Our addiction to oil keeps 7,000 oil platforms with 35,000 wells in the gulf pumping crude to fuel our lifestyle of mobility and convenience. Yet, federal statistics reveal 172 spills of more than 2,100 gallons in the gulf over the last decade. The effects of the Exxon Valdez spill still linger in the coastal habitat two decades later along the Alaskan shoreline. Our petroleum economy with its drilling, shipping, refining and burning oil is killing the planet locally with poisoned water and air and globally with accelerated climate change.

While secular publications raise the issues of economic impact and legal liability, people of faith are reflecting on phrases like “common good,” “solidarity” and “care of creation.” The National Catholic Rural Life Conference (NCRLC) issued a statement encouraging people of faith to “ask for the wisdom to live in harmony with God’s plan and the courage to serve as stewards of God’s creation.” The statement implies our ordinary economic ways disregard God’s plan, especially when rural residents and the environment pay the price. (Disclosure: as board member, I contributed to the statement.)

Carelessly we ignored essential moral principles and consequently invited disaster. All workers have a right to a safe workplace, yet we complacently allow workers to risk their lives to supply our energy from oil rigs and coal mines. Eleven men died in the gulf rig explosion when only two weeks before 29 miners died in West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch Mine. The global economy demands productivity and profits, producing a corporate culture that occasions short-cuts and negligence. Regulations go unenforced and workers give their lives for a paycheck. Bishop Michael Bransfield of the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese in his pastoral letter, “On My Holy Mountain,” asks: “Why is it safer to travel in space than to work in a West Virginia mine?”

Extractive industries, now virtually controlled by giant corporations, operate for the enrichment of their stockholders. With a “least cost” incentive, frequently their methods reduce the rural area to a sacrificial resource colony. In the gulf those whose livelihoods revolve around fishing or tourism just got sacrificed. In Appalachia community people whose lives and well-being depend on their well water and forests just lost to mountaintop removal.

Care of creation comes directly from the Book of Genesis when God put humanity in the garden “to care and cultivate it” (Gn 2:15). God’s garden, i.e., creation, needs attention because it possesses inherit worth. God found it “very good” (Gn 1:31), and not just “useful.”

The NCRLC statement recommends that “we reflect about our own lifestyles that make undue demands on nature.” The United States with 4.5 percent of the world’s population uses 33 percent of all electricity generated each year and consumes 42 percent of gasoline refined. How many vacant parking lots are illumined all night, and how many computers are on “sleep mode” all weekend?

“In these days of anxiety, we encourage people of faith to assemble for prayer and sharing,” says the NCRLC statement. The gulf folks need one another’s support, but the whole Church needs to ratchet up care of creation to a higher ranking in the Gospel of Life.

Based on the Boston Tea Party, an historic icon of resistance to an imposed British tax, the Tea Party movement in the United States claims over a thousand local chapters nationwide, loosely affiliated to curb federal spending and shrink the size of government.

Their vow to “take back America” involves an assortment of bottom-line pocketbook issues that include checking federal spending, eliminating federal agencies, defanging federal regulations, halting the tide of job-taking immigrants and letting free markets be ever freer. More ideological advocates want to abolish the income tax, dissolve the Federal Reserve and return to the gold standard. For Tea Party advocates, taking back America involves pushing certain economic policies and not necessarily restoring a stronger moral order.

From the Southern Poverty Law Center comes a disturbing report, “Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism.” The report says that patriot groups espousing anti-government conspiracy theories have increased from 149 to 512 in the last year, and militia groups, the paramilitary arm of the “patriot movement,” grew from 42 to 127. These groups are fueled by the changing demographics of the country, the soaring debt, the troubled economy and charges that President Obama promotes socialism or fascism. These economic, social and political issues offer great appeal to the Tea Party people. However, the report expressly states: “The ‘tea parties’ and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism.”

Extreme anger, paranoia and weapons can combine for lethal results. In 1995 Timothy McVeigh’s frustration with the government and the fervency of the patriot movement led him to bomb the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.

The makeup of the Tea Party movement for the most part appears mainstream. A recent poll sponsored by the National Review Institute found Tea Party participants to be 62 percent Republican, 25 percent Democrat and 10 percent independent. Socio-economic indicators show 52 percent have college and graduate degrees, 57 percent are over 55 years old and 40 percent have incomes over $60,000. Religious affiliations show 60 percent Protestant, 28 percent Catholic and 2 percent Jewish with 69 percent attending religious services regularly.

