We live in usurious times. The powerful have preyed on the poor, and those in positions of authority have allowed them to do so. Families are being driven from their homes. Those without the means to pay for health care leave their families to the mercy of debt collectors. Education, which should nourish the wisdom for which God made us, leaves many of us with a lifetime of debt. Corporations buy and sell the right to pollute God’s creation for profit, passing on an unpayable debt to future generations.

It is time to recall our tradition’s ancient prohibition of usury—the sin of unjust lending, of profiting from the burdens of debtors. We do so without prejudice or hatred, but for the sake of the common good. While speaking out on many other matters, people of faith have too often left economic life to self-serving experts, to the idolatry of an “invisible hand,” to the rule of greed. Here, too, we are meant to be prophets.

In solidarity with the Occupy movement’s Strike Debt campaign, as faithful Catholics, we call on one another to join the nonviolent struggle to reclaim the dignity and strength that is our birthright. We will support those among us bearing the burden of predatory debts. We will spread the spirit of jubilee by working to abolish debt that has no basis in justice. We will build a new economy based on the debts that we really owe: to our families, our co-workers, our friends, our neighbors, our Earth, and those who share our struggle around the world. We will name the injustice—the usury—being practiced in our midst, and exorcise it with our resistance.

We are the 99%, made in God’s image, seeking God’s justice for all.

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