Tony Annett Archives - Australian Cardijn Institute

April 20, 2023April 20, 2023

Webinar: Cathonomics: Creating a more just economy

Irish-born American economist, Tony Annett, will present the next ACI webinar on Saturday 13 April addressing the theme “Cathonomics: How Catholic tradition can create a more just economy,” which is also the title of his recent book.

The book: Cathonomics

Cathonomics was written as an ethical and practical guide to readers of all faiths and backgrounds seeking to create a world economy that is more prosperous, inclusive, and sustainable for all.

It addresses the issues of skyrocketing inequality, extreme poverty, the increasing political power of the wealthy, the bias against public interest in favour of the financial interests of the rich and the problem of a global economy driven by fossil fuels.

Cathonomics thus seeks to unite insights in economics with those from theology, philosophy, climate science, and psychology, exposing the failures of neoliberalism while offering us a new model rooted in the wisdom of Catholic social teaching and classical ethical traditions.

Drawing from the work of Pope Leo XIII, Pope Francis, Thomas Aquinas, and Aristotle, Tony Annett’s book applies these teachings to discuss current economic challenges such as inequality, unemployment and underemployment, climate change, and the roles of business and finance.

Anthony Annett

Anthony Annett is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He has a B.A. and an M.Litt from Trinity College Dublin and a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University.

He spent two decades at the International Monetary Fund, including as speechwriter to the Managing Director.

He is a member of the College of Fellows at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology.

He is the author of “Cathonomics: How Catholic Tradition Can Create a More Just Economy.”

The webinar

Date and time: Saturday 13 May 10.30am Australian Eastern Standard Time

Registration details

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErfuGtqTooHdd_cpAe4bgHTzJXW_vT_CyL

March 29, 2023March 30, 2023

Pope Francis at 10

St Ambrose’s University at Davenport, Iowa, USA hosted a major conference in March to mark the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ pontificate.

Architect and major sponsor of the event was former US YCS leader, Tom Higgins, later a state congressman and a member of the Carter administration.

Perhaps also significant in the orientation of both the Diocese of Davenport and St Ambrose’s University is a lively Cardijn tradition exemplified by the late Monsignor Marvin Mottet, a key figure at the university as well as with the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.

Keynote speakers included theologians Massimo Faggioli and Phyllis Zagano, Pope Francis’ biographer, Austen Ivereigh, Catholic social teaching specialist, tony Annett, as well as Cardinal Joseph Tobin.

Also present was Holy See Nuncio, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, who delivered a message from Pope Francis. As Archbishop Pierre told me, his mother was one of the key leaders who worked with Marie-Louise Monnet in the foundation of the JIC (Jeunesse Indépendante Catholique), a Specialised Catholic Action movement for young people from a bourgeois background.

The conference also hosted a panel proposed by ACI on the theme “Promoting Integral Human Development; From Cardijn to Pope Francis.”

Our panel featured:

Ana Grande, who spoke about her uncle, Blessed Rutilio Grande, the Salvadoran Jesuit and see-judge-act practitioner, whose martyrdom inspired Archbishop Oscar Romero.

Elias Crim, founder of Solidarity Hall, an initiative to promote the implementation of Catholic Social teaching, who spoke on Fr Josemaria Arizmendi and the Mondragon cooperatives.

Finally, I traced the links between Cardijn’s vision and methods and those of Pope Francis.

Overall, the conference was an inspirational event and a credit to its organisers.

Stefan Gigacz

Marvin Mottet (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

Francis at 10: A papacy of possibilities (St Ambrose University)

Pope Francis conference inspires ‘stellar’ gathering at St. Ambrose University (Catholic Messenger)

January 19, 2022January 19, 2022

A Catholic alternative to neo-liberalism

Cardijn often spoke strongly against the scourge of “liberalism.”

“Christ was born to make this known the effects of original sin, disorder in the world, the sin of liberalism, materialism, and slavery,” he stated in one of his famous 1948 “Hour of the Working Class speeches. “That is why He was born and lived as a worker.”

More recently, over the past four decades, despite record-setting global prosperity, the common good is threatened by ever more extreme economic and social dysfunctions, writes Tony Annett in Commonweal.

Although we’ve witnessed impressive gains in poverty reduction—driven largely by China—we still have enormous levels of poverty, deprivation, and exclusion in a world of unprecedented wealth. According to the World Bank, about one in ten people alive today lives in extreme poverty, eking out a meager existence on less than $1.90 a day. Around 6 million children die each year before their fifth birthday, and almost all of those lives could be saved by cheap and straightforward medical interventions.
Inequality within countries has also skyrocketed over the past forty years.
According to the World Inequality Report, since 1980 the world’s top 1 percent have profited twice as much from economic growth as the bottom 50 percent have. The big winners of this era were the global super-rich. As a percentage of global GDP, the wealth of the world’s billionaires has doubled over this period. This staggering inequality is the consequence of a toxic combination of trends.
Technological changes have benefited high-skilled workers and the owners of capital; globalization has allowed corporations to set up camp in countries with the lowest taxes and the fewest regulations and social protections; and the increasing plutocratic capture of the political system has led to policies that favor the rich. The result has been the hollowing out of the middle class and the evisceration of the working class in advanced economies. No wonder the global financial crisis, when bankers were bailed out and ordinary people left to sink, left a bitter legacy of resentment in its wake.
Grave social problems have arisen in tandem with this concentration of wealth.

Anthony Annett, The Fallen Idol, A Catholic alternative to neo-liberalism (Commonweal)

Joseph Cardijn, The hour of the working class – Lecture 2 – The Church and the workers (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

PHOTO

Loz Pycock / Flickr / CC 2.0