People of faith offer a significant perspective in addressing the anger and frustration with government and social conditions. Rather than throwing the tea overboard, we can brew it to form community. The way out of polarization is dialogue.

The anger industry thrives by selling outrage. Personalities on cable TV, talk radio and Internet blogs grow rich fanning fears and pandering to viewers with predisposed ideological viewpoints. Incivility nearly morphs to a contact sport with interrupting, talking-over and name-calling. Avoiding dysfunctional anger means hitting the “off” button.

Dialogue depends on responsible reading and viewing, not on a single news source diet. Religious teachings can move the conversation beyond the narrow economic measures of value — “Is it efficient? Is it profitable?” — that so dominate today’s American politics. The social teachings of the Church can reintroduce moral considerations beyond individual self-interest: “Is this good? Will society benefit from this?”

The anger of the Tea Party movement and the paranoia of the patriot movement signal the alienation among us. The challenge remains to build a table big enough so all can talk and feel they belong.

The U.S. “Fourth World,” a term referring to those excluded from the mainstream, consists of certain minorities and disadvantaged people in our inner cities, Native American reservations and rural areas like the Delta, the Rio Grande and Appalachia. The dense 28,000 word encyclical demands close examination, but a few points beg consideration regarding the development of people within pockets of poverty in our own country.

“The environment is God’s gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility toward the poor, toward future generations and toward humanity as a whole” (par. #48). Yet, in Fourth World U.S.A. we find toxic waste dumps located in poor rural areas and abandoned hazardous manufacturing sites in inner cities. In Appalachia, mountaintop removal assaults the mountains, pollutes the water and destroys the ecosystem. People in these areas stand powerless when economic forces put profits before people.

Benedict reminds us that authentic development does not allow a total technical dominion over nature because “the natural environment is more than raw material to be manipulated at our pleasure” but rather, contains an inbuilt order, or “grammar,” that prescribes the “criteria for its wise use” (par. #48). He elevates this relationship by referring to the “covenant between human beings and the environment” (par. #50).

The answer to economic arguments that strip-mined coal means cheap energy, or toxic waste dumps are the price of progress lies with lifestyles. He advocates new lifestyles, quoting John Paul II, “in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others” should be the basis for consumer choices and investment (par. #51). He means we cannot sacrifice the poor, the environment or future generations for current frivolous consumption.

In Fourth World U.S.A. jobs remain scarce. The global economy has sucked the light manufacturing and fabrication jobs overseas leaving little opportunity for a stable local economy. Benedict writes “the so-called outsourcing of production can weaken the company’s sense of responsibility toward the stakeholders–namely the workers, the suppliers, the consumers, the natural environment and broader society–in favor of the shareholders” (par. #40). While affirming the useful role of profit, he says, “Once profit becomes the exclusive goal…without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty” (par. #21).

His counsel highlights the two principles of solidarity and subsidiarity. Since “the human race is a single family,” i.e. the basis of solidarity (par. #53), subsidiarity, i.e. the assistance to individuals or groups “unable to accomplish something on their own,” must inform the governance of globalization (par. #57). In other words, corporations have a responsibility to local communities and communities have a right to participate in the coordination of economic plans.

The Church’s vision of economics serves all people and not just the better off. From its earliest social encyclicals it taught “that the civil order…needed intervention from the state for purposes of redistribution” (par. #39). Currently, health care reform, comprehensive immigration reform and labor reform all reflect aspects of solidarity promoting authentic human development. These considerations represent moral choices wrapped in economics intended “to build a more human world for all” (par. #39).

I suspect most people invested with Madoff for security or happiness. Preoccupation with our economic lives in terms of finances and possessions causes us to salivate at sky-high returns while hungering for basement-low prices. The system makes us economic actors seeking more for less and haggling for the best deal from the marketplace.

Yet, with all our fixation on wealth-status and acquisitions, few of us ask about the morality of the marketplace. How do our economic investments affect society and ultimately our own personal spirituality?

Economist Bob Goudzwaard in Sojourners (June 2009) discusses investments in writing about “A Paper God.” His point: Global investors have enormously increased the amount of money invested in the highly speculative markets in the financial economy rather than in the “real” economy.

