Newspaper Columns by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
America's Real Moral Crisis
By Bishop Paul V. Marshall
December, 2004
Those of us who celebrate Christmas do well to remember that Jesus of
Nazareth was not an educated liberal who happened to "identify with" the
poor. Jesus was poor. In fact, the rural peasant trade he practiced
generated less income than it took to support an urban slave in those days.
Jesus is portrayed in the gospels as commenting on money more than any other social issue. He came by this issue honestly, and occasionally felt it
important to point out to people that in a culture where participation in
"the Land" is everything, he had no place to call his own.
We have missed something of the edge that was deliberately put into the
story of Jesus' birth. As it has become familiar, it has lost its shock
value.
"There was no room for them" in the inn meant for Mary and Joseph, as it
does now, that their kind was not welcome in decent hotels.
Stables were and are squalid and unsanitary places to have a baby. Feedboxes do not make soft cradles.
In case we miss the point, the familiar story has Jesus' birth announced not
to the elite but to shepherds working the night shift. Minimum wage workers
whose occupation left them unclean for most purposes in their culture, they
were on the very edges of society. To them the news of great joy is
announced.
We should not be surprised at this turn of events. Mary, when told she would
bear the Messiah, sang: "He has put down the mighty from their seats and the
rich he has sent empty away." There is no reason to doubt that she meant it.
There is no escaping it. If you simply take the stories of what Jesus says
and does, and add them up, he thought the compelling moral issue of his time
was how those who had wealth and power treated those who did not. Jesus was on the side of the outsider.
In my lifetime no religious group has more clearly expressed the
consequences of these simple and obvious facts than the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops. In 1986 they laid out a few fundamental
conclusions that could have been written yesterday - and could well have
been repeated in months leading to the recent elections.
Among the principles they laid down were: "Every economic decision and
institution must be judged in light of whether it protects or undermines the
dignity of human persons. All members of society have a special obligation
to the poor and vulnerable. Human rights are the minimum for life in
community. Society as a whole, acting through public and private
institutions, has the moral responsibility to enhance human dignity and
protect human rights."
How petty seem the allegedly moral concerns trumpeted in the last months by
Protestants and Catholics alike when compared to those magnificent values.
We live in a country where we believe we can have wars without raising
taxes, where deficits are climbing, where the "privatizing" of social
programs will put our children and their children under tremendous burdens.
Nonetheless, like those rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, what
dominated discussion in the last months were questions having to do with
private rather than public life.
There certainly is a moral crisis in America: it is that we don't recognize
the real moral crisis in America. Perhaps remembering the realities of
Jesus' birth and life will correct our short-sightedness.Return to the index of Bishop Paul's columns for the secular press
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