Justice Matters:  Money Management as a Gospel Issue

Last Sunday Fred eloquently told us of the financial situation of the cluster and its parishes. I thought this an appropriate topic for beginning Advent because all our resources and energies can either obstruct or build the Kingdom “on Earth as it is in Heaven”.  The ways we manage money can express our baptismal calling or undermine our credibility. I look here at some of the aspects of this.

See

Money management, like ecological conversion with which there are so many links, is a challenge at personal, faith community and wider socio-political scales.

We have to manage our own money for our households. The fortunate, after paying for essentials including food, rent, heat and taxes, have disposable income about which choices can be made. Their challenge is then to determine how much is saved or spent on inessentials, and how much is given to mitigate need of others.  That so many struggle with no disposable income speaks of the injustice of wider socio-political life – below.

One of the many facets of financial management of an Archdiocese concerns investments.  Funds are managed for the Archdiocese by investment managers, as is the case for each  Archdiocese and many religious orders.  Each has  trustees who appoint fund managers and can place restrictions on the investments they choose, so that they be ethical.  For example, all such fund management avoids profiting from abortion, and before COP in Glasgow a year ago, Scotland’s bishops joined many faith communities in committing to stop investing in and profiting from the production of fossil fuels.

At the wider socio-political scale, we influence by vote and voice (protest for example) how money is managed by local and national government.  That so many are in poverty is an indictment on our politics. How is it justifiable that NHS workers who risked or gave their lives with inadequate PPE are not only overstressed by the effects of the years of austerity, but are also in poverty?!  

Reflect

1 Timothy 6:10  tells us, “For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs.” 

Looking at Ukraine and the Occupied Palestinian Territories among other places, I wonder if much evil is also caused by love of power and of control of land.  Yet, what is clear is that the attitude towards money often illustrates whether we seek the Kingdom of God, of justice and of care for those in need, or not.

Act

Our Bishops have called for us to be active in the political spheres.

Our cluster is aware and generous in supporting food banks, the Monday lunch, the SSVP….. 

The hard next step is to ask, “Why is there such need? What can we do about it so the need does not arise in future?” In this column we have occasionally written about the need for justice in taxation, to provide a just income for others.  

Those following vocations (teachers, health professionals) and performing vital public service (e.g. transport, bin collectors, producing food) are apparently expected to live on diminishing and inadequate real-terms income, while being criticised for the harm done when striking is their only option!  When there is a picket line, visit it with a flask of hot drinks and a cake – or just a greeting.  Every toot of a car horn raised the spirits of the far from depressed, but angry, pickets I was with at the University of Edinburgh last week.  Write to politicians and those in responsibility whose policies provoke the crises!

As regards investments by Archdioceses, in the changing world there are always ways in which investments can become more morally responsible. There is growing scope for investments to be positive contributors to a just transition from fossil fuels, and to a sustainable future (see Operation Noah).  Also there is urgent need for divesting from companies colluding in the breaking of international law and trampling on human rights of such as the Uighur, Rohingya, Palestinians, Kashmiris, Tibetans, Ukrainians….   For information concerning Palestinians, under ever increasing attacks since the recent Israeli election,  see sabeel-kairos.org.uk.  The crisis for us is that if we know but do not act, by divestment and in other ways, then aren’t we colluding in the oppression and dispossession? (cryforhope.org).  

Mike Mineter