Investing in the real economy promotes making, selling and buying goods and services, like shoes, groceries, storm windows and doctors’ visits. Conversely, the financial sector, i.e. the world of liquid assets, deals with the buying and selling of money-products in their own right, like trading in bonds and loans, or buying and selling foreign currencies or shares of stock. While a strong financial sector occupies an essential place in a healthy economy, over the past decade the volume of paper exchanged for paper has increased four times faster than the amount of paper exchanged for real commodities. This speculative bubble feeds on itself, pushing the expectations for returns higher and higher.

Two clear consequences affecting people flow from speculators’ quest for maximum short-term financial gains. Developing countries — so dependent on loans and investments from abroad — lower taxes on capital to attract and keep capital, and then cut spending on social programs like health care and education to meet their debt obligations. The world’s poorest go without, while investors amass fortunes.

Second, financial behemoths such as hedge funds frequently using borrowed money gain control of companies in the real economy, then merge, sell out, split and restructure to increase short-term profits. Here workers lose jobs, while investors grow rich.

For the global common good Goudzwaard counsels: “The growth in the financial economy must serve the growth of the real economy, not the other way around, and heavy restrictions must be placed on speculation.”

On a personal level, people of faith recognize the seduction of wealth: “For the love of money is the root of all evils, and some people in their desire for it have strayed from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains” (1 Tim 6:10). Yet, each hour of each working day the news summary reports the Dow Jones Average, subliminally reminding listeners to think about their economic status — i.e. be preoccupied with money and wealth.

People of faith know money is a servant, not a master. Spiritual growth depends on an attitude shift from simply pursuing the greatest rate of return to considering the social context of the investment. We don’t need Bernard Madoff’s wealth-producing Ouiji Board. We need our wealth to build our security while working in the service of others.

She referenced the beauty of the mountains that gave her a sense of place as she grew up in eastern Kentucky’s Floyd County, but labeled the destructive mining practice of mountaintop removal a scourge on the land. Calling for a green collar economy to replace the power of the coal industry, she gave voice to the continuing push-back by local people for more options and economic opportunity in the mountains.

A few days before the rally, ABC’s 20/20 aired “A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains.” That program highlighted the plight of four children in Appalachia who face a steep mountain climb for a dignified life. Drugs and alcohol played a significant role among the parents in three families living a hardscrabble existence, forcing the children seemingly to parent the adults.

One fellow became the first high school graduate in his family, but slipped off the ladder leading out when he withdrew from college after only eight weeks. Another fellow, unintentionally fathering a child, scrapped his dream of a military career for a life underground in the coal mines.

Stacked back-to-back, these vignettes paint the portrait of Appalachia viewers expect. However, sometimes we use a magnifying glass to examine the poor when we really need a picture window to view the whole economic system.

The “culture of poverty” theory, so convenient and popular in the 1960s, emphasized fatalism as a way of life characterized by little rebellion or questioning. When the War on Poverty sputtered as it attempted to include local participation in programs to overcome this fatalism and alienation, a paradigm shift took place. Academics recognized that local folks were constrained by their political and economic powerlessness.

County officials oversaw the federal poverty funds and many officials manipulated the programs to enhance their control. Local power structures in the mountains served the interests of absentee corporations that owned the timber and coal resources and controlled the land like a mineral colony.

Studies show that the deepest pockets of poverty are located in the richest coal mining counties in eastern Kentucky. The underground economy always thrives where there exist few alternatives. OxyContin that commands sometimes $120 a pill floods the hollows when unscrupulous doctors and pain clinics lack the necessary supervision in dispensing prescriptions. All over America the culture of medication has ballooned to the delight of the pharmaceutical industry.

Jobs in the coalfields have diminished in the past few decades because of advanced technology and better equipment. With fewer jobs and coal severance taxes flowing out of the area, an inadequate tax base encourages talented teachers to leave. Additionally, mountaintop removal, the cheapest way of mining coal, threatens the quality of life by polluting the water and denuding the mountains. Meanwhile coal profits soar.

Without this structural analysis, those of privilege can easily “blame the victim” for not moving or protesting or joining the system — in short, for being poor.

Voices like Ashley Judd’s are calling forth an achievable future with green collar jobs. The change needed will demand the public policy that supports the environment, but with investment will come a key ingredient. Economic opportunity in harmony with creation amounts to hope and hope represents the spiritual component to fight addiction and transform stale stereotypes.

