After a year marked by ugly campaign rhetoric directed at migrants, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the AFL-CIO strongly reaffirmed their defense of immigrants this November.

The bishops, gathered in Baltimore for their fall annual assembly, endorsed a statement congratulating President-elect Donald J. Trump on his election while offering “a special word to migrant and refugee families living in the United States: be assured of our solidarity and continued accompaniment as you work for a better life.” They continued,

We will work to promote humane policies that protect refugees and immigrants’ inherent dignity, keep families together, and honor and respect the laws of this nation…. We stand ready to work with a new administration to continue to ensure that refugees are humanely welcomed without sacrificing our security or our core values as Americans. A duty to welcome and protect newcomers, particularly refugees, is an integral part of our mission to help our neighbors in need.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka struck some similar notes in a post-election statement. He too congratulated the president-elect on his election win and anticipated working with him to fix an unjust and unfair global trade system. But he continued,

Make no mistake, we can never back down from our values. The presence of racism, misogyny and anti-immigrant appeals caused damage in this campaign and we must all try to repair it with inclusion, decency and honesty…. We hope to work with President-elect Trump to help him carry out this solemn responsibility. Regardless, America’s labor movement will protect our democracy and safeguard the most vulnerable among us.

Many of our brothers and sisters are hard-pressed, suffering from job loss or other economic setbacks, often traceable to the new global economy. They deserve our solidarity, but we cannot address their needs at the expense of the immigrant in our land. As the Lord commanded the Israelites,  “You shall not oppress a resident alien; you well know how it feels to be an alien, since you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt (Exodus 23:9).” And lest we forget, we too are strangers and aliens on the Earth whose true homeland lies elsewhere (Hebrews 11:13-14)

In the mid-20^th century, Church and labor cooperated to advance critical elements of economic and social justice – things like the federal minimum wage, the social security system, and collective bargaining. Today, as Catholics and as trade unionists, we are suddenly called in a special way to the defense of the immigrant.

Our nation’s Catholic parishes, diocesan offices, K-12 schools and related organizations employ hundreds of thousands of lay men and women. Since none of us is without sin, this puts a difficult charge on the bishop, pastor, principal or other administrator: which sins disqualify one from employment? The editors at America magazine recently took a swing at this daunting topic. In “Unjust Discrimination,” they write:

The church in the United States is living in a complex and challenging time. Regrettably, on a variety of subjects—from views on the death penalty to support for contraception and same-sex marriage—the teachings of the church and the practices of its members often do not match. Meanwhile, the church relies on a large number of lay employees to help administer parishes, schools and hospitals across the country. Very few of them subscribe to the totality of Catholic teaching. How can the church continue to sustain its ministries while bearing witness to the timeless truths of its teaching when its own employees do not accept them all?

The editors’ immediate concern is a wave of high-profile firings of employees in same-sex unions. While defending church teaching on marriage, the editors also remind readers that the catechism forbids “unjust discrimination” against homosexuals persons, including in employment. They suspect that employees entering gay marriages are being singled out, while the same administrators turn a blind eye to other violations – for instance, divorced Catholics who remarry outside of the Church. The editors fully support Church teaching on the nature of marriage, but fear that a personnel policy focusing on this violation to the exclusion of others creates an impression of hypocrisy.

Catholics are called to preach difficult truths about a range of subjects, including but not limited to marriage and sexuality. But what is the best way to do that? It is true that sometimes an employee of a Catholic institution can cause scandal by his or her public words or deeds. But it is also true that treating employees unfairly, by holding them to different standards or dismissing them abruptly or without consultation, can itself cause scandal.

Although employees in same-sex unions are this year’s flashpoint, the real issue is more fundamental. We are sinners all: if Church institutions fire everyone who violates Church teaching in some fashion, they will have no employees. At the same time, Catholic institutions must demonstrate their fidelity to the faith, or they are no longer Catholic. Administrators must make difficult decisions about what violations are severe enough to justify dismissal. Should people be dismissed for violating Catholic social teaching as well as teaching on marriage and family? What about doctrinal issues? Or should we reserve enforcement on those who publicly challenge any element of the faith? There are no easy answers to these issues, but they call for careful reasoning followed by consistent practices.

by Bill Droel

A small number of Catholics more or less believes that capitalism is evil. On the other extreme an even smaller number of neoconservative Catholics believes that humanistic capitalism is God’s preferred system.
Most Catholics implicitly take a micro-position, confining judgment to particular cases. Thus these Catholics might see holiness in the work of a hospice nurse or a special-education teacher. These Catholics, if they thought about it, also see goodness in some small business owners, but probably not in a big-time financier.

