Worldwide, about 46 million women have abortions. This represents 22% of the 210 million pregnancies that occur yearly. (Abortion Facts)

Laws banning partial-birth abortion have been enacted in 30 states, but courts have blocked enforcement of most of them. The United States Congress enacted a federal ban on partial-birth abortions but President Clinton vetoed it. (HLI)
• Every year more than one million teenagers become pregnant and have to make a choice concerning the future of their child. Many choose abortion, and many more choose to parent, while fewer than five percent choose adoption.(ALL)
• Pharmaceutical abortifacients (RU-486) will increase the number of abortions in this country. (HLI)
• Additional links:
  • NCCB Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities
  • Church Teaching on Abortion
  • Priests for Life
  • National Right to Life Committee
  • Project Rachel - Hope After Abortion
  • National Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation & Healing
  • Rachel's Vineyard Ministries
  • Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change
  • Elliot Institute

   

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Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

• On November 4, 1997, the electorate in Oregon voted 60-40 to keep the law permitting physician-assisted suicide on the books. (Commonweal, 11/21/97), (IAETF)
• People with disabilities are especially concerned that they will be pressured to seek physician assisted death because others now view them with contempt and it will only be a matter of time before professionals outside the disability community are deciding that life with a disability is not worth living. (NDY)
• Perhaps one of the most important developments in recent years is the increasing emphasis placed on health care providers to contain costs. In such a climate, euthanasia certainly could become a means of cost containment. (IAETF)
• Emotional and psychological pressures could become overpowering for depressed or dependent people. If the choice of euthanasia is considered as good as a decision to receive care, many people will feel guilty for not choosing death. Financial considerations, added to the concern about "being a burden," could serve as powerful forces that would lead a person to "choose" euthanasia or assisted suicide. (IAETF)
• Additional links:
  • USCCB Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities
  • Church Teaching on Euthanasia
  • International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force
  • Hospice Net -- For patients & families facing life threatening illness


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War and Preparation for War

• There is a broad consensus that minor ethnic and nationalistic conflicts will continue to precipitate humanitarian disasters in the years ahead. (CDI Vol. XXVI, No. 6)
• Estimates of the global nuclear stockpile range from a low of 24,700 to a high of 33,307 suspected nuclear weapons.(A2000)   The United States and Russia still possess enough nuclear weapons to completely annihilate one another and most of the rest of the earth as well.
• In the year 2002, the single largest military program ever planned (the National Ignition Facility) will be installed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in northern California. The project consists of the world's biggest laser, intended to produce small thermonuclear explosions to "advance" nuclear weapons science. ( A2000)
• Much of the fissile material used to make Soviet nuclear weapons is poorly safeguarded and the potential for theft is high. Only a small quantity of material, easily smuggled into the U.S., is needed to make a bomb 35 to 55 times more destructive than the Oklahoma City explosion. (CDI, XXV, 6)
• Increasingly fearful of the threats posed by germ warfare, the Pentagon announced Monday that it would vaccinate every member of the armed services against anthrax, one of the most deadly biological agents. ... The Pentagon considers anthrax the easiest biological weapon to make and use and the most lethal.  In a report last month, the Pentagon said at least 10 countries, including Iraq and North Korea, have the ability to develop biological weapons.  (Chi.Trib., 12/16/97, p.3)
• According to the most recent human rights report of the U. S. State Department, "an estimated quarter of a million children, even as young as age 5, have been conscripted to serve as soldiers in dozens of armed conflicts around the world, …". (CDI XXVI, 4)
• Many GIs were lured into the armed forces by slick recruiting promises - including money for college and/or job training.  Once caught in the military, many GIs face racist, sexist, homophobic harassment, loss of civil liberties, verbal abuse, and systematic attempts to turn them into unthinking killers. (CCCO)(SDMCC)
• Additional links:
  • U.S. Bishops' 1983 Pastoral Letter: The Challenge of Peace
  • U.S. Bishops' 1993 Statement: The Harvest of Justice is Sown in Peace - A Reflection on the Tenth Anniversary of The Challenge of Peace
  • USCC Office of Social Development & World Peace
  • Pax Christi USA
  • Center for Defense Information


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Peace and Sustainable Development

• 26,000 people are killed or maimed by land mines each year. More people have been killed by anti-personnel mines than by nuclear and chemical weapons combined. An estimated 110 million land mines are currently deployed in 70 countries - most of them in the developing world. The USA has chosen to exclude itself from the treaty banning the production and use of land mines. (ICBL)
• As of September 11, 2000, 139 countries have signed the Mine Ban Treaty and 107 countries have ratified it. The United States still refuses to sign the Treaty, claiming that anti-personnel landmines are crucial for U.S. defense of Korea. (CDI)
• A five-hour meeting with lab officials at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) on October 7 (1997) left Catholic Bishops Walter Sullivan and Thomas Gumbleton alarmed to learn that President Clinton's $40 billion Stockpile Stewardship Program will enable the U.S. to continue to develop and test nuclear weapons indefinitely.  Despite the U.S. commitments to end nuclear testing under the recently-signed Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and to nuclear disarmament under the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the laboratory program will in fact enhance U.S. efforts to continue development and testing of nuclear weapons. (PCUSA)
• There are many ways to participate in militarism. The most obvious is to personally fight in a war, but another way is in financing its deeds.  For those who cannot conscientiously participate in killing, the payment of taxes creates a moral dilemma. (NVW)
• The United States Defense Budget is three times that of all potential adversaries combined.
• An alternative to a military defense is a civilian-based defense that uses nonviolent tactics. Civilian-based defense can be effective, cheaper, and result in less loss of life. The tactics used, called nonviolent sanctions, are similar to those used by Gandhi and the Indians to drive out their British tyrants. (CBDA)
• The Pentagon spends well over 1.9 billion dollars a year convincing Americans to "be all that you can be;" to join the "few, the proud, the strong;" to "aim high" (you've seen the billboards, they appear in low-income neighborhoods right next to the Jack Daniels signs).  At the same time, the federal government slashes education, job training, rehabilitation, social services, until the only options many young people (and their parents) see are the military or prison. (CCCO)


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Global Trade in Arms

• Confronted with reductions in Pentagon procurement funding in the 1990s, major military contractors have, for the most part, not leapt on the conversion bandwagon. Instead, they have responded to defense cutbacks with a variety of sometimes conflicting strategies. These include mergers and acquisitions within the defense industry; sell-offs of defense divisions or exiting the industry completely; and diversification by commercializing defense technologies, developing new civilian products, and acquiring commercial businesses. (CEC)
• More than 23 million people have been killed by conventional arms since the end of World War II. More are being slaughtered. This continuing violence is being fed by high levels of arms transfers. The United States is the world's biggest arms exporter. (CDI, XXIII, 7)


