Loving one another demands more than being nice to people around us.  For Christians, the command to love extends to the least among us, and even to our enemies.  Loving one another is not simply a personal decision, but has social implications.

We live in a democratic society, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.  How do I practice Christian virtue and avoid sin as a citizen of North Carolina?  Is the fact that our state is the tenth poorest in the nation, with 14.2% of our citizens living below the poverty level, my concern?  Does our budget have anything to do with my responsibility to love?

The state budget is a complex document that determines how the state collects and spends, this year, more than $17 billion. Among the hundreds of decisions reflected in the budget are these:  How much money will be available to build affordable homes?  Who will have access to health care?  How much will teachers be paid and how many students will each teacher have? How adequately will migrant farm worker housing be inspected?  Will we offer alternatives to incarceration or will we just build more prisons? What will the state pay its lowest paid workers? What will we do to combat global warming?

The budget also reflects society’s decisions about where the state’s money comes from: How much should come from individuals and how much from corporations?  Should wealthier people be taxed a higher percentage of their income?  Should people, rich and poor, pay sales tax on food?  How high should taxes be on tobacco, alcohol, and gambling? Should people who inherit millions of dollars pay any tax on it?  All of these choices, and many more, reflect how committed we are to promoting the common good.

Loving all of God’s people, as today’s Scripture commands us, “is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many…  On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say, to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all….  (Pope John Paul II,   (cf Mt 10: 40-42, 20:25; Mk 10:42-45; Lk 22:25-27).  Newsweek columnist Robert J. Samuelson recently wrote: "We face a choice between a society where people accept modest sacrifices for a common good or a more contentious society where groups selfishly protect their own benefits."  Social commentators and ethicists such as Daniel Callahan challenge us to replace the current "ethic of individual rights" with an "ethic of the common good".

The common good requires society to provide the social systems, institutions, and environments to work in a manner that benefits all people.  Since all benefit from the common good, it would seem easy to enlist the support of everyone.  But there are obstacles. Agreeing on the “common good” can be difficult in a pluralistic society such as ours.  People have different ideas about basic rights, about social systems, institutions and environments that are required to ensure human dignity and opportunity.  How can we find common ground? Proponents of the common good are often challenged by those who resent some members of society being granted a “free ride”.  No question, there are some citizens who, for many reasons, choose not to do their part to maintain the common good. Does the Gospel support our excluding such people?

Individualism is another obstacle to promoting the common good. Our culture views society as comprised of separate independent individuals who are free to pursue their own individual goals and interests without interference from others. In this individualistic culture it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to convince people that they should sacrifice some of their freedom, some of their personal goals, and some of their self-interest, for the sake of the "common good".

Appeals to the common good are also confronted by the problem of an unequal sharing of burdens. Maintaining the common good often requires particular individuals or groups to bear costs that are much greater than those borne by others. Maintaining an unpolluted environment, for example, may require that particular firms that pollute install costly pollution control devices, undercutting profits. Making employment opportunities more equal may require that some groups, such as white males, sacrifice their own employment chances.

Christians are challenged by the Gospel to overcome these obstacles, to make no excuses in promoting the common good.  Supporting a just, fair and reasonable state budget is an important way of loving (or failing to love) our neighbor. 

By Father Joseph Vetter, Catholic Campus Minister, Duke University