Quebec bishops push for ‘just recovery’ May 1, 2021
Quebec’s Catholic bishops don’t just want a recovery, they want change.
The Quebec Assembly of Catholic Bishops’ annual May Day message calls for a basic income, higher minimum wage, an economy less dependent on fossil fuels, tax reform that redistributes wealth away from the wealthy and policies that recognize how women have been disadvantaged in our economy.
“Women and young people have been especially hard hit,” the bishops write in “Towards a Just Recovery: Paying Attention to the Lives of Workers.”
“The ordeal of the COVID-19 pandemic” inspired the bishops to take on the economic inequities that have driven a 35- to 40-per-cent increase in food bank use in Quebec.
By Lisa Zengarini
In their Pastoral Message for Advent, the Quebec Catholic Bishops have invited Catholics to continue “to show creativity” as they prepare to celebrate Christmas and the New Year in “unprecedented” ways this year and to consider the present ongoing health constraints as “an opportunity to live and grow in their faith”.
“While we would like to have a good time with family and friends, out of prudence and to protect one another other, we must limit as much as possible these contacts”, Bishop Christian Rodembourg, president of the Assembly of Quebec Catholic Bishops, writes. However the Covid-19 restrictions must not be endured “passively”, he stresses.