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Death Penalty

General references on capital punishment and the death penalty can be found on The Death Penalty Page from Florida State, Death Penalty Information from NIU, and from The Illinois Death Penalty Education Project.
• The state of Illinois has executed 12 criminals in our name since 1990. (DPIC)
• In the U.S., 33 prisoners have been executed in 2001, bringing the total number of persons executed since the death penalty was resumed in 1977 to 716.--Death Penalty information Center. (SotE)
• Studies show that in this century, at least 400 innocent people have been convicted of capital crimes they did not commit. Of those 400,  23 were executed. (DPF)
• Race is an important factor in determining who is sentenced to die. In 1990 a report from the General Accounting Office concluded that "in 82 percent of the studies [reviewed], race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e., those who murdered whites were more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks."  (DPF)
• The governing bodies of the religious organizations that include the vast majority of citizens in the United States have issued statements opposing the death penalty (http://www.deathpenalty.net/religion.html).
• There is no conclusive evidence that the death penalty deters violent crime.  States which have the death penalty do not have lower crime rates or murder rates than states without the death penalty.  (http://www.essential.org/dpic/deter.html)  A 1995 Hart Research Poll of police chiefs in the U.S. found that the majority of the chiefs do not believe that the death penalty is an effective law enforcement tool.  (http://www.essential.org/dpic/po.html)
• The death penalty costs more than life imprisonment.  It costs $2.5 million to execute a person in Illinois and only $600,000 to keep someone in prison for life.  (http://www.keynet.net/~icadp/)
• The death penalty is applied unfairly.  Each year there are about 23,000 homicides in our country, resulting in about 18,000 arrests, of which about 4,000 are capitally prosecuted, and about 250 death sentences. (8) Thus, the vast majority (99%) of those potentially chargeable with capital punishment are not so prosecuted. Race and class are the most consistent predictors of who will be selected for capital prosecution  (9).  (http://www.deathpenalty.net/unfairness.html)
• We are all outraged by the actions of murderers.  But in our attempts to punish the murder, very little concern is actually shown for the victim's family.  Killing the killer may satisfy our own thirst for blood, but the death penalty does nothing to help those who have been harmed.  It does not truly restore the social order breached by the offenders. (http://www.archdiocese-chgo.org/p-cc/statement.html)  Many family members of murder victims don't want the death penalty.  (http://www.mvfr.org/)
• The death penalty cheapens the value of human life and may actually encourage murder because of its brutalizing effect.  (http://www.amnesty-usa.org/abolish/facts.html#9)
• The United States is the only western democratic country still carrying out executions.
• Because the death penalty is a uniquely irrevocable punishment, it demands infallibility of the human beings who are part of the legal system which imposes death.  Because human beings are fallible, innocent people have been executed in the past.  (http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr/deathpen.html )
• The death penalty is especially inappropriate in the cases of juveniles, the mentally retarded and the mentally ill.  (http://www.amnesty-usa.org/abolish/facts.html#6)
• Public support for the death penalty drops to below 50 percent when voters are offered alternative sentences.  More people would support life without parole plus restitution to the victim's family than would choose the death penalty. (http://www.essential.org/dpic/po.html)

 


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Promoting Family Life

Marriage

• Affordable day care is not available in our area.  (DCAC)
• Effective parenting education is not available.  (Parenting Project)
• Support for families (transient, stressed, single parent) is lacking. (ffcmh), (FamRes)
• Most poor families have at least one parent in the workforce, but his or her earnings are insufficient to raise the family above the poverty level. In spite of low unemployment, California has one of the highest child poverty rates (20.3%) among states, ranking 45th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia. (Children Now)
• Poverty affects children and youth across all ethnicities. Yet, there are striking differences in the level of poverty among various ethnic populations. An African American or Latino child is at least twice as likely to be poor as an Asian/Pacific Islander or white child. (Children Now)
• Runaway children are victimized in our cities.  (Covenant House)
• Children are especially vulnerable to gun violence. Every day, 16 American children under the age of 20 are killed and many more are wounded by guns. (CPHV)
• Our children don't know how to resolve conflict without violence. (ESR) (CR)
• The typical American child will witness 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of televised violence in his lifetime. Source: American Psychological Association.;  More than 3,000 studies over the past 30 years offer evidence that violent TV programming has a measurable effect on young minds. Source: Christian Science Monitor, July 6, 1993. (Media Violence), (KYTV)
• The military uses increasingly sophisticated techniques to reach today's youth -- including the doubling of high school JROTC units, mobile military recruiting trucks and ships, military booths at career fairs, and expensive advertising with catchy jingles. (CCCO)
• Toys and games accustom our children to violent solutions to problems.  (PGS)
• From East Los Angeles to Northern Ireland to South Africa, children are the victims of daily violence.  In the past decade, millions of young people have suffered the tragic effects of ethnic, religious, nationalistic, racially inspired and gang-related warfare waged by adults around the world.  Many children continue to be killed, and many more are hurt, both physically and psychologically.  (EduPeace)
• In Illinois, the juvenile arrest rate has more than doubled in the past ten years.
• The latest report card on children's health in the United States indicates that while the overall death rate fell about 2 percent every year from 1950 to 1993, deaths due to suicide or homicide have almost tripled among youngsters under 14 since 1968. (NYT)
• In Chicago, one study found that more than 70% of high school and middle school students have witnessed violent crime, more than 40% were primary victims, and 22% said they had committed a violent act.  (Peace Museum, 11/17/97)
• More than 2,000 children die every year as a result of child abuse and neglect in the U.S.. An estimated two and one half million more children suffer pain and anguish because of child abuse and neglect. (National Child Safety Council, Jackson, Michigan)
• A survey reported by the American Medical Association showed that violence against children and young adults is not restricted to inner cities.  In fact, the survey found a higher percentage of suburban boys reported being hit or punched at school in the previous year than boys in the inner city.(NCPC)
• The report also says that more children are being recruited as fighting soldiers, estimating that recently, thousands of children under the age of 16 have fought in wars in 25 countries. In 1988 alone, they numbered as many as 200,000. One of the main reasons for this increase is that light weapons now enable children to be proficient killers. An AK-47 rifle, which in one West African country now costs no more than US$6, can be stripped and reassembled by a child of 10. In some ways, children make better soldiers than adults: they are easier to intimidate and they do as they are told, they are less likely to run away and they do not demand pay. (UNICEF)
• UNICEF estimates that it would cost $34 billion a year to meet the needs of the world's children. This is less than what the world spends annually on golf ($40 billion).  (RESULTS)


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Just Wages

• A full-time, full-year minimum wage job, even after the recent minimum wage increase, will still only support a family of three at 83 percent of the poverty level. For the decade of the 1970's, the full-time minimum wage was close to or slightly exceeded the poverty level for a family of three, and during that period the child poverty rate averaged 15.7 percent. By contrast, in 1996, with a far lower minimum wage, the child poverty rate was 20.5 percent and more than three-quarters of poor children lived in a household with a working adult. (CDF)
• "There is still hunger in America. Poverty is not going away. Many people working at minimum wage jobs can’t feed, clothe, and provide shelter and medical care for their families. They come to Catholic Charities to help them with these necessities," said Rev. Fred Kammer, SJ, president of Catholic Charities USA. (CathChar)


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Education

• See below


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Communications

• The poor lack access to high tech communications (computers, e-mail. Fax, the Internet). This removes another path out of poverty for them and their children.
• Although there is much dross, commercialism, and noise and some smut, the internet does have useful sites. (IFC), (CPSR)
• "By the time most Americans are 18 years old, they have spent more time in front of the television set than they have spent in school, and far more than they have spent talking with their teachers, their friends or even their parents." ... "By first grade, most children have spent the equivalent of three school years in front of the TV set." Quotes from Abandoned in the Wasteland: Children, Television and the First Amendment, by Newton Minnow, former Chairman of the FCC, and Craig LaMay, 1995 (KYTV)
• When half the population say that there is too much sex and violence on television, this is no longer a negligible issue embraced by a minority of fanatics. (S&V)

There is a consensus developing among members of the research community that "...violence on television does lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch the programs" . (VTV)
• The battle for ratings and a singular emphasis on profits have too often replaced the commitment to legitimate public interest standards with glorification of violence and exploitation of sexuality in television programming, movies, and other newer media. (PR)
• Television advertising promotes materialistic values, discontent, excess consumption and waste.
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Pursuing Social Issues

Economic Justice

• Families and institutions need the information necessary to direct their investments in ways that promote their moral values (Socially Responsible Investing).
• Transnational corporations move jobs to areas with low wages and benefits, no worker protection, and lax environmental protections. Some corporations are also concentrating their sales efforts on the markets of the Third World, where they can sell lower-quality products or products that are outright toxic and thus banned in the industrialized countries. (CAGE, 49)
• What has taken place is a massive shift of power, out of the hands of nation-states and into the hands of TNCs [transnational corporations] and banks.  It is now the TNCs that effectively govern the lives of the vast majority of people on earth; yet these new world realities are seldom reflected in the strategies of citizen movements for democratic social change.  All too often, strategies are aimed primarily at changing government policies, while ther real power being exercised by TNCs behind the scenes is rarely challenged, let alone dismantled.  (CAGE, 298)
• Economic globalization expands the opportunities for corporations to go about their business of concentrating wealth-and from the corporate perspective, it has been a brilliant success. The Fortune 500 corporations shed 4.4 million jobs between 1980 and 1993-while increasing their sales 1.4 times; their assets by 2.3 times; and CEO compensation by 6.1 times. These same corporations now employ only 1/20^th of 1 percent of the world's population, but they control 25 percent of the world's economic output and 70 percent of world trade. (WCR), (CR), (PCDF)
• Many so called trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), are not really trade agreements at all. They are economic integration agreements intended to guarantee the rights of global corporations to move both goods and investments where ever they wish-free from public interference and accountability. GATT is best described as a bill of rights for global corporations. (WCR)
• The corporation is an institutional invention specifically and intentionally created to concentrate control over economic resources while shielding those who hold the resulting power from liability for the consequences of its use. The more national economies become integrated into a seamless global economy, the further corporate power extends beyond the reach of any state and the less accountable it becomes to any human interest or institution other than a global financial system that is now best described as a gigantic legal gambling casino. (WCR)
• Forbes tells us the world now has 358 billionaires. Their combined net worth exceeds the combined net worth of the world's poorest 2½ billion people. (WCR)
• The higher one goes up the income scale, the greater the rate of capital accumulation. Economist Paul Krugman notes that not only have the top 20 percent grown more affluent compared with everyone below, the top 5 percent have grown richer compared with the next 15 percent. The top one percent have become richer compared with the next 4 percent. And the top 0.25 percent have grown richer than the next 0.75 percent. That top 0.25 owns more wealth than the other 99 percent combined. (Parenti)
• In 1957, corporations in the United States provided 45 percent of local property tax revenues. By 1987 their share had dropped to about 16 percent. (WCR)
• The scale of the concentration of economic power that is occurring is reveal in the statistics: of the world's hundred largest economies, fifty are corporations, and the aggregate sales of the world's ten largest corporations in 1991 exceed the aggregate GNP of the world's hundred smallest countries. (WCR)
• Consumerism distorts our values and wastes our resources.
• Military spending continues to consume more than half of the federal discretionary budget.
• CEO pay now stands at 475 times the pay of the average worker, according to Business Week’s annual survey of American corporations.  In 1980, the multiplier was 42. (UFE)
• Additional links:
  • U.S. Bishops' Pastoral Letter: Economic Justice For All
  • U.S. Bishops' Pastoral Message: A Decade after Economic Justice For All
  • USCCB Office of Social Development & World Peace
  • A Catholic Framework for Economic Life -- USCCB resources


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Workers’ Rights

• The popular Nike athletic shoes that sell for US$73 to $135 around the world are produced by 75,000 workers employed by independent contractors in low income countries. A substantial portion of these workers are in Indonesia-mostly women and girls housed in company barracks, paid as little as 15 cents an hour, and required to work mandatory overtime. Unions are forbidden and strikes are broken up by the military. In 1992, Michael Jordan reportedly received $20 million from the Nike corporation to promote the sale of its shoes, more than the total compensation paid to the Indonesian women who made them. (WCR)
• Corporations "down size" older workers and hire younger, lower paid, ones to fill their positions. Workers over 40 find it difficult to get new jobs even at lower wages.
• Some Catholic institutions actively oppose union activity by their employees.
• The International Labor Organization has estimated the total number of child workers to be between 100-200 million.  According to the ILO, more than 95 percent of all child workers live in developing countries. (Child Labor)
• Many goods in our stores are produced by child labor in foreign countries.


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Poverty

• 38.5 million Americans (14.5% of the population) live below the poverty level. (SERVEnet)
• The United States has higher child poverty than seven other major industrialized western countries (UNICEF, State of the World's Children Report 1993, 1992).  The U.S. child poverty rate is dramatically higher than those of Canada, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. (mindspring)
• The United States has the highest proportion of single-parent families; nearly one child in four now lives with one parent (Hobbs, F., & Lippman, L., 1990).  In 1991, the poverty rate among children in female-headed families was 55 percent, more than five times the rate among married-couple families (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992).  (mindspring)
• About half of the Nation's poor in 1991 were children under 18 years of age (40.2).  Children are almost twice as likely to be poor than any other group of Americans, including the elderly (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992). (mindspring)
• The income disparity between the rich and poor is greater in the United States than in any other nation in the industrialized world.
• The richest 20% of Americans receive 49% of the nation's income while the poorest 20% receive 3.7%. The gap between rich and poor in income and wealth continues to grow.
• While jobs continue to migrate from the inner cities to the suburbs, public transportation has been allowed to deteriorate. That leaves the poor without the means to get to the jobs.
• Washington, DC- A startling 7.9 million people came to Catholic Charities agencies for emergency services in 1996, an unexpected 11 percent increase over the previous year, according to a new survey released today by Catholic Charities USA. Half of the increase was in people coming for food. Overall, Catholic Charities agencies served 12.7 million people in 1996, up from 10.8 million in 1995. (CathChar)
• The average AFDC family consists of 3 family members, usually a single mother and 2 children. The average number of children is 1.8. (KSU)
• The 1992 welfare caseload consisted of 9.2 million children and 4.4 million adults (virtually all of them mothers).  About half the children in welfare families are under six years old; one-quarter are under three years old.  There is no federal welfare program to provide income to able-bodied adults without children.  (TCF)
• TANF is, by definition, a subsistence program for extremely poor families, but the current TANF monthly payment ($377 for a family of three in Chicago) is insufficient to allow families to meet their basic needs.
• This report analyzes recent changes in child care policies in the ten states with the largest welfare populations (California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington) as part of the Progressive Policy Institute's ongoing monitoring of state implementation of federal welfare law. It finds that in many states, the block grant money allocated to child care for welfare recipients participating in work activities comes at the expense of low-income working families who do not receive welfare. (HandsNet)
• While considerable political heat is directed at poor welfare recipients receiving taxpayer money, more than three times that amount is paid in welfare to wealthy corporations, according to a new Essential Information study released by Ralph Nader. A total of 153 federal programs totaling $167.2 billion, a cost of $1,388 for each taxpayer this year, benefited corporations, according to the study, Aid for Dependent Corporations (AFDC). By contrast, Aid to Families with Dependent Children and other forms of social welfare, including food stamps, housing assistance, and child nutrition, cost $50 billion a year, or $415 for individual taxpayers, the study said. (CorpWelf)
• President Bush's tax cut is too large and fundamentally unfair. It jeopardizes our nation's ability to meet domestic and foreign responsibilities, threatens fiscal stability and security, and inequitably distributes its benefits. (FTFA)
• The share of poor single mothers in the paid-labor market is at an all-time high. The annual employment rates of women who received welfare benefits at some point in the year were relatively flat in the late1980s and early 1990s. But around the mid-1990s, when welfare reform was being phased in, they took off, growing from 39 percent in 1994 to 57 percent in 1999. Of course, this was also the period when the labor market tightened up. So the challenge, again, is to figure out how much of this trend is specifically caused by welfare reform. (epn)
• Additional links:
  • Poverty USA: America's Forgotten State
  • Theological Library on Poverty
  • USCC Office of Social Development & World Peace
  • Catholic Campaign for Human Development
  • Call to Renewal - People of Faith Overcoming Poverty
  • Center on Budget & Policy Priorities
  • Children's Defense Fund

