(OSV News) — "Debt," said the 17th-century English scholar, author and preacher Thomas Fuller, "is the worst poverty."
The 90% of Americans who — as of the second quarter of 2025 — owe an all-time high total of $18.39 trillion in household debt might readily agree.
It's been called a national crisis -- and one without an obvious or immediate solution. So how can the Catholic Church respond to a stress-inducing situation that impacts almost all of its members?
Sam Fatzinger — a wife, mom of 14, and with her husband, Rob, co-author of "A Catholic Guide to Spending Less and Living More" (Ave Maria Press) — recalled a summer trip to the pool when a parent sarcastically commented on the thrifty big box store snacks Fatzinger had brought along, suggesting their taste was inferior to more expensive, brand name versions.
"I said, ‘I always laugh when people say that to me, and make fun of me for doing that. But my husband is retired; he retired seven years earlier than anybody else. We have no debt on our house. We have no debt at all,'" she told OSV News. "And he was like, ‘I guess you have a point.'"
According to Debt.org, mortgages account for approximately 70% of household debt load, with auto and student loans following at 9% each, and credit cards at 7%.
Meanwhile, debt delinquencies have continued to climb. In February, U.S. consumer debt delinquency rates hit their highest level in almost five years, and the share of households seriously delinquent on auto loans and credit cards was at a 14-year high.
Fatzinger has some tips for those struggling with debt.
"First of all, you need to live within your means. And with social media now — with everybody posting their favorite this, and their new outfit, and a new car, and pictures of their fancy vacations — it is constantly reminding us that we are less of ourselves," she said, "and we are not living up to somebody else's potential."
Raised by a Depression-era mother whose motto was "use it up; use it and don't waste it," Fatzinger explained that she and her husband — who bought a house in foreclosure — learned frugality early in their marriage.
"We really started off with nothing — it was always a blessing in disguise, not having a lot to start off with, and depending on God for everything," she recalled. "And when my husband did get a job that made more money and had vacation and sick leave, we kept living like we didn't have any money."
That meant — still means, now that the Fatzingers also have 15 grandchildren from their five grown-up and married children — haunting thrift stores; garage, yard, or any other kind of sales; Freecycle; and Facebook Marketplace.
"One of my secret weapons is I'm not afraid to ask for help," admitted Fatzinger. "So if I have a neighbor down the street who has a son three years older than my son, then every time my son would be like, ‘I want a skateboard. I want rollerblades,' before I went out and bought them — even if I was buying them at the thrift store — I would just call a neighbor or a friend."
"Or I'd shoot out a message on Facebook, and say, ‘Hey, my 7-year-old wants rollerblades — anybody have them?' Literally," she said, "within 24 hours, I would get at least one, two or three people saying, ‘Oh please, take these rollerblades out of my garage. I'm tripping over them.'"
Being debt-free, as the Fatzingers are, can in some ways be seen as a series of trade-offs.
"The title of our book is 'A Catholic Guide to Spending Less and Living More.' And so over the past six years, we've been talking to people," said Fatzinger. "It's so interesting to see what that means for different people. Some are like, ‘We spend less on vacation so we can afford private school' or another person was like, ‘We homeschool our kids so we can buy organic food.'"
Financial Peace University — a biblically based, nine-week class from Ramsey Solutions — has been attended by nearly 10 million people eager to learn how to both beat debt and build wealth. It's offered at Catholic parishes across the country, and OSV News spoke with two.
"This class is for anybody," said Kevin McGirr, who is leading it at St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic Church in Liberty Township, Ohio, in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. "Whether you're just really struggling to pay off credit cards, with creditors at your door, to people that make a pretty good income, but don't have really good control of their money. The real principle is financial peace," he added. "Paying off debt is one thing -- but the true goal of the class is to bring financial peace back into people's lives."
McGirr estimates "a couple hundred families" have participated at St. Maximilian Kolbe, seeking to set their household finances in order.
"You read the news about the stress it can bring to a marriage and a family, with all the other things that are going on in a family," he said. "There's other crises that come up — so the last thing you want to have to deal with is the additional stress of money stress."
Debbie Leben — who is leading the class at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Ashburn, Virginia, in the Diocese of Arlington — agrees.
"What I find in parishes is that it gives people hope," she said. "A lot of dual income, six-figure income, parents are trying to get off the hamster wheel — and are not sure what method to use to make that happen. … The whole program is about changing your mind about money."
Testimonies from previous sessions praise the effectiveness of the course's seven steps, which include gathering an $1,000 emergency fund; learning about debt's snowball effect; building three to six months of savings; investing 15% of income for retirement; tackling college funding; paying off a mortgage; and building and giving wealth.
"Debt is such a weight on people," Leben reflected. "It affects their relationships, their families, their work environment, their strength, their health."?
Leben said she definitely views the class as a ministry.
"What does it do at the end of the day? It gives back to the church. It creates well-being. It gives people confidence and hope in how to manage their money, and," she added, "then get ahead."
Lelaine Bigelow, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Poverty and Inequality in Washington, praised money management education, but also depicted household debt as a multi-layered problem.
"It's always great to have financial literacy — but at the end of the day, if your bills end up being $100, but you're only taking in $80," she said, "there's no literacy class that will help you manage your way out of that."?
Families that struggle don't always do so, Bigelow suggested, because they are poor money managers.
"It's important to realize that a lot of these families are probably actually great at financial literacy — because they're trying to figure out daily, or monthly, how to make this work," observed Bigelow. "They know when bills are due, and they know when they're going to get paid, and how they can stretch their dollar. So a lot of these families are actually pretty good at it -- they're just not making enough."
What, then, are the causes of their financial distress?
"What we have seen over the past several years is that we have a growing affordability crisis. Families are getting into debt not because they're spending money on vacations — but they're starting to put more basics on their credit cards, because that's how they're making ends meet," Bigelow noted.
"They're putting groceries and gas and new shoes for the beginning of school — that type of thing — on their credit cards, and they're having to carry a balance," she said. "And I think that reflects that wages aren't really keeping up with costs, and that a real affordability crisis is looming."
As to whether or not household debt is a social justice issue, Bigelow was emphatic.
"I think this is absolutely a justice issue," she declared. "Part of the reason why families are needing to use debt and there is such an affordability crisis is the basics — housing, child care and health care. Those are structural problems, and they can be solved with policy. And they can actually be exacerbated by policy," Bigelow added.
"An example of that would be OBBBA, where we know that we expect Medicaid cuts in the future," said Bigelow, referring to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Trump administration's signature budget legislation. "So health care is going to get more expensive for people."
She then urged both discussion and engagement.
"I think there are absolutely policy solutions for this," concluded Bigelow, "and a role for the churches to play in this conversation."
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Kimberley Heatherington is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Virginia.
