Ender, you are confused as to the purpose of the church’s social justice teachings. They are taught precisely because they are moral issues. Like many complex issues, there are not clear right and wrongs. So the Bishop’s have an obligatino to give us guidance. We have an obligation to consider their guidance in our decisions on these matters. We cannot simply say “Why should I care?”, without even taking the time to read what they have to say.
I would suggest reading the National Catholic Register’s front page article on immigration this week. It points out that the statements in the CCC, while not infallible teaching, is part of the magisterial teaching of the church and as such we are to assent to it.
2241 The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.
Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.
CCC 2241
2433 Access to employment and to professions must be open to all without unjust discrimination: men and women, healthy and disabled, natives and immigrants. For its part society should, according to circumstances, help citizens find work and employment.220
CCC 2433
Then we have the church’s teaching on its role in social justice.
To the Church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce **moral **principles, including those pertaining to the social order, and to make judgments on any human affairs to the extent that they are **required by the fundamental rights of the human person **or the salvation of souls.
COMPENDIUM OF THE SOCIAL DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH, paragraph 71.
the Church’s social doctrine “belongs to the field, not of ideology, but of theology and **particularly of moral theology **
COMPENDIUM OF THE SOCIAL DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH, paragraph 72
This social doctrine also entails a duty to denounce, when sin is present: the sin of injustice and violence that in different ways moves through society and is embodied in it[120]. By denunciation, the Church’s social doctrine becomes judge and defender of unrecognized and violated rights, especially those of the poor, the least and the weak COMPENDIUM OF THE SOCIAL DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
Paragraph 81
The teachings of Pope John XXIII,[314] the Second Vatican Council,[315] and Pope Paul VI [316] have given abundant indication of the concept of human rights as articulated by the Magisterium. Pope John Paul II has drawn up a list of them in the Encyclical Centesimus Annus: “the right to life, an integral part of which is the right of the child to develop in the mother’s womb from the moment of conception; the right to live in a united family and in a moral environment conducive to the growth of the child’s personality; the right to develop one’s intelligence and freedom in seeking and knowing the truth; the right to share in the work which makes wise use of the earth’s material resources, and to derive from that work the means to support oneself and one’s dependents; and the right freely to establish a family, to have and to rear children through the responsible exercise of one’s sexuality. In a certain sense, the source and synthesis of these rights is religious freedom, understood as the right to live in the truth of one’s faith and in conformity with one’s transcendent dignity as a person
Paragraph 155
People on the right (of which I am a proud member), do not like to hear that one of man’s fundametal rights is
work and a living wage. People on the right do not always like to hear that in all of our decisions along these lines, we should have a
preference for the poor. People on the right do not like to to have to listen to the Bishops’ recommendations on many matters. Now, I have disagreed with statements from Bishops’ many times. But I do not denounce their right to weigh in on these issues, I see it as part of their obligation. They are not infallible in their political recoomendations and we are not bound to assent to them. But our Bishop is our primary teacher. We are obligated as Catholics to listen and seriously consider his point of view. The document I pointed out was passed by an overwhelmingly majority of bishops in 2003.
That is serious consideration. This thread (and others I have participated in) make that very clear. People claim to read and know what the church teaches in social justice and then deny such basics as the preference for the poor and the right to work and a minimum wage. When I point these out, people call them marxism or liberatino theology. When I point out what is in the CCC about immigration, one active member on this board claimed to have read the entire CCC and found that it was the only non-infallible teaching (that in itself is wrong) in the book and on that simple point could be dismissed. Ender, you yourself, after having the document pointed to you multiple times, claim it has not recommendations, and then admit you didn’t read it. The parts you did read are, in your words, “generic piffle”. You say the political opinions are ill-formed, yet you do not even take the time to read them or understand why they take the positions they do.