“With few exceptions, all Christian denominations hold and teach the following principles:

1. All people in this world have equal dignity and should enjoy equal rights in terms of respect, access to resources, and access to opportunity.
2. God intended the earth for all persons equally. Thus the riches of this world should flow equally and fairly to all people. All other rights, including the right to private property and the accumulation of riches that are fairly earned, must be subordinated to this more primary principle.
3. The right to private property and the accumulation of wealth is not an absolute one – but must be subordinated to the common good, namely, to the fact that the goods of the earth are intended equally for everyone.
4. No person, group of persons, or nation may have a surplus of goods if others lack the basic necessities. That is the present situation within our world, where some individuals and nations have excess while others lack the basic necessities. This is immoral, goes directly against the teachings of Christ, and must be redressed.
5. We are obliged, morally, to come to the aid of those in need. In giving such aid, we are not doing charity, but serving justice. Helping the poor is not an issue of personal virtue and generosity, but something that is demanded of us by the very order of things.
6. The laws of supply and demand, free enterprise, unbridled competition, the profit motive, and private ownership of the means of production may not be seen as morally inviolate and must, when the common good, justice, demands it, be balanced by other principles. No one has the moral right to earn as much as he or she can without concern for the common good (even if he or she is a celebrity).
7. Physical nature too has inherent rights, namely, rights that are intrinsic to itself and not simply given to it because of its relationship to humanity. The earth is not just a stage for human beings to play on. It too is a creature of God with its own rights, which humans may not violate.
8. The condemnation of injustice is part of the church’s essential ministry of preaching and is an essential aspect of the church’s prophetic role.
9. Movement toward the poor is a privileged route toward God and toward spiritual health. There can be no spiritual health, individually or communally, when there is no real involvement with the struggles of the poor. Conversely, riches, of any kind, are spiritually dangerous.”

From The Holy Longing by Ronald Rolheiser, pp 176-177.