Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good

The comments to this FPR thread point to Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, which includes among its speakers FPR contributor Lew Daly, Andrew Bacevich, and B.C.'s Lisa Sowle Cahill. What is her position on abortion and feminism? Enough of her writings are available on the internet to cast her credibility as a Catholic theologian into doubt. Bacevich might be clearer than the rest on the fact that the current system is not sustainable. Do the Catholics associated with this group reduce Catholic Social Teaching to the redistribution of income, rather than the equitable sharing of natural resources and the promotion of custodial and labor responsibilities?

From the website's introduction to Catholic Social Teaching:

Catholic Social Teaching refers to a set of Church doctrines and official documents that articulate the social message of the Gospel and lay a framework for how Catholics should conduct their lives in politics, economics and culture. Catholic Social Teaching is central to the Christian vision of a society in which all human beings - and especially the poor - have equal opportunity to reach their full potential.

Our moral duty to one another is manifest in the words of Jesus Christ: "Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me." (Mt 25:40). In the same way, our political commitment to Catholic Social Teaching is reflected in our support for policies that promote and protect the Common Good over the narrow interests of the few.

Kenneth Himes is cited as an authority on Catholic social teaching. Another BC theologian who has down harm to the Church.

It provides the standard exposition of rights as entitlements:

Every human has a fundamental right to such basic elements as food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, education and employment. Only by achieving these and implementing them on a collective scale, this principle states, can society fully promote human dignity. We cannot split our focus, the Church says, between promoting only personal responsibility or collective human rights. Both are necessary; one cannot exist without the other. We must not only be responsible for ourselves or for our families. We must also promote a society where the right to life and to material well being in accordance with human decency is made available and attainable to all.

Do I want to say that everyone has a right to shelter? As if this is owed to them by government, simply because they are citizens? No. Perhaps the government owes this to them for failing to address injustice, but what of the means that are used to address injustice? How are these goods provided, except making them available through money taken away from those who are not responsible for the injustice (except perhaps remotely). Just because most Americans are involved with and dependent upon the current political economy does not mean that they are all equally complicit in or responsible for the evils that result from it.

If such rights exist, it is rights to that which should be common -- the natural materials upon which man labors in order to produce food, shelter, and so on. And it does seem to be the case that we have an exaggerated notion of property rights which prevents most people from having access to these natural goods. As for education and employment -- the solution that is required is not government funding for education, but government to properly regulate the political economy so that individuals, families, professional groups and other institutions can provide vocational training for its members.

(Is it permissible to steal bread, as opposed to fruit from a tree? Aquinas does not seem to make a distinction between goods that a man possesses.)