John Raskob (1879-1950) was “an architect of the capitalist system,” his biographer David Farber details. He was also a serious Catholic.
Raskob was involved with many tycoons of his time. His name, however, is lost to popular history, Faber writes, because he “never ran a major corporation. He never invented a noteworthy product.” Rather, Raskob was passionate about credit markets and leveraged financing. He was fluent in asset valuation, bond divestures, real estate markets, stocks and the like. He put together the deal that made DuPont Company a major business. He then did something similar for General Motors. Yet, according to Faber, “Raskob was driven not by greed or avarice or by the desire for adulation and power.” He disliked awards and avoided recognition. For example, Raskob financed a skyscraper in Manhattan. It is not called Raskob Tower, but rather The Empire State Building. “He was the anti-Trump of his time,” says Faber.

The title of Raskob’s biography is taken from one of his slogans, Everybody Ought To Be Rich (Oxford University Press, 2013). Though the slogan can be misinterpreted, he meant that the economy’s wealth should be open to more people, including hourly workers. Raskob believed that, given the appropriate instruments, the market can help stabilize families. It was Raskob, for example, who created the consumer credit that is taken for granted today. William Durant (1861-1947) had a small company called General Motors. Raskob got involved with it, envisioning competition with Ford Motor. His innovation was car-buying on the installment plan with GM and other entities floating the credit. Likewise, all of today’s 401K plans have a Raskob lineage.

Raskob was generous toward Catholic causes, both stateside and through the Vatican. It is no surprise that Raskob eschewed public recognition for his donations.
Raskob tried to donate in ways that would yield more predictable income for Catholic institutions. For example, he instituted the first endowment fund for a diocese. Hundreds of Catholic institutions today use Raskob’s plan. He also pioneered the separate incorporation of auxiliaries to Catholic institutions, which is also common now. He popularized the idea of matching-grant fundraising drives.
Raskob’s most significant contribution to internal Church operations was his insistence that lay people should assume responsibilities for which their character and training is better suited than those trained primarily in theology, Faber writes. He fought to give laypeople a greater role inside the church and to a degree his life reflected the role of the layperson in the world.

One more area of Raskob’s life is worth mentioning and retains relevance. Day-to-day he was not affected by prevalent and overt anti-Catholicism and by hostility toward immigrants. Raskob hung out with the elite and had an upper-class lifestyle. But he was opposed to the second-class treatment given to immigrants. He saw right through Prohibition; that it was disguised anti-Catholicism.
At some point Raskob met Al Smith (1873-1944) through a club. When it came time for Smith to launch his 1928 presidential campaign, he chose Raskob as campaign manager and chair of the Democratic National Committee. All of Smith’s advisors opposed the choice. First, the advisors knew that Raskob had no prior political experience. Second, the advisors were sure that the opposing campaign, already using Smith’s Catholicism against him, would claim that Catholics are taking over the government. (Today, the Ku Klux Klan is associated with racial bigotry. But the Klan began as a mostly anti-Catholic movement. True to their hatred, the Klan vilified Smith as a “papist puppet.”)

Some time ago, I participated in a conference for Catholic leaders. One of the presenters made a startling announcement: “I find no spiritual nourishment in the United States. I am moving to England.”
I was baffled as to why she would pick England as a spiritual oasis. But more importantly, I was disturbed that a Catholic would give a wholesale condemnation to our society. Obviously, our culture has serious defects. But isn’t it better for a Christian to start with society’s achievements and to faithfully engage the ebb-and-flow of daily life?
Raskob was not perfect. He could be judgmental toward others. He made some poor business decisions. And there are huge structural downsides to the capitalist system. Raskob is simply one U.S. Catholic who lived his spirituality in the context of finance.

Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a newsletter about faith and work.