Tuesday, May 17, 2011

As my friend put it, "Boned."

My friend passed this story my way. I'm of a conservative bent, to be sure, but let me say up front that this article made me proud to be a Catholic. There's conservative capitalism and there's conservative Catholicism and only seldom do the twain meet. My only commentary will be to add emphasis. Lectio felix!

Catholic Academics Challenge Boehner
By Michael Sean Winters
Created May 11, 2011


A group of prominent Catholic academics have signed a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner, on the occasion of his forthcoming commencement address at the Catholic University of America. I will provide commentary later today, but the letter really speaks for itself, respectfully, clearly and in a way to challenge the Speaker to consider his policies. The letter will be delivered to Boehner's office personally by some of the signatories tomorrow morning. …

I will point out that the signatories do not call on Boehner to decline to give his address, nor on CUA to revoke its invitation, as many conservatives called on Notre Dame to revoke its invitation to President Obama in 2009. They understand that a university should be a place where all voices and viewpoints are heard. But, they are well within their right to ask Boehner to explain how his budgetary proposals do, or do not, conform to traditional Catholic social teaching. Here is the text of the letter:

Dear Mr. Speaker,

We congratulate you on the occasion of your commencement address to The Catholic University of America. It is good for Catholic universities to host and engage the thoughts of powerful public figures, even Catholics such as yourself who fail to recognize (whether out of a lack of awareness or dissent) important aspects of Catholic teaching. We write in the hope that this visit will reawaken your familiarity with the teachings of your Church on matters of faith and morals as they relate to governance.

Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the Church’s most ancient moral teachings. From the apostles to the present, the Magisterium of the Church has insisted that those in power are morally obliged to preference the needs of the poor. Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it.

The 2012 budget you shepherded to passage in the House of Representatives guts long-established protections for the most vulnerable members of society. It is particularly cruel to pregnant women and children, gutting Maternal and Child Health grants and slashing $500 million from the highly successful Women Infants and Children nutrition program. When they graduate from WIC at age 5, these children will face a 20% cut in food stamps. The House budget radically cuts Medicaid and effectively ends Medicare. It invokes the deficit to justify visiting such hardship upon the vulnerable, while it carves out $3 trillion in new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. In a letter speaking on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Stephen Blaire and Bishop Howard Hubbard detailed the anti-life implications of this budget in regard to its impact on poor and vulnerable American citizens. They explained the Church’s teachings in this regard clearly, insisting that:

A just framework for future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons. It requires shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs fairly.

Specifically, addressing your budget, the letter expressed grave concern about changes to Medicaid and Medicare that could leave the elderly and poor without adequate health care. The bishops warned further:

We also fear the human and social costs of substantial cuts to programs that serve families working to escape poverty, especially food and nutrition, child development and education, and affordable housing.

Representing the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishops Hubbard and Blaire have now endorsed with other American Christian leaders a call to legislators for a “Circle of Protection” around programs for the poor that you, Mr. Speaker, have imperiled. The statement of these Christian leaders recognizes the need for fiscal responsibility, “but not at the expense of hungry and poor people.” Indeed, it continues, “These choices are economic, political—and moral. As Christians, we believe the moral measure of the debate is how the most poor and vulnerable people fare. We look at every budget proposal from the bottom up—how it treats those Jesus called ‘the least of these’ (Matthew 25:45).”

Mr. Speaker, we urge you to use the occasion of this year’s commencement at The Catholic University of America to give fullest consideration to the teachings of your Church. We call upon you to join with your bishops and sign on to the “Circle of Protection.” It is your moral duty as a legislator to put the needs of the poor and most vulnerable foremost in your considerations. To assist you in this regard, we enclose a copy of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Published by the Vatican, this is the “catechism” for the Church’s ancient and growing teaching on a just society and Catholic obligations in public life.

Catholic social doctrine is not merely a set of goals to be achieved by whatever means one chooses. It is also a way of proceeding, a set of principles that are derived from the truth of the human person. In Pope Benedict’s words: “Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way... the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite.”

We commend to you the Compendium’s discussion of the principles of the common good, the preferential option for the poor, and the interrelationship of subsidiarity and solidarity. Paragraph 355 on tax revenues, solidarity, and support for the vulnerable is particularly relevant to the moment.

Be assured of our prayers for you on this occasion and for your faithful living out of your vocation in public life.

There follows a list of signatories.

7 comments:

Ilíon said...

