Make Text Larger Make Text Smaller Email this Article to a Friend Print this Article

Opinion - Catholics caught in mortgage trouble

Published: October 02, 2008

The families running three months late with their mortgage payments weren't gormless, greedy, or hapless victims of unscrupulous, predatory lenders. Both husband and wife tend to be religious identifiers and married, have completed Year 12 and the husband often has postgraduate qualifications.  The typical Australian family under threat of losing their house at the moment is the sort of better off, outer urban, middle class family with children in low to medium fee independent schools.

Many are migrant families from predominantly Catholic countries: Croatia, Poland, Spain or Hungary. There are also significant numbers of young Lutheran and Pentecostal families. These religious families tend to be married, with family income seriously disrupted by the arrival of a new baby, as the mother is often slower to return to work than in wealthier inner urban professional suburbs where household finances tend to be far more secure. - John Black, The Australian (click below for full article)

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24433182-7583,00.html

 

 

Response to articles is welcome though it may take up to 24 hours for the posting to appear. Simply follow the prompts to post your comment. No posting of more than 250 words will be published. While critical comment on stories & issues is welcomed, postings that descend to personal attacks on or impugn the integrity of other commentators will be blocked.
If you have any problems please email news@cathnews.com
Email is requested for identification purposes only.

Recent Comments

  1. Those who promoted and encouraged voting for Mr Rudd and his cohorts cannot surely whinge now,

Delicious

More from this section

  1. Feature - Paralysis of preaching

    The preacher is in the business of the cure of souls. As has been the case in all ages our souls are damaged by wrong thought. We seek our lives in the wrong places and by the wrong means and we become the living dead. It is the preachers business to indulge in truthful speech even if that speech, or particularly if that speech, scares the bejesus out of his listeners. - Peter Sellick, Online Opinion

  2. Feature - The best option we have

    Every time we run into financial difficulties we hear the old allegation that capitalism is unjust, immoral and certainly not compatible with Christianity, which is all about loving our neighbour - not about trying to put him out of business. Capitalism is represented as red in tooth and claw, a harsh and unfair system in which many are forced to the wall by the excessive greed of high financiers. - Fr Peter Mullen, The Catholic Herald

  3. Feature - Rebuilding Church business

    Three years ago, Geoffrey Boisi set out to improve the way the Roman Catholic Church was being run in America. The former vice-chairman of JPMorgan Chase, Boisi had become increasingly dismayed with how the Church was losing members, squandering talent, and managing the $105 billion it annually spends. Its reputation was declining quickly amid screaming headlines about sex abuse scandals. - BusinessWeek

  4. Feature - Humanity is our inadequacy

    To be human is to be inadequate, by definition. Only God is adequate and the rest of us can safely say to ourselves: Fear not you are inadequate! But a God who made us this way surely gives us the slack, the forgiveness, and the grace we need to work with this. - Fr Ron Rolheiser, ronrolheiser.com

  5. Feature - The master who helped shape Ratzinger

    Guardini's books nourished the most lively segment of Catholic thought during the 1900s. And one of his students was special, he's the current pope. When he was a student not much over the age of twenty, Joseph Ratzinger had the chance not only to read, but also to listen in person to the man he chose as his great "master." - www.chiesa

Church Resources provides a range of services for the Church and not-for-profit sector, including aggregating buying power for a wide range of products and services used by health, welfare, aged care, education and parish organisations. More »

Subscribe

Receive CathNews headlines in your inbox daily.

News Feed

Subscribe to the CathNews RSS feed to get the daily edition automatically delivered to you.