Dear Parishioners,
           
Happy 4th of July weekend!  Remember we’re celebrating “the fourth” and also our 60 years as a parish community here in Pleasant Hill by joining in Monday’s parade in Downtown Pleasant Hill.  Myself, Sr. Joanne and Fr. Donie (exhausted by his earlier run) will be in the Parade (beginning about 9:30 am).  So if you are up for the short parade walk, dress yourself, your children and your pets “patriotic” and join us.  We’re scheduled as #34 in the second division.  Check out WWW.PHJULY4.COM  for exact line up location.  Join us and help us celebrate.  If for any reason you miss the July 4th parade – don’t forget to join us next Sunday from 4:00 to 7:00 pm for our parish barbeque and picnic. Lots of food, very low prices and fun to be together. If you are not yet among the 800 who have already gotten tickets – be sure to do so today – Last chance!  So we can go out and order your food!

“The fourth” is a great time to celebrate our freedom and to realize that freedom isn’t free.  The biggest cost is certainly in the lives (some lost, others painfully spent) of those who defend our freedom and safety in service as military personnel, peace officers, firefighters, and public servants.  Another cost for freedom and prosperity comes in economic terms – most obviously in the form of taxes – federal, state, local, excise and property taxes.  So let’s talk about taxes.

Whether we agree with it whole heartedly or not, there is a pretty clear and consistent Catholic teaching about taxes and taxation.  Years ago Pope John XXIII wrote “as regarding taxation, assessment according to the ability to pay is fundamental to a just and equitable system.”  In 1986 the U.S. Bishops restated that in their pastoral letter “Economic Justice for All” when they wrote “the tax system should be continually evaluated in terms of its impact on the poor”.  Now, given our economic recession, our continuing budget debates and opposing proposals, it leaves us all divided, dismayed and often even disgusted.  Whether it clears things up or not, we need to know how the bishops spelled out three basic principles on taxation.

• The tax system should raise adequate revenues to pay for the public needs of society, especially to meet the needs of the poor.
• The system should be structured progressively, “so that those with relatively greater financial resources pay a higher rate of taxation.”

• Families below the official poverty line should not be required to pay taxes since, by definition, they lack sufficient resources to meet their basic needs.

“Progressive” (according to ability to pay) rather than “regressive” (flat tax) has been fundamental to our Catholic tax tradition.  It reflects our belief in the universal destination of all goods – that they must serve the common good – as well as our teaching about the stewardship of all created gifts, whose origin is God.
           
It never made it into the Baltimore Catechism as I was growing up, but the Church has a clear, consistent and long standing position on taxes!
           
“Freedom isn’t free” but in the U.S. by comparison it is surprisingly cheap!  Just don’t tell my tax accountant! 

In 2008, the latest year for which full international data is available, the average U.S. tax rate (federal, state and local combined) as a percentage of our gross domestic product was 25th among 27 developed nations.  Only Turkey and , Mexico ranked lower. The nations with some of the best standards of living in the world – Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, France, Italy, Austria, Finland, Norway – all had overall income taxes that, related to their GDP, were roughly twice that of the United Sates.

Recently a Jesuit priest, attorney and former head of Catholic Charities U.S.A. summed it up: Some 30 years of anti-tax propaganda, lobbying and legislation have turned the United Sates into one lowest-taxed countries in the developed world.  The sobering results – especially from a standpoint of the common good of the American people and from Catholic social teaching – are “a widening of the gap between rich and poor to its current morally grotesque levels and the substantial deterioration of the U.S. infrastructure.”

All this is true enough but taxes still hurt don’t they? -  then again “freedom isn’t free”.

            Happy 4th of July,
                                                     
Your Pastor,

Brian T. Joyce