 


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Living Wage

• Advocates of the so-called living wage want low-income workers to earn enough to avoid the poverty threshold -- now defined as $17,000 a year for a family of four. The federal minimum wage now stands at $5.15 an hour. If the concept of the living wage is adopted, the amount would jump to $8.20 an hour -- and even higher in large metropolitan areas. (NCPA)
• Even when other government benefits, such as food stamps, are factored in, on average, an AFDC family receives maximum benefits equal to only 42 percent of the poverty line.  The combination of welfare, food stamps, and housing assistance raises fewer than one in five welfare families above the poverty line.  Only one-quarter of AFDC families receives added assistance to pay for housing.  Most AFDC households purchase shelter, as well as clothing, transportation, personal hygiene, household needs, and school supplies, out of an annual benefit income that averages $8,000 for a family of three when AFDC and food stamps are combined.  (TCF)
• Additional links:
  • Voices and Choices:  A Pastoral Letter on the U.S. Poultry Industry
  • USCCB Labor Day Statement 2001: The Dignity of Work and Workers
  • USCCB Labor Day 2000 Statement: A Jubilee for Workers - Challenges and Opportunities for the New Millennium
  • National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice
  • Campaign for Labor Rights
  • Living Wage Campaigns


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Social Security

• One in every three Americans over age 65 has no prescription drug insurance.  Millions more have only limited coverage, and that is slipping away as HMOs and company retirement plans cut back or drop altogether their drug benefits. Meanwhile, the prices for the pharmaceutical medications continue to climb. It is the quiet crisis of retirement in America today.  (NCPSSM)
• The number of companies offering health coverage for their retirees has dropped by 25 percent in the last four years. More than one-third of larger firms, employing 5,000 or more workers, eliminated coverage during the same period. Instead, many are switching to managed-care plans for their retirees, which offer expensive or limited drug coverage. (NCPSSM)
• The Social Security and Medicare trustees' report shows the danger of proceeding with a tax cut as large as the Administration has proposed and thereby failing to set aside a healthy portion of projected non-Social Security, non-Medicare surpluses for use in helping to restore long-term solvency to these programs. This is a conclusion of an analysis the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued on the trustees' report.  (CBPP)

 
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Health Care

• Our nation's health care system still serves too few and costs too much. (PR)
• The spread of the AIDS epidemic around the world is one of the most alarming new developments in the past twenty years. There are approximately 18 million AIDS-infected people in the world. Each day, some 6000 additional people are infected. By the year 2000, there will be an estimated 40 million people who have the AIDS virus. The $6 billion cost for the AIDS Prevention and Control Program is about 40% of what the US spends on cosmetic surgery per year, or about the same amount as is spent on tobacco advertising in the US, or about .007% of the world's annual military budget.  (WWW)
• In 1994, the United States infant mortality rate was eight deaths, by age one, per 1,000 live births. In terms of infant mortality, the United States ranks twenty-first among industrialized nations. (UNICEF)
• Affordable health care is not available on our area.
• Most teenagers engage in behaviors that put them at risk for chronic disease; but they are less likely to do so in families with higher education and income, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.   (NCPA)
• A study by the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia (CASA) reveals that in 1995 substance abuse and addiction will account for $77.6 billion of federal entitlement payments, including Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security Disability Insurance, Veterans, health, and other federal entitlement programs and welfare. That represents nearly twenty percent of the $430 billion that the federal government will spend on these entitlement programs this year.
• Vast sums are spent on organ transplants and other highly technical procedures while prenatal care, nutrition, and other preventative programs languish for lack of funding.
• The "War on Drugs" has not only failed to make America free of illicit drugs but in the process has constructed laws that are: highly unjust and racist in their application, a threat to our civil liberties, and a danger to public health.
• The estimated 39 million Americans not covered by either private or public insurance represent about 16 percent of the population. And during the course of a year 58 million are uninsured for at least one month. Interestingly, 85 percent of the uninsured are members of a family with a working adult, and more than half of them live in families with an adult who has steady, full-time employment.  (ncpa)
• Nonprofit hospitals, owned by communities and religious institutions, are being purchased by for-profit corporations. When that happens, they raise their prices and reduce care for the indigent.
• Registered nurses are being replaced with less expensive practical nurses. Patients are forced to endure long waits for many types of needed surgery.
• For-profit hospitals and nursing homes often refuse to accept Medicaid patients.
• Additional links:
  • Catholic Health Association of the United States
  • Do No Harm: Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics
  • USCC Working Paper:  A Fair and Just Workplace - Principles and Practices for Catholic Health Care
  • Hospice Net -- For patients & families facing life threatening illness


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Housing

• Housing is being seriously neglected as a priority of national concern, governmental action, and federal investment. Shelters cannot substitute for real housing for low-income families and poor individuals. (PR)
• Affordable housing is lacking in our area. There are long waiting lists for "Section 8" housing.
• [A 1994] study found that 6.5% (12 million adults nationwide) of the respondents had been literally homeless at some point in their lives, and that 3.6% (6.6 million adults nationwide) of the respondents had experienced homelessness (literal or doubled up) between 1989-1994 (Link et al., 1995). Thus, it appears that 12 million of the adult residents of the U.S. have been literally homeless at some point in their lives. (nch)
• By the year 2003 the ratio of income-eligible families to low-income units will be nearly two to one in the United States. There is a lack of private or public low-income housing in the U. S. The public low-income housing which does exist is in very bad condition, overcrowded and managed poorly. (Habitat)
• Percentage of cities reporting an increase in homelessness: 71%. Percentage of cities that turn away homeless due to lack of resources: 81%. Average decrease in number of available shelter beds: 2.5%. Average amount of time it takes for a homeless person to get off the street: 6 months. Average decrease in available transitional housing: 11%. Percentage of homeless who are mentally ill: 24%. Percentage of homeless who are veterans: 19%. Percentage of homeless who are employed: 18%. Percentage of cities in which families must split up to find shelter: 56%. Average percentage of income spent on housing by low-income households: 49%. Percentage of eligible low-income households receiving housing assistance: 28%. Percentage of cities that have stopped taking applications for at least one housing assistance program due to length of waiting lists: 68%. - All information taken from 1996 Conference of Mayors Report on Housing and Homelessness. (Real Change)
• Housing for the handicapped is lacking in our area.


