July 16, 2013      Martin Mallon  (Ireland)      Martin's previous articles          
              

               IS THERE A GOOD SAMARITAN TODAY?

Sunday’s Gospel was the story of the Good Samaritan from Luke.

What can this ancient story teach us today? To learn a lesson from the Good Samaritan let us change the characters and some of the details, let us bring them up to date.  

A young family bought a house in 2006, they used their savings to pay a 10% deposit and are now in negative equity. 

The husband and main earner has recently lost his job.  

They can no longer meet the full mortgage repayments and are coming under severe pressure from their bank.  

The husband, John, and wife, Mary, decide to approach their parish priest for advice.

He tells them to approach the bank to reduce payments and extend the loan term. The government advises this so he is sure it is the right thing to do. There is no mention of insisting that the banks who have been bailed out by the people must treat the people in a similar fashion.  

John and Mary have already tried this approach with the bank, but received an unsympathetic hearing so they decide to seek advice from their trusted lawyer.

The lawyer advises them to hand back their keys to the bank and leave the country for a couple of years until things blow over in the hope of having no further payments to make. He does not appreciate that the four kids are in school, the family has friends and relatives nearby and that the social trauma would have many repercussions for them and society.  

He also does not seem to appreciate that both John and Mary are educated to a high standard and that this would be an additional loss to society and the economy.  

Finally, they contact their local politician who encourages them to make every effort to pay the bank as it needs the money and to look harder for another job. They point out that due to his government’s handling of the economy and imposition of needless austerity measures the number of job vacancies has decreased and is decreasing.

There appears to be no way out.  

Is there a Good Samaritan in this scenario?  

There is in Iceland . There the government is the Good Samaritan and the government wrote down all mortgages on houses in negative equity to the value of the house plus 10% thus giving hope to people caught out in the bankers’ easy-loan housing boom. Is Iceland the only country in the world that values its’ citizens and society more than banks? 
Is Iceland the only Christian country in the world, judged by its’ actions?