Distributist Buzzwords in the (Catholic) News

SOLIDARITY AND SUBSIDIARITY TO OVERCOME SOCIAL EXCLUSION

VATICAN CITY, 6 FEB 2009 (VIS) - Archbishop Celestino Migliore, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in New York, yesterday addressed the 47th session of the Economic and Social Council's Commission for Social Development.

Speaking English the archbishop turned his attention to the question of social integration, underlining how a recent report on that subject from the U.N. secretary general "states that the absence of social integration, resulting in social exclusion, is pervasive in developing and developed regions alike and has common causes, namely poverty, inequality and discrimination at all levels".

The framework for development, he went on, "is marked by the conviction that the logic of solidarity and subsidiarity is the most apt and instrumental to overcome poverty and ensure the participation of every person and social group at the social, economic, civil and cultural levels.

"A broad consensus around the commitment to promote development has been revealed in this last decade in the fight against poverty and in fostering the inclusion and the participation of all persons and social groups", he added.

(Emphasis added; SOURCE)

The increasing frustration which people are feeling with the financial crisis here in the U.S. and its global ramifications might be an important opening for the injection into the maintstream of some orthodox, Catholic economic thought. Crucial, though, is that we do not allow ourselves to be outdone in zeal (as we are traditionally wont to do) by apologists for other doctrines (such as the neo-Marxism which is becoming ever more fashionable in the press). This is nothing new, however; the voices calling for a "New Evangelization" have become almost shrill in their insistance over the past decade. The current crisis is just another spot of hurt needful of the healing that only Catholic truth can bring...