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Agriculture

• Malnutrition is the principal cause of infant and child mortality in developing nations. In many of them, over 25% of the population die before the age of four. In Guatemala, 75% of the children under five years of age are undernourished. Yet, Guatemala exports 40 million pounds of meat to the United States.  (NCA)
• Our food and agriculture system is similarly designed to generate profits for giant chemical and agribusiness corporations with little regard for the health of people and the ecosystem. . . .It comes at the costs of depleting soils and aquifers, contaminating water with chemical runoff, and driving out the small family farms that were long the backbone of strong rural communities. (WCR)
• Wealthy landlords in developing countries are using their land for export crops and the workers can't grow enough to feed their families.
• Additional links:National Catholic Rural Life Conference


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Hunger

• Even on its own terms, the tragedy of chronic, persistent hunger is staggering. This silent killer takes the lives of 35,000 of us each and every day, three-quarters of whom are children under the age of five. The health, intelligence and productivity of nearly one billion of our fellow human beings are ravaged by hunger. (THP)
• The International Famine Relief Agency could be funded with 32% of what just the US spends on candy each year. The Increased Fertilizer Availability Program could be funded with just 11% of what Europe, Japan and the US spend on cosmetics. Together, all three programs-famine relief, fertilizer and sustainable agriculture-total $19 billion per year for ten years, which is 2.4% of the world's total annual military expenditures or 1.9% of the world's annual expenditures on illegal drugs. This amount is also about 55% of what the people of the US spend on weight loss programs each year. The cost for eliminating starvation and malnutrition in the world is also about 75% of what European governments spend annually on subsidies to their farmers or 38% of what Japanese farmers receive. (WWW)
• World food reserves are low.
• Many people in our area can't afford food and rely on our food pantries for their survival.
• The "World Food Summit" in Rome, November, 1966 estimated that there are currently 840 million undernourished people in the world. The US mission to the UN has released a study which estimates that 36.2 million people are at risk of malnutrition or starvation in 1997.
• In the U.S. and other first world countries obesity, overweight, and gluttony are widespread.
• The livestock population of the United States today consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed five times the human population of the country.... It is hard to grasp how immensely wasteful is a meat-oriented diet-style. By cycling our grain through livestock, we end up with only 10 percent as many calories available to feed human mouths as would be available if we ate the grain directly. 1 acre of land can produce only 165 pounds of beef, but the same 1 acre can produce 20,000 pounds of potatoes. It takes 20 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of beef, but 1 pound of bread can be produced with 1 pound of grain.  (NCA)
• Budget cuts made at the expense of nutrition programs, such as food stamps and school lunches, are false savings, because of the costly problems associated with hunger. All told, these changes would restore just under $8 billion of the $30 billion lost to nutrition programs under the federal welfare reform law of 1996.
• Additional links:
  • Catholic Relief Services
  • Hunger Notes - Why Are People Hungry?
  • Bread for the World
  • Food First
  • Food Research and Action Center
  • Freedom from Hunger
  • Heifer Project International
  • Oxfam America
  • World Hunger Year


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Farm Workers

• Farm workers are treated unfairly.


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Environment

• Since the Industrial Revolution, human activity has been increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and trapping more heat.  Earth's average surface temperature increased 0.5-1.0 degrees F during the last century.  Climate scientists estimate a warming of 1.8-6.3 degrees F during the next century. Global warming is likely to raise the level of the sea and change the climate in most regions of the world.  A higher sea level will erode beaches, inundate wetlands and lowlands, and alter the ecological balance of many estuaries.  Changing regional climate is likely to disrupt agriculture and forests, increase flooding along rivers, and decrease populations of several species of birds and fish. (EPA)
• The developed countries produce a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gasses. The United States with 4% of the world's population produces 20% of its greenhouse gasses.  (ToxTurk)
• The layer of ozone in the stratosphere, a layer far above the earth's surface, is critical to life on earth because it blocks out ultraviolet rays. Human activities have reduced ozone concentrations in the upper atmosphere at some times and in some places around the world. A thinner ozone layer is likely to cause a noticeable increase in skin cancer, eye problems, and other diseases. (Ozone Depletion FAQ)
• The average North American consumes five times as much as an average Mexican, ten times as much as an average Chinese and thirty times as much as an average Asian Indian.
• Each American individual uses up 20 tons of basic raw materials annually.
• Even though Americans comprise only 5% of the world's population, in 1996 we used nearly one third of its resources and produced almost half of its hazardous waste.
• The industrialized countries, with just 21 percent of global population, use 75% of all energy produced.
• One fifth of humanity does not have access to clean drinking water.
• In the developed nations, the automobile has had powerful negative effects. Urban sprawl has consumed large quantities of arable land for housing and roads.
• Although Americans continue to recycle at higher rates, the massive amount of trash sent to landfill sites continues to grow. In 1970, we recycled 7% of our garbage and sent 113 million tons to landfills. Today, we recycle about 27%, but we still throw away over 150 million tons.  (ULS)
• The US Dept. of Energy estimates that our government will spend at least $230 billion over the next 75 years to clean up the pollution at nuclear facilities in the United States. Another US Dept. of Energy document reveals that more nuclear waste will be generated over the next 20 years than the past 50 years. ( A2000)
• Nuclear and other toxic waste is dumped disproportionally in areas containing low-income and minority populations.
• Annual trash from gift wrap and shopping bags totals about 4 million tons. Third class mail adds another 4.4 million tons to mail bags and, ultimately, to garbage bags. In fact, holiday waste will add an additional 5 million tons of trash to U.S. landfills. (ULS)
• Additional links:
  • Pope John Paul II, The Ecological Crisis: A Common Responsibility, 1990 World Day of Peace Message
  • U.S. Bishops' 2001 Statement: Global Climate Change
  • U.S. Bishops' 1991 Statement: Renewing the Earth
  • Quotes from Catholic Social Teaching: Ecology
  • Theological Library on the Environment
  • USCC Environmental Justice Program
  • Forum on Religion and Ecology - Harvard University
  • National Religious Partnership for the Environment
  • Virginia Conservation Network
  • Environmental Defense
  • Energy Efficient Purchases - EPA Site
  • Organic Consumers Association - Food Safety Issues
  • Dogwood Alliance -- A united response to protect southern forests from chip mill plants
  • Virtual Library - Environment


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Immigrants

• The denial or elimination of services and benefits to legal immigrants produced the single largest federal saving in the welfare reform law. (NCSL)
• Welfare payments to legal immigrants have been eliminated. (NCSL)
• There is no reputable evidence that prospective immigrants are drawn to the U.S. because of its public assistance programs.  (CEIP)
• Most researchers believe that few undocumented immigrants illegally use public assistance programs. However, the data are scarce, and firm conclusions cannot be drawn.  (CEIP)
• Evidence suggests that over the last three decades, immigrants have played a significant role in reversing the nationwide decline in the rate of non-farm self-employment. (AILA)
• The rate of U. S. immigration in the 1990s is about one-third the rate of immigration at the beginning of this century. The total number of immigrants--including illegals--is about the same as or less than the number then, though the country's population has more than doubled. (cato)
• The foreign-born population of the United States is 8.5 percent of the total population, which is significantly lower than the proportion--13 percent or higher--during the period from 1860 to 1930. (cato)
• Immigrants do not increase the rate of unemployment among native Americans, even among minority, female, and low-skill workers. The effect of immigration on wages is negative for some of these special groups and positive for others, but the overall effects are small. (cato)
• This large influx of aliens in the labor market depresses wages and working conditions for native low-skill workers (who are often the young, minorities, and other recent immigrants).  It blocks our native poor from entry level opportunities, contributes to the widening gap between rich and poor in our society, and increases business dependency on cheap labor instead of innovation and modernization. (FAIR)
• Total per capita government expenditures on immigrants are much lower than those for natives, no matter how immigrants are classified. Narrowly defined welfare expenditures for immigrants are slightly more than for natives, but this has been true in the past, too. These welfare expenditures are only small fractions of total government expenditures on immigrants and natives. Schooling costs and payments to the elderly are the bulk of government expenditures; natives use more of these programs, especially Social Security and Medicare. (cato)
• The educational levels of immigrants have been increasing from decade to decade. No major shifts in educational levels of immigrants relative to natives are apparent. (cato)
• Natural resources and the environment are not at risk from immigration. As population size and average income have increased in the United States, the supplies of natural resources and the cleanliness of the environment have improved rather than deteriorated. Immigration increases the base of technical knowledge. That speeds the current positive trends in both greater availability of natural resources and cleaner air and water. (cato)
• Migrant workers in Will and Kendall Counties must endure miserable conditions.
• The United States is closing its doors to immigrants from the Southern Hemisphere who are seeking to better themselves economically.
• Additional links:
• U.S. Bishops' 2001 Statement: Renewing U.S. Leadership in Refugee Protection
• U.S. Bishops' 2000 Statement:  Welcoming the Stranger Among Us - Unity in Diversity
• Resolution on Immigration Reform, U.S. Bishops, 2000
• U.S. Bishops' 1997 Statement: Called to Global Solidarity - International Challenges for U.S. Parishes
• USCCB Office of Migration and Refugee Services
• USCCB Resources on International Issues
• Catholic Relief Services
• Immigration and Refugee Services of America
• U.S. Committee for Refugees
• Interaction— Refugee & relief agency coalition


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Education

• Because of the way that schools are funded, the children of the poor often receive an inferior education thus condemning them to a future of poverty. (sf&tr)
• Families and communities face a fundamental challenge when attempting to any efforts to raise the level academic success for all children: economic inequality. Grave disparities in access to, quality of, and affordability of education have motivated The Century Foundation to examine the causes and effects of economic inequality and explore policy options for redressing these problems. As part of this effort, The Century foundation is launching a new website: (www.equaleducation.org).
• Urban students perform far worse, on average, than children who live outside central cities on virtually every measure of academic performance. The longer they stay in school, the wider that gap grows.  Urban schools are different because they are more likely than nonurban ones to have a high percentage of low-income students. Concentrated school poverty is consistently related to lower performance on every educational outcome measured.  (EdWeek)
• Homeless children are being excluded from schools.
• Rising public school enrollments, and demands for higher standards, may suggest a need for higher education spending. But The Finance Project's Martin Orland and Carol Cohen suggest that growth in per-pupil education spending is unlikely to continue at its 1970-to-1992 rates. Greater demands on state and local budgets can be expected from other government service sectors and this will make it exceedingly difficult for most states to continue education spending increases. Recent spending data from 1990 to 1994 reveal that a marked slowdown has probably already begun. (Challenges), (IC-E)


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Private and Religious Schools

• Many Catholic Colleges and Universities have campus ROTC programs. Few have programs of peace studies and conflict resolution.
• In inner cities, privately funded religious schools often provide a better education at much lower cost than publically funded schools.
• A number of communities across the country are trying vouchers or voucher-like mechanisms to see if they will make a difference in the lives of poor children. The two most notable examples are Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Cleveland, Ohio. In those communities-in any community anywhere in the nation-Title I vouchers could make an enormous difference to poor families. (CUPR)
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Violence

• Each day 105 Americans die from gunshot wounds.
• The fact is, if there's a handgun in your home, it is more likely that a domestic homicide or suicide will occur.  The family gun is 43 times more likely to kill you or someone you know than to kill in self-defense. (CPHV)
• Last year, more than 13,000 Americans were slain with firearms,  67 percent of the total of homicides.  It's estimated that an additional 18,000 took their own lives with guns. (ChiTrib, 12/28/97)
• Each year, the Family Shelter Service in Glen Ellyn receives 10,000 phone calls to its hotline and police report 6,000 incidents of domestic violence in our community.
• Women account for 95 percent of domestic violence victims. A woman is more likely to be assaulted, injured, raped, or killed by a male partner than by any other type of assailant.  An estimated 3 to 4 million American women are battered each year by their husbands or partners.  In 1991, more than 90 women were murdered every week; nine of ten by men.  Weapons are used in 30 percent of domestic violence incidents. (JPD)
• Medical expenses from domestic violence total $3 to $5 billion annually.  Business forfeit another $100 million in lost wages, sick leaves, absenteeism, and nonproductively.  (JPD)
• As violence against women becomes more severe and more frequent in the home, children experience a 300 percent increase in physical violence by the male batterer.  (JPD)
• Wife-beating results in more injuries requiring medical treatment than rape, car accidents and mugging combined.  More than one million women seek medical assistance annually for injuries caused by battering.  One fifth of all women treated by emergency rooms receive their injuries from their male partners.  (JPD)
• Contrary to popular belief, the typical crime victim is a single, unemployed, young male.  Of 10.8 million violent crimes (attempted or completed) in 1993, 6.8 million of the victims were male; only 4.6 million were female.  Young people, ages 16 to 24, are more than ten times as likely as their grandparents to be victims of violence.  (NCPC)
• Prostitutes are victimized by predators in our cities.
• History is full of thousands of people who have cooperated in morally-reprehensible activities when so ordered by their government or employer.  One has only to look at the large complicity needed in World War II’s Holocaust, a carefully-planned and executed extermination of millions of Jews, Gypsies and other "undesirables." (NVW)
• Additional links:
  • U.S. Bishops' 1992 Statement: When I Call for Help: A Pastoral Response to Domestic Violence
  • U.S. Bishops' 1995 Statement:  Walk in the Light: A Pastoral Response to Child Sexual Abuse
  • National Network to End Domestic Violence
  • Family Violence Prevention Fund
  • Violence Against Women Office - U.S. Department of Justice


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Discrimination

• Racism pervades our society. Prejudice coupled with power enables many in the majority to discriminate against minorities in housing, economics, employment, politics, and other areas of our common life.  (RRN), (IHR)
• Discrimination hurts all of us, but especially
• African-Americans
• Asian-Americans
• Native-Americans and other indigenous (ECEP)
• Hispanics (NCPRR)
• Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered (HRC)
• The physically and mentally disabled
• The elderly
• Jews, Catholics, Muslims, and other non-WASPs
• Women (CEDAW)
• People with AIDS
• The poor
• Families with children
• The Catholic Church discriminates against its members and employees, especially lay women.
• Due to affirmative action, blacks from middle-class and affluent families are granted preference at the expense of poor whites with stronger academic credentials.  And Hispanics, who have historically been classified as white, get preferential treatment at the expense of Asians -- a minority who have also suffered discrimination. (NCPA)
• The election of many African American leaders has failed to translate into genuine political power or effective policy support for black issues.  The rise in membership in Pentecostal and Islamic denominations suggests that many blacks, frustrated with the political detachment of more traditional churches, continue to pursue more socially concerned activism at a local level. (EPN)
• The HOPE fair housing center in DuPage County handled 318 fair housing complaints in the year ending in September 1997. Discrimination occurs in all aspects of housing: advertising, rental, sales, financing, and insurance.
• Additional links:
  • U.S. Bishops' Pastoral Letter on Racism: Brothers & Sisters to Us
  • Pontifical Council For Justice And Peace -- Contribution To World Conference Against Racism, September 2001
  • Pontifical Commission on Justice & Peace: The Church & Racism
  • Theology Library on Racial Justice -- McGill University
  • Hope in the Cities: A great group in Richmond
  • Toward A More Perfect Union in an Age of Diversity - A Guide to Building Stronger Communities through Public Dialogue
  • One America -- The President's Initiative on Race
  • Teaching Tolerance Project -- Southern Poverty Law Center

