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the extent to which collective attempts to reorient corporate practices (through unionism or otherwise) have operated at cross-purposes with economically rational outcomes for workers or for the geographical contexts they inhabit. Nevertheless, it is fairly evident that prevailing policies and practices on the part of the corporate and governmental sectors in response to the nation’s crisislevel social imbalances have been inadequate and, any steps toward diminishing rather than broadening conceptions of mutual social obligation, inappropriate. Responses by church leaders to these social imbalances have also been inadequate, although there have been some trajectories of engagement that have demonstrated the strategic and unique role church leaders can play in response to these urgencies. Pope Francis and many Catholic bishops have taken especially strong and clear positions in recent months against poverty. In January 2014, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called on the U.S. Senate to take steps against inequality in America, including raising the federal minimum wage to livable levels. This call was echoed by Catholic bishops at state levels across the country who advocated that their state legislative bodies pass comparable state legislation. While Catholics have had a strong anti-poverty focus since at least Vatican II, that focus has become even more strongly stated since the 2013 election of Pope Francis, who has referred to poverty as a “scandal” and has openly criticized cultural orientations and social structures that perpetuate inequality, as he does in the following statement: “A way has to be found to enable everyone to benefit from the fruits of the earth, and not simply to close the gap between the affluent and those who must be satisfied with the crumbs falling from the table, but above all to satisfy the demands of justice, fairness and respect for every human being.”10 Protestant leaders, especially through the National Council of Churches of Christ, USA and the World Council of Churches, have also waged systematic campaigns in recent years, challenging economic inequality and promoting livable wages. Important anti-poverty critiques emanating more centrally from within black church leadership circles have included community hearings convened in various cities by the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference (a network of social just-oriented church leaders) to examine the national response to poverty as reflected in the crisis endured by black residents left behind in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina and as reflected in structural and policy components of black mass incarceration. These anti-poverty and anti-inequality campaigns waged at high levels of Catholic and Protestant leadership are certainly encouraging but, unfortunately, the views promoted at these levels are not widely-enough embraced among their church constituencies or within society more broadly. 10 Pope Francis, “Address to Participants in the 38th Conference of the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,” June 20, 2013, http:// w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/june/documents/papafrancesco_20130620_38-sessione-fao.html.