Thursday, August 7, 2008

More on Catholic Social Teaching

This week my girls and I brought a few bags of groceries to the soup kitchen, which feeds the neighborhood poor and homeless.

What are the roots of this situation?

Gaudium Et Spes states and I quote, “Although the world of today has a very vivid awareness of its unity and of how one man depends on another in needful solidarity, it is most grievously turn into opposing camps by conflicting forces. For political, social, economic, racial and ideological disputes still continue bitterly, and with them the peril of a war which would reduce everything to ashes. True, there is a growing exchange of ideas, but the very words by which key concepts are expressed take on quite different meanings in diverse ideological systems. Finally, man painstakingly searches for a better world, without a corresponding spiritual advancement.”
Man continues with the stipulation that the separation of church and state works. This is not working.

Gaudium et Spes continues to discuss the mindset of man in the dichotomy of his own emotional suffering and struggles to persevere without divine help. This as well doesn’t work and isn’t working as proof of the wide spread of poverty, prejudices, and segregations. So,

Lack of stability due to lack of family support and upbringing.
Lack of reformation into society from prison and/or drug rehabilitation.
Lack of responsible reputation required by employers
Lack of a permanent home address and dependable transportation.

These things act as a domino effect as the lack of security from a stable family life leads to anger and violence and/or drug abuse due to peer pressures and longing for acceptance. Incarceration and rehab history leads to a lack of stability and good reputation necessary for employers to be inclined to hire an individual, hence the lack of funds to support a residence and run an automobile. Without Christ and His presence in the nation, good things falter in the face of consumerism, capitalism, and selfishness.

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