Bringing a Moral Voice to the Public Square

Policy is complex. There are many factors to consider when judging the merits of a given proposal. The Collaborative Center for Justice is an advocacy organization involved in understanding policies that impact marginalized peoples’ lives and advocating for changes that will improve peoples’ lives. Out of this context, we hope to provide a standard by which laypeople can evaluate public policy based on the values of the Gospel and Catholic Social Teaching. When we at the Collaborative Center for Justice talk about our moral compass, these are some of the key the ideas that help orient us: Disparate impact, the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable, and the common good.   

Disparate Impact occurs when an otherwise neutral-sounding policy has a discriminatory impact on a certain population of people. Disparate impacts are largely borne by historically marginalized communities. When we look for disparate impact, we do so with the understanding that even though explicit discrimination on the basis of social identity is often illegal and frowned upon socially, historically marginalized populations often experience poor life outcomes and standards of living. These outcomes are brought about, in part, through public policy. One example is the increasingly stringent voter identification laws that have cropped over the last decade. None of them contain expressly discriminatory language, but the net impact is decreased participation of people of color, the elderly, young people, and the poor.  

While disparate impact as an analytical tool does not originate from the tradition of Catholic Social Teaching, it aids in the practical application of the principals therein. It forces us to center the quality and duration of the lives of already vulnerable people in our analysis. That posture is not only compatible with Catholic Social Teaching, it is central to it.   

The Church refers to this posture that challenges us to start our analysis with the needs of the marginalized the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable. We do not end our examination of policies with the poor – everyone deserves the fruits of their society – but we do begin there because we know that social goods rarely trickle down equitably. Indeed, at the population level, life outcomes are largely impacted by a group’s place in society. We also believe that those who are directly impacted by the effects of poverty, environmental degradation, discrimination, and oppression know the problems most intimately and should contribute to the search for effective solutions.  

Public policy, in many ways, distributes life chances. Decisions about things such as housing, zoning, and the distribution of resources are enacted through policy. These decisions often come at a steep cost to vulnerable communities. For example, the highest income bracket in the United States lives, on average, 6.5 years longer than the lowest bracket. The prevalence of poor health and disease increases as family income decreases. Policy does not guarantee life outcomes, but it does influence probabilities. Life is fragile everywhere, but it is dangerous at the margins.  

Finally, what is at stake is access to the things that make our development as human beings possible: the common good. We are all responsible for one another. That responsibility plays itself out first and foremost by our collectively protecting and promoting the things which make our lives possible. Here we recognize that human life is interconnected across social, national, and even generational divides. The current climate crisis is, perhaps, the most urgent illustration of this.  

We believe that everyday people are capable of profound moral and theological reflection on the world in which they live. This series of issue fact-sheets is meant to serve as a primer on some of the issues shaping our society, as well as an example of the analysis that we believe moves the moral compass toward justice and peace. We explore the following topics: the environmental crisis, criminal justice reform, immigration, economic inequality, affordable housing and homelessness, and militarism.