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Prisoners and Prisons

• Prisons are inhuman places and many prisoners are tortured and raped.
• Mandatory sentencing has resulted in long sentences for non-violent criminals and a vast expansion of our prison system.
• Among the State prison inmates in 1991: fewer than half were sentenced for a violent crime, a fourth were sentenced for a property crime, about a fifth were sentenced for a drug crime. (bjs)
• Most federal legislation being considered puts more money and effort in punishment of juvenile crime than in prevention. Proposed legislation would allow children over the age of 14 to be tried as adults in federal cases and to be incarcerated in adult prisons. One piece of legislation would lower the minimum age for the death penalty from 18 to 16. (ICC)
• If recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated 1 of every 20 persons (5.1%) will serve time in a prison during their lifetime.  Lifetime chances of a person going to prison are higher for: men (9%) than for women (1.1%), blacks (16.2%) and Hispanics (9.4%) than for whites (2.5%).  Based on current rates of first incarceration, an estimated 28% of black males will enter State or Federal prison during their lifetime, compared to 16% of Hispanic males and 4.4% of white males. (bjs)
• From 1950 to 1974 " a period during which imprisonment for serious crime declined sharply " the crime rate soared. In 1974, the rate of imprisonment began increasing and, as a result, the crime rate leveled off in the 1980s and has actually declined in recent years. Still, the rate of serious crime remains distressingly high. (NCPA)
• We, as a society, are in crisis. Held enthralled by fear, most people feel helpless about crime -- feel as though caught in a maelstrom -- a vicious dynamic cycle of disputes, transgressions, and violence beyond control, ever escalating in severity. Moreover, our public policy debates, which we could reasonably hope might generate ideas for rational, workable, and effective societal responses, seem driven more by fear and anecdote -- sensationally violent media portrayals of the most heinous crimes -- than by any optimism for meaningful improvement in the situation. Politicians, speaking to this fear and sense of helplessness, sadly seem to betray a willingness to keep the public policy debates at a lowest-common-denominator level of intelligence -- they essentially sell us 'protection' by campaigning for the 'war on crime', 'three strikes, you're out', 'lock 'em up and throw away the key', and even 'capital punishment'. (CERJ), (PACS)
• 791,600 black males were incarcerated in June 2000, a new high. Nearly one in eight black males age 20 to 34 was in prison on any given day.
• While crime rates have fallen the last decade, the total number of people incarcerated in the United States has risen steadily to a record high of 1.9 million people in 2000, the Justice report said. (HoustonChronicle)
• Additional links:
  • U.S. Bishops' 2000 Statement:  Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration - A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice
  • Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice
  • Criminal Justice Policy Foundation
  • Families Against Mandatory Minimums
  • Family and Corrections Network
  • National Center on Institutions & Alternatives
  • The Sentencing Project

Civil Rights

• Government agencies and private corporations have collected and stored vast amounts of information about individuals. Extensive databases and powerful computers enable them to invade our privacy. (CPSR)
• Corporate lobbyists and PACs have more influence on our government's actions than do ordinary citizens.  Corporations subvert government regulatory bodies to further the interests of those they are supposed to regulate. (Common Cause)
• The government uses secrecy and classification to cover up its own errors and ineptness. Senator Daniel P. Moynihan has revealed that in 1995 alone -- long after the end of the cold war -- the U.S. government classified 400,000 documents as "Top Secret," meaning that their disclosure would cause "exceptionally grave damage to the national security." The cost to taxpayers of "protecting" these records is more than $5 billion a year. (NCAC)
• 99.97% of Americans do not make political contributions of more than $200, but individual contributions of more than $200 are the largest single source of money for Congressional campaigns. Past elections show that whoever raises the most money usually wins. A senate seat costs $4.6 million and a House seat, $520,000. (The Dollars and Democracy Project).

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Practicing Global Solidarity

Debt Relief

• Poor countries owe a vast amount of money to rich nations and international financial institutions (IFIs) like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. For developing countries as a whole this debt is over $2 trillion. Most of this is owed by "middle-income" developing countries. But some of the lowest-income countries in the world also are heavily indebted, owing around $250 billion. (J2000)
• Hundreds of millions of people living in poverty in low and middle-income countries alike are paying the price for their countries’ enormous international debt. Ordinary people did not benefit from many of the loans that gave rise to this debt. Yet they bear the principal burden of repayment. Without major debt reduction, poor countries are trapped, making unending interest payments on their debts. This requires them continuously to divert large amounts of scarce resources from health care, education and food security. The debt burden inhibits the social and economic development that is needed to lift people out of poverty.(J2000)
• Additional links:
  • U.S. Bishops' 1999 Statement: A Jubilee Call for Debt Forgiveness
  • USCCB Web Site on International Debt
  • Catholic Campaign on Debt -- Educational Resources


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Global Poverty

• Some of the statistics about the state of the world can be overwhelming. One-fifth of the world's population survives on $1 a day. More than 50 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes. Seven million children die each year because the poorest countries spend more money on debt than on health or education. Fourty million people die each year from hunger alone.(NetAid)
• Foreign aid
• Trade policies

Human Rights

• Thousands of people are in prison because of their beliefs. Many are held without charge or trial.  Torture and the death penalty are widespread.  In many countries men, women and children have  "disappeared" after being taken into official custody.  Still others have been put to death without any pretence of legality: selected and killed by the governments and their agents.(AI)
• Additional links:
  • Lawyers Committee for Human Rights

Religious Liberty

• Members of religious minorities are persecuted for their beliefs.**

United Nations

• The United States often seeks military solutions to problems that can best be solved by other means.
• The CIA has been involved in covert operations in foreign countries that involved the overthrow of governments as well as drug smuggling.  (TMC)
• There was a time when the United States shouldered 63 percent of the world's foreign aid burden. That was 40 years ago. Now, America provides only a sixth of the world's development assistance. Japan spends more, and soon too will France and probably Germany. As a portion of its wealth, America's foreign aid donation is less than that of any other donor nation--a distinction bound to continue as a result of Congress's 23 percent cut in the Agency for International Development's budget for development aid. (US News 5/20/96)
• The United states has become delinquent in paying the dues it pledges to the International Development Corporation (IDC), a branch of the World Bank which assists the world's poorest countries.
• In 1945 the United States played a leading role in forming the U.N. for the purpose of maintaining world peace, furthering human rights, and promoting economic development. The U.S. currently owes over $1 billion in arrears to the U.N. for its regular budget and peacekeeping operations. (WFA)  The continued failure of the U.S. to honor its legal obligations threatens the financial viability of the United Nations. While continued reform is necessary, the United Nations advances important U.S. interests and deserves the support of the president and Congress as well as the American people. Of the top 15 contributors to the United Nations, only the United States, Russia and Ukraine are delinquent, with the U.S. owing 62 percent of all outstanding arrears.  (Maryknoll)
• Over the past few decades, numerous nations, particularly in Africa and Latin America, funded their development projects through loans from the banks of industrialized nations. Debt and interest payments from these loans from the world's least developed countries today amount to $199 billion per year.  This is three times the total amount of aid received from the developed countries.  After many development efforts failed, in large part as a consequence of low commodity prices that reduced the earnings of many developing countries, the debts remained, stifling productivity and creating an impediment to further investment in the future. (WWW)
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Refugees

