US Budget Church Teaching

Church Teaching

Life-saving, poverty-focused international assistance that fights hunger, disease and poverty makes up less than 1% of the US Federal Budget. These programs include: agriculture assistance for subsistence farmers, vaccines for preventable diseases, assistance to orphans and vulnerable children, disaster assistance, peacekeeping forces to protect innocent civilians in troubled areas and support to migrants and refugees fleeing conflict or persecution. 

US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)


Every individual and every community shares in and is responsible for promoting the common good. Faithful to their ethical and religious vocation, communities of believers should take the lead asking whether the human family has adequate means at its disposal to achieve the global common good.

Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace


The teachings of the church insist that government has a moral function: protecting human rights and securing basic justice for all members of the commonwealth. Society as a whole and in all  its diversity is responsible for building up the common good. But it is government’s role to guarantee the minimum conditions that make this rich social activity possible, namely, human rights and justice. This obligation also falls on individual citizens as they choose their representatives and participate in shaping public opinion.

US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)


The obligation to “love our neighbor” has an individual dimension, but it also requires a broader social commitment to the common good. We have many partial ways to measure and debate the health of our economy: Gross National Product, per capita income, stock market prices, and so forth. The Christian vision of economic life looks beyond them all and asks, Does economic life enhance or threaten our life together as a community? 

US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)


Too often the weak and vulnerable are not heard in the tax debate. A just spending bill cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to the poor and vulnerable persons.

US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)


Today we also have to say ‘thou shall not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.

Pope Francis


Click on the link below for more Church teaching on the role of government:

Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis

Click on the link below for more Church teaching on taxation:

Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis