Economic Justice
(Poverty/Housing/Hunger/Work)

Economic justice can be broken down into several parts. In the Office of Life & Justice, we focus on ​poverty, housing, hunger, and work.

Poverty: When people live in poverty, their ability to advocate for themselves or any of their other rights and needs breaks down. Within the Catholic Church, we take the call to engage in service and lift up people out of situations of poverty seriously. Catholic Social Teaching instructs us in a “preferential option for the poor” which prioritizes the well-being of the poor and powerless. Poverty itself is multifactorial, and we partner with many in the community in educating about those factors and helping our parishes address those for their congregations.

Housing: Fair housing involves access to affordable housing and just rental and buying practices. Those who are houseless face barriers of exposure, access to services, and transportation, besides stigma faced due to reasons of houselessness.

Hunger: Every human life is sacred and deserves the right to food to nourish their bodies and sustain their life. Food is not only a physical need, it is how humans have gathered together in community for millennia, and most notably in the gift of the Eucharist.

Work: Popes of the past two centuries have particularly noted not only the right to work but the right to work in decent conditions, with fair pay, and without coercion. Work is often a means of sanctification and gives a certain amount of meaning to our lives; through it we can join in Christ’s salvific work.