The message is clear — the time for debate is over. Prudent action for the sake of the common good will save millions, possibly billions, from disaster.

Funded in part by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the DVD was produced from video footage of a teleconference held in four locations around Appalachia in 2007 discussing the morality of global climate change. To model better stewardship, the conference rejected a central location in favor of a dispersed teleconference format to cut driving distances and lessen its carbon footprint. Speakers in Institute, W.Va., Richmond, Ky., Abingdon, Va., and Asheville, N.C., discussed the irrefutable science behind global warming, its effect on the poor and humanity’s moral responsibility to act.

The video clearly states that no credible scientist doubts the existence of global warming, unless that scientist works for an energy company. Corporations that forestalled action against global warming used a strategy developed by the tobacco industry during the early 1950s. That strategy demanded more evidence and greater scientific certitude, plus it ignored the big picture and questioned the details.

One graph in particular, dubbed the “hockey stick,” represents a Cartesian graph of temperature over time that appears nearly flat for a thousand years, then abruptly turns upward with the intense use of oil from the 1860s. The energy industry, by funding institutes and free-market think tanks, rallied scientists and statisticians to quibble over details to cast doubt on the ultimate findings. Yet, not one of the 900-plus papers published between 1993 and 2003 on global climate change disagreed with the big picture: The climate is changing and human activity is largely to blame.

Still, a 2006 ABC News poll showed that while 85 percent of those surveyed believe global warming is “probably” happening, 60 percent think scientists are still debating it. The “tobacco strategy” used by the energy industry succeeded in obfuscating the main outline of global warming and thus delayed the political will to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for nearly two decades.

The call of conscience comes from Appalachia because in the coalfields we see the direct effects of cheap energy on communities and people. Mountaintop removal (MTR), an aggressive mining practice that removes sometimes the top 500 feet of a mountain, is the cheapest way to mine coal, but the practice pollutes the water, buries the streams and destroys the ecosystem. Local folks, besides seeing the beauty of their beloved mountains destroyed, suffer cracked foundations from blasting and more frequent flooding from deforestation.

The sulfur dioxide coming from coal to generate electricity causes acid rain, smog, asthma, respiratory infections and lung disease. The Clean Air Task Force, commissioned by the EPA in 2000, found that coal-fired power plants account for 30,000 deaths per year in the U.S.

 ”Live simply, so others can simply live” has direct application to the mountains. To waste electricity in Chicago (hence, to live extravagantly) produces more greenhouse gases for the atmosphere and pulls down a mountain in Appalachia.

The DVD (available from CCA) hopes to encourage a more intentional, creation-centered spirituality. John Paul II reminded us: “No peaceful society can afford to neglect either respect for life or the fact that there is an integrity to creation.”

Oil executives, complaining that U.S. restrictions have hampered developing new sources of oil, advocate opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. “Energy independence” has morphed into code for “drill it all, dig it all and double it all.” For the present, traditional forms of energy are needed to find the glide path into the terrain of alternative energy sources, yet in the future, the emphasis cannot rest solely on supply.

People of faith recognize the market functions by supply and demand, and now, at least in the near term, some demands appear unsustainable and too costly for the common good. To produce enough ethanol to fill one tank of gas in an SUV takes 450 pounds of corn. To supply all U.S. gasoline through ethanol would require planting 71 percent of American farmland in fuel crops.

In 1950 a single-family car might be parked near a house averaging 1,100 square-feet. But in 2005 probably several cars would stand in driveways of houses averaging 2,340 square-feet, more than double the 1950 size, with fewer occupants and lots more space to heat and cool. Currently, the U.S., with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, uses one-third of the world’s electricity produced annually. With drained wetlands, clear-cut forests and paved-over top soil, the capacity of the planet to carry life is rapidly being exhausted by human habits and lifestyles.

If energy were the coin of the realm, that coin would have two worn sides: first, the problems associated with global warming, and second, the challenges posed by energy security.

Global warming could initiate a new sense of community among all countries, since “everyone lives down stream” of hostile climate change. About 100 million people in the world live one meter above sea level. With increased global warming exacerbated by burning fossil fuels, the melting ice caps would inflict unimaginable flooding on these poor populations, plus introduce diseases previously unknown in temperate regions.