• Refugees are of every race and religion and can be found in every part of the world. Forced to flee out of fear for their lives and liberty, they often give up everything -- home, belongings, family and country -- for an uncertain future in a strange land. (UNHCR)
• "The State of the World's Refugees: a Humanitarian Agenda," says life has never been tougher for the 22 million refugees and displaced people protected by UNHCR. Despite fewer wars between states, the changing nature of war and communal conflict is driving more and more people from their homes. Although 10 million refugees have returned to their countries since 1990, many new groups have been forced to flee and the number of internally displaced continues to rise. Increasingly, they have nowhere to run.
• According to the biennial report, which examines the plight of refugees worldwide, "It is becoming increasingly difficult for refugees to find a place of safety beyond the borders of their homeland.... In many parts of the world, people who have taken refuge in another country have been harassed, attacked and even forced to go home against their will." ( pg 51)
• Civilians are being targeted more than ever before in an estimated 35 civil wars or communal conflicts now raging worldwide. In some conflicts, the primary objectives include expelling or dispersing large sections of the community. In certain regions, refugees have been pushed from country to country, fleeing fighting or attack. Safety during asylum is under greater threat, with more assaults on refugee camps, rape of refugee women and forced recruitment of men and boys.
• Meanwhile, rich and poor nations have become united in their determination not to accept refugees. Governments are increasingly slamming the door in the faces of those seeking asylum, regarding them as political, social or economic threats. According to the report, the five million people who requested asylum in Western Europe, North America and Australasia over the past decade have faced "an array of different measures intended to prevent or deter people from seeking refuge." (pg 183)
• Western politicians and media routinely label asylum seekers "bogus," even when they have escaped from situations of armed conflict.  The report says this in turn influences poorer nations' attitudes to asylum seekers. "When the very countries responsible for establishing the international refugee regime begin to challenge its legal and ethical foundations, then it is hardly surprising that other states, especially those with far more pressing economic problems and much larger refugee populations, have decided to follow suit." (pg 69)
• Such attitudes mean that millions of people are being returned to nations still suffering conflict and instability, with no guarantee they may not have to flee again. According to the report, "The international regime of refugee protection, painstakingly developed since the beginning of the 20th century, is now under unprecedented pressure." (pg 4)
• Meanwhile, as the refugee count drops, the number of internally displaced continues to rise. The report says up to 25 million people beyond the 22 million already cared for by UNHCR may have been forced to abandon their homes. Many are trapped in war zones in their home countries with neighboring borders firmly closed. The international community is now focusing more on the internally displaced. But the report points out that such aid "has in some instances been used as a pretext to obstruct the flight of people whose lives are in danger, to limit their right to asylum and to return them prematurely to conditions of danger." (pg69)
• Concerns about immigrant workers have been compounded in recent years by massive flows of refugees and asylum seekers. As of January 1996, the world had about 13 million refugees. Many of these are the result of internal wars or of new states coming to terms with internal ethnic and political divisions. Most of the burden is borne by developing countries, as the vast majority of refugees move from one developing country to another: one-third are in Africa, with Rwanda one of the major sources. With improved international communications and transport, however, many more refugees are heading for industrial countries. (OneWorld)
• The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims voted to slash the number of refugees allowed into the United States by about half, cut overall legal immigration by about one-third and end family reunification programs for all relatives except spouses and minors. Activists fear that without the refugee program, many Jews from the former Soviet Union would have to wait.
• Additional links:
  • U.S. Bishops' 2001 Statement: Renewing U.S. Leadership in Refugee Protection
  • U.S. Bishops' 2000 Statement:  Welcoming the Stranger Among Us - Unity in Diversity
  • Resolution on Immigration Reform, U.S. Bishops, 2000
  • U.S. Bishops' 1997 Statement: Called to Global Solidarity - International Challenges for U.S. Parishes
  • USCCB Office of Migration and Refugee Services
  • USCCB Resources on International Issues
  • Catholic Relief Services
  • Immigration and Refugee Services of America
  • U.S. Committee for Refugees
  • Interaction— Refugee & relief agency coalition
 

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Immigration

• Provide a safe haven for those in need.**
• Protect immigrant workers from exploitation.
• Promote family reconciliation.
• Safeguard the right of return.
• Provide access to public benefits.
• Provide access to citizenship.
• Address root causes of immigration.

Regional Conflicts

Northern Ireland

• Catholics are the victims of violence and discrimination.(nyt)
• The IRA uses violent means to pursue its goals.

Eastern and Central Europe

• Croats, Muslims, and Serbs abuse one another in the Balkans.
• Laws recently enacted in Russia restrict the religious freedom of those who are not members of the Russian Orthodox church.

The Middle East

• Arab terrorists threaten and kill Israelis.
• The government of Israel has confiscated Palestinian property and destroyed Palestinian homes.
• The government of Israel oppresses Palestinians and uses torture against Palestinian prisoners.
• More than one MILLION Iraqis have died since the start of  the blockade in 1990.  The blockade has killed more than 567,000 children under the age of five. - United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), December, 1995.  More than 4,500 children under the age of 5 are dying each month from hunger and disease. - United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), October 19, 1996.  (IAC2)
• Since the onset of sanctions, there has been a six-fold increase in the mortality rate for children under five and the majority of the country's population has been on a semi-starvation diet. - World Health Organization (WHO), March, 1996.  (IAC2), (voices)
• The government of Iraq sponsors international terrorism, continues to seek to obtain weapons of mass destruction, and abuses its own citizens (Kurds and Shiite Moslems alike).

Latin America and the Caribbean

• The Government of Cuba abuses its own citizens.  US-led sanctions are making life miserable for Cubans.
• There were 24,000 homicides in Colombia in 1996, a number that is expected to climb to more than 30,000 this year. The resurgence of violence is tied by some expert observers in Colombia to continued aid to the military by the United States, aid that some Colombians say is helping to support paramilitary networks.
• In Columbia, social and political violence claims 11 lives a day. Left-wing Guerrillas persist in a three-decade insurgency war. Right-wing paramilitary squads, commonly linked to drug traffickers, other hacienda landlords and members of the military, seek to "cleanse" whole populations from territory they aim to control. (NCR 11/14/97)
• Haiti remains the poorest country in our hemisphere.
• On November 16, 1989, six Jesuits and two women co-workers were murdered in El Salvador. Of 26 Salvadoran Army officers cited by the U.N. Truth Commission for these murders, 19 were trained at the School of the Americas. Three of five officers involved in the murders of the four U.S. church women on December 2, 1980 were also SOA trained. Large numbers of SOA graduates have been implicated in atrocities and massacres of hundreds of Latin Americans.  (soadod), (SotAW1), (SotAW2)
• On Dec. 22, 1997, armed paramilitaries slaughtered 45 Tzotzil Indians, mostly women and children, in Chiapas in southern Mexico.

Africa

• The African continent has been plagued with armed conflict, often of long-term duration, that has resulted in millions of displaced persons, tens of thousands maimed, both physically and mentally, and untold devastation of human life and physical resources.  (PR)
• Ethnic and civil conflicts in Rwanda and Burundi continue to rise, potentially escalating to the proportions of 1993-94 when more than a million civilians were brutally massacred, while civil conflicts in Liberia and the Sudan continue to rage out of control.  These conflicts have created tremendous refugee problems in neighboring countries.  (PR)
• There are periodic famines in sub-Saharan Africa.  (ReliefNet)
• Muslim fundamentalists slaughter hundreds of their fellow citizens daily in Algeria.
• Adults are dying of AIDS in Africa.
• The Taliban in Afghanistan is killing many innocent people.

Asia

• The disasters afflicting the country over the past two years have had a profound impact on the health of many North Koreans, particularly the children and the elderly. A World Food Program nutritional survey that weighed and measured 4,200 children below the age of six concluded that between 13% and 30% of those surveyed were severely malnourished. (CRS)
• China invaded Tibet in 1950 and has occupied it ever since. The government of the Peoples' Republic of China continues to subjugate its citizens. (flag)
• The government of the Peoples' Republic of China jails and persecutes dissidents.
• Some exports from the Peoples' Republic of China are produced by prisoners.


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Afterword

That means that, if there are issues in the preceding list that you or your group feel called to work on because they touch your heart, address a need that is close to you, or resonate with your talent or charism, you are not alone.  You may be just mouse-clicks away from an organization that is already working on each issue.  Join them and devote yourself to working on its resolution.  The Diocesan Voices For Justice page is an especially good place to find local allies.

Concerning the problem of overload, you can take comfort in the fact that there are plenty of other people and groups working to resolve the issues that you cannot tackle.

Finally, this is still a work-in-progress.  It is my intent to add and update items as they come to my attention and to expand the links.  I would appreciate any updates, corrections or feedback.  You can send them to me at: bagley@computer.org.
 

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