A day or so ago I received an e-mail from the Alumni Association of the University of Notre Dame, this one focusing on the Association's efforts to fund student endeavors to establish and maintain a just world economy. Since that is what I and others in the Global Justice Movement have been doing for some time, I replied with the following e-mail, directing them to our efforts. This is the third e-mail to the Alumni Association, but they haven't yet had time to respond.
Charles F. Lennon Jr. '61, '62 M.A.
Executive Director
Notre Dame Alumni Association
Dear Chuck:
Thank you for the continuing e-mails reporting on the Alumni Association's efforts to bring justice to the world. The last one was particularly appropriate, as I am Director of Research for the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice ("CESJ"). We have been working to establish a healthy — that is, just — economy throughout the world since our founding in 1984. I'm sorry you haven't had the chance yet to respond to any of my earlier e-mails.
Since you highlighted economics in this last e-mail, you should be extremely interested in a number of our publications, as well as the work of the Center in general. In particularly I would draw your attention to:
Curing World Poverty: The New Role of Property (1994). Co-published by CESJ and the Social Justice Review, official journal of the Central Bureau, Catholic Central Union of America in St. Louis, this book (edited by the late Rev. John H. Miller, C.S.C., S.T.D., who taught at Notre Dame) is a compendium of articles detailing a comprehensive approach to the problem of endemic world poverty.
Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen: A Just Free Market Solution for Saving Social Security (2004). Written by Dr. Norman G. Kurland (president of CESJ), Dawn K. Brohawn, and myself. While ostensibly directed to the growing specter of the projected deficit in Social Security and Medicare, the principles explained in Capital Homesteading can be applied to any economy in the world. We are working this week on arranging a meeting with the Economic Officer of the Embassy of Ireland to study the application of these ideas in that country.
In Defense of Human Dignity: Essays on the Just Third Way from a Natural Law Perspective (2008). This is my own recently-released book, containing a series of previously-published articles from Social Justice Review on social justice and economic issues. It's available from Amazon, although not yet up on Barnes and Noble.
There is, of course, a great deal more material available, both on the CESJ web site and our blog. I invite you to visit both, and if you have any questions, give us a call.
Donations to CESJ are tax deductible in the United States under IRC § 501(c)(3):
THE Global Justice Movement Website
This is the "Global Justice Movement" (dot org) we refer to in the title of this blog.