Known world petroleum reserves will last 80 to 100 years, natural gas 70 to 90 years. The geopolitical imperatives to secure control of energy resources mount. Question: was the invasion of Iraq more about weapons of mass destruction or controlling the oil supply? People of faith see a simpler lifestyle and a more intentional use of resources as an essential component of peace-building.

Pope Benedict XVI in his 2008 World Day of Peace message said, “We need to care for the environment: It has been entrusted to men and women to be protected and cultivated with responsible freedom, with the good of all as a constant guiding criterion.” The “good of all” extends to succeeding generations who equally deserve a healthy, and not degraded, earth.

Two approaches make sense. First, mount intense and massive national investment on the scale of the moon race to develop renewables (solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, etc.) and high-tech energy (hydrogen-generated power, fuel cells, nuclear fusion, etc.).

Second, adopt an ethic of “less and local” to address the short term urgency. More oil can be “found” in Detroit by designing more fuel-efficient cars than from ANWR. More electricity can be “generated” from retrofitting homes with better insulation than from another coal-fired plant.

A new energy consciousness begins with numerous personal choices that collectively grow into the political will to change.

In addition, the government has folded a variety of military-related expenditures into departments other than Defense. The Department of Energy FY 2008 will spend $23 billion on developing and maintaining nuclear warheads and the State Department will distribute an additional $25 billion among allies as foreign military assistance. Add in obligations with veterans’ affairs, military recruiting and homeland security, plus military retirement, the paramilitary activities of the FBI, outer space related security and interest for past debt-financed defense spending, and U.S. spending on its military establishment for the current year reaches $1.1 trillion, according to Chalmers Johnson, historian and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego, in the February 2008 English edition of Le Monde Diplomatique.

In a 2006 Angus Reid poll, 65 percent of Americans said the country has been “too quick to get American military forces involved” in conflicts. Instead, the American public supports more preventive security measures like diplomacy, nuclear nonproliferation, peacekeeping and foreign aid. A 2007 World Public Opinion poll found 78 percent of Americans “believe that all countries should eliminate their nuclear weapons” through a well-coordinated international verification system. Yet, the military budget continues to grow and has more than doubled since the end of the Cold War.

Behind the expanded military budget lie certain structural reasons for this aggressive spending. Prior to World War II, the U.S. supported no arms industry. In time of war, manufacturers would convert their facilities from producing consumer to military goods. That changed after the war.

In his Farewell Address to the Nation in 1961, President Eisenhower confessed, “we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.” Yet, later in the speech he issued his famous warning: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial-complex.”

Eisenhower recognized the need for arms manufacturers, yet emphasized their dangers. Originally, his notable phrase read: “the military-industrial-congressional-complex,” though he chose to drop the one term in the final draft of the speech. Yet, congressional representatives get reelected when they bring home federal money to their districts, and arms manufacturers make profit when they sell weapons to the government. Killing a weapons system becomes nearly impossible because of the economic and political impact. The F/A-22 “Raptor” fighter jet, for example, designed to counter a Soviet aircraft that was never built, has 1,000 subcontractors in 42 states.

People of faith recognize morally troubling aspects of the military-industrial-congressional-complex. Plainly, the opportunity cost — what could have been purchased instead of military items — represents a matter of justice. The catastrophes of a bridge collapse in Minnesota and the levee failures in New Orleans represent essential infrastructure problems overlooked while unnecessary weapons programs are funded. Morally, opportunity costs represent choices: eradicate polio worldwide or do three tests of the missile defense system; vaccinate 10 million children worldwide or buy six Trident II missiles; provide health coverage for 7 million children or fund the nuclear weapons program for one year.

The words of Paul VI remain true today: “If you want peace, work for justice.” Justice demands we rethink the military-industrial-congressional-complex that robs society of essential goods and services while raising the threat of more and longer wars.

Harley Shaiken writing for Washington's Economic Policy Institute described the era, at least until this most recent slowdown, as the Great Disconnect where the economy grew while wages remained flat or even declined. Basically, the gains of productivity were not shared fairly within the economy. Productivity expanded by a vigorous 20 percent between 2000 and 2006, but real wages edged up only 2 percent during this period. Corporate profits more than doubled since 2001, jumping from 7 percent of national income to 12.2 percent in five years. The ratio of average CEO pay to average worker's pay in 2006 reached 431 to 1. The gravy train pulled out of the station leaving most workers behind.

Historians credit organized labor in great part for building the American middle class, hence fostering fuller equality in society. While labor fought against child labor, it campaigned for the minimum wage, unemployment insurance, overtime pay, pensions, health care, safety laws, Social Security and Medicare. For every gain labor achieved, nonunion workers received a ripple effect of improvement as employers raised wages to avoid unionization.

Whereas in the aftermath of World War II one in three workers belonged to unions, today only 12 percent of the workforce — 7.4 percent of the private sector and 4.6 percent of government workers — are unionized. The union force that created the dream for a middle class society has not been strong enough to capture the gains of productivity for today's workers. It could not set human and labor standards for free trade agreements that favor transnational corporations. As a result, jobs go overseas and wages stagnate.

In addition, the decline of the labor movement has crippled the unions' ability to shape public policy that currently shifts the tax burden away from the rich resulting in shrinking revenues for health care, education and infrastructure projects that benefit the middle class.

Over 20 years ago, the U.S. Catholic bishops issued an economic pastoral letter, "Economic Justice for All." The extreme free market proponents roundly criticized their teaching about limitations on property rights, because the bishops emphasized accountability toward all the stakeholders that produce wealth in society: workers, managers, shareholders, vendors and the local community.

To build back the middle class means to rethink the rules weaving our social fabric. A 2006 poll conducted by Peter Hart Associates found 58 percent of non-managerial working Americans would join a union if they could, but employers currently possess disproportionate power to prevent a successful union drive. The pendulum needs to swing back to labor for a fairer society. Also, the tax cuts since 2001 need special scrutiny to avoid contributing to the rise of an American aristocracy with more billionaires. Finally, within the definition of wealth must come a sense of community and a respect for creation.

Rethinking our social fabric ultimately means identifying the threads to weave the common good for a just society.

Approximately 12 million undocumented immigrants reside in the United States, and many live in stable families that include legal residents as well as native-born and naturalized citizens plus their children who were born citizens. Polls confirm by a margin of 58 percent to 35 percent that Americans support "a program giving illegal immigrants now living in the United States the right to live here legally if they pay a fine and meet other requirements."

Ironically, most research indicates that tougher border enforcement by more border patrol agents, more walls and more electronic sensors has actually boosted the undocumented population. Because crossing the Mexican border has become increasingly dangerous, many workers who frequently shuttled back and forth now stay in the United States and eventually send for their families.

The "why" of immigration is explained by push-pull arguments. Poverty pushes people to emigrate. Economic globalization pulls them, because globalization exacerbates the inequalities among nations, encouraging the skilled and desperate from a poorer country to cross boarders to a wealthier one. Additionally, the labor demands of a wealthy country like the United States pull the semi-skilled and unskilled workers from less developed countries. A push comes from free trade agreements favoring transnational corporations that create a harsh climate for local businesses forcing workers to emigrate for employment.

Case in point: the United States encouraged the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. Since ratification of NAFTA in 1994, Mexico's economy grew disappointingly with increases of decent jobs at only a third of the millions needed. Average factory wages in Mexico have fallen by more than 5 percent under NAFTA, and unskilled workers are paid only $5 a day. Already U.S. and Canadian agribusiness corporations with their subsidized crops have underpriced local markets forcing 2 million Mexican peasant farmers off their land. Today 19 million more Mexicans live in poverty than when NAFTA was passed. In a real sense, the economic policies of the United States draw immigrant workers to the employment opportunities here, but the woefully small number of visas available for workers entices them to come illegally.

Demographers predict that, eventually, questions about undocumented workers will fade as the Mexican birthrate declines and Mexico's surplus labor force shrinks. In the next decade, millions of skilled baby boomers in the United States will retire creating a shortage of workers that will probably beg more immigrant workers.

Meanwhile, people of faith have a unique opportunity to reach out to immigrants who worship with them weekly. They can reject the simplistic argument about who's legal and who's not, because they can develop a relationship through compassion and hear the stories of the people in the pew beside them. The faith community can help integrate newcomers dreaming of a dignified life for their families. To people of faith, the categories of alien, illegal or undocumented pale in comparison to "neighbor" — and some neighbors are closer than others.