You missed the point. Both Bishops are saying there are many ways to address the needs of the poor…which you have been labeling as “Cafeteria Catholicism” since people on this thread are not supporting the minimum wage increase as the way to help the poor.
Was this a slip of the keyboard (i.e. did you mean “venture capitalists”)?
Except of course that nobody is forced to live in Boston. They have buses that leave Boston and go to cheaper areas. If you move to rural Vermont you can make the same $8 an hour have a low cost of living.
Oh, yeah? The cost of living in Vermont is 17% above the national average. Try supporting a family of four on $18,000 per year in Vermont.
Yet we have immigrants falling head over heel to enter the US, any way they can, to get those $8.00 an hour jobs.
So while we roll out the red carpet for low wage earners here in the west, the east coast minimum wage earners are somehow being mistreated. 
This does question why we should have a federal minimum wage when the cost of living is different in some areas. If we have a minimum wage at all, why not leave it to the states where conditions are better known than in Washington?Yet we have immigrants falling head over heel to enter the US, any way they can, to get those $8.00 an hour jobs.
My point was that the minimum wage must not be that low if Mexican immigrants are willing to risk their lives to get it. Especially in expensive southern California. Maybe American born East Coasters are a little too accustomed to the luxuries of life -so much that they can’t live without it.
As it is among the American Left…Cafeteria Catholicism is alive and well among the American Right…
I completely agree but I would add one thing, the government may need to step in if the employer is putting someone at an unjust disadvantage because of the wage or work conditions. But this goes beyond providing them a “living wage” this would be more in morality and the company may be using greed in their decision making.
This is the way I understand it.Ha, might as well right…
No, really “Doctrine” is considered as the written or handed down Word of God.
CST I think is more like an assumed or proposed doctrine. Catholics will naturally all agree that these teachings stem from Doctrines or Statements, and will agree with them, but cannot explain which path achieves these goals -which is why it is different.
.Except that there are more jobs in the Boston area. Also, relocation is expensive and any benefits though the state would be lost.
doesn’t matter if 1 bishop 100 bishops 1000 bishops speak on this matter and agree. While yes I should listen to them and trust their authority and wisdom I’m not morally bond to agree with them. I can dissent with their teaching without putting my relationship with the Church at risk (assuming it hasn’t been something already defined infallibly by the Church)
The point being that if it is in the minimum wage earners best interest to stay in Boston, they have that choice. But they are not slaves in the sense that they are forced to stay there.
Actually these letters were not “teachings” at all and made no pretense of it being so. The Bishops were offering their opinion and we should give it very careful consideration.
Huh, that must be new. I remember about 5 years ago, the term Catholic Social Teaching was used and the “principles” that we’re laid out we’re found on a Minneapolis Minnesota based website from their Diocese… Social teaching seems to have progressed since then and has been retitled.This is the way I understand it.
Dogma is only that which has been reveled to us by God in divine revelation.
Doctrine is ANYTHING that is taught by the Church on faith and morals
there are three levels of doctrine and dogma
level 1 Dogma things that are clearly reveled in divine revelation that has been declared as such by the Church. You would be a heretic if you don’t believe in this
Level 2 Infallible Doctrine, these things are things not necessarily reveled explicitly in divine revelation, ex. immaculate conception, but the Church in one of 3 has declared something on faith and morals as truth.
Way 1 The Pope speaks Ex-Cathedra
Way 2 A ecumenical council is called and they declare something as doctrine
Way 3 the body of Bishops as a whole all teach something in unity
Level 3 Doctrine not held to infallibility, this is anything said by bishops, the pope (when he doesn’t speak ex cathedra) and others in authority in the Church that isn’t considered infallible.
Much of CSD is considered Level three of Doctrine, there are many things in here that Catholics are not morally bond to follow, but he should out of religious submission of mind and will follow these non- infallible doctrines.
one more note the Church herself calls is Social Doctrine of the Church. So when I say CSD or SD of the C I speak in lines of how the Church speaks
the compendium was written in 2006 by the pontifical council for justice and peace. Many believe JPII had a large role in its writing.
Whether one considers the Compendium doctrine or “just teaching” doesn’t change the fact that there is nothing in that document (or the original documents like Rerum Novarum on which much of it is based) that call for support of either a minimum wage or a living wage (understood as the salary every employer should pay). Bishop Wenski’s support for increasing the minimum wage is his personal, political opinion. It is not church teaching.