"I'm of a conservative bent, to be sure, but let me say up front that this article made me proud to be a Catholic. There's conservative capitalism and there's conservative Catholicism and only seldom do the twain meet."

If you're proud of that socialistic bilge, then you must be bent in the wrong places.

"From the apostles to the present, the Magisterium of the Church has insisted that those in power are morally obliged to preference the needs of the poor. Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress."

GOD HIMSELF denies this: "You shall not favor the poor nor show deference to the rich"

====
Aside from its theological errors, Catholicism is to be avoided because it provides the gateway-drug (of the mind) into socialism.

Codgitator (Cadgertator) said...

Ilíon:

I was remiss in not stating this as well: "There's conservative socialism and there's conservative Catholicism and seldom do the twain meet."

This letter made me proud because it shows the broadness of Catholic social teaching, which constantly bursts the ideological game-of-tag mentality. That you insist on shoe-horning it into a box is your own choice, and it's a perfect example of ideological tag-you're-it.

The context of Lev 19:13–16 (and its parallel in Ex 23:1–3) is primarily in legal disputes and the balance of neighborly, common good. Favoring the poor or rich at the expense of such a balance is wrong, which is manifest from abundant other scriptural teaching. The point of the letter I have cited is that Boehner's policies grossly disfavor the poor and thus create an unjust imbalance of the common good. There is therefore a default preference for the poor. The error of socialism is indeed to favor the poor at the unjust expense of the would-be rich, but that is hardly what is at issue in this context. Late nineteenth-century and twentieth-century popes have been among the harshest and most consistent critics of socialism, but that does not mean Catholic social teaching is just capitalism with a cross. To think so is just to let a simplistic tag mentality reign.

Ilíon said...

And whether you and your bishops (implicitly speaking for millions) shall lobby government to take by force -- and threat of violent death -- the sweat of my brow and give it to that fellow over there, who has not sweated, is *not* a matter of justice?

You can play the game of accusing me of simplistic pigeon-holing until the cows turn blue in the face, but reality is what it is:

1) Catholocism hates wealth -- the fruit of human work; to be more precise, Catholocism hates wealth which is not under the control of the bureaucracy of the Catholic church; to put it yet more bluntly, Catholocism desires that I be a slave to bureaucrats who shall determine, in the vastness of their collective wisdom, how much of my own labor I can myself use;

2) leftism, in all its variants, finds its metaphysical justification for enslaving entire nations in certain erroroneous thinking and teaching of Catholocism.

3) AND, if you want to talk about what this or that scripture is primarily about, Christ commanded *you* to give to the poor, he did not authorize you to compell anyone else to "donate" the sweat of his brow to your vision of "helping the poor" ... which seems, always, to generate even more poor.

Codgitator (Cadgertator) said...

Ilíon:

You must be a lot of fun at parties.

And whether you and your bishops … is *not* a matter of justice?

Are you opposed to taxation as such? Your silence on the point suggests that you concede the plain historical opposition of the Catholic Church to socialism. Yet you persist in your Procrustean ways with the even broader brush of "leftism," whatever that means exactly. Are you aware that Cdl. Ratzinger, as head of the CDF, wrote an extensive critique against liberation theology, which truly was an attempt at socialist Catholicism? If you are, then shame on you for being unfair. If not, might I suggest you research these issues for at least a day before stirring the pot again?

You can play the game …

1) Catholocism hates wealth -- the fruit of human work; to be more precise, Catholocism hates wealth which is not under the control of the bureaucracy of the Catholic church…


It's laughable seeing you try once more to cram the vast, nuanced body of Catholic social teaching into a single maxim about wealth, or anything else: "Hate the rich!" Your display reminds of the seemingly common feature of Protestant discourse that any doctrine which can't be boiled down to a bumper sticker––"Sola fide, sola scriptura, etc."–– is for that reason either unbiblical and worldly or just (jesuitical!) casuistry.

In any case, your accusation here is absurd on numerous levels. First, I challenge you to find a single reputable source of Catholic doctrine that comes close to stating a hatred for wealth (and which doesn't simply stem from Christ's interaction with the rich young ruler). Second, at the peak of the Mass itself, during the Consecration of the Gifts, words are uttered thanking God for "the fruit of human hands," which literally refutes your above claims. Third, the Church defends the doctrine of the treasury of holy merit––spiritual credit!––, which is but a theological analogue of its teaching on the terrestrial interdependence of earthly wealth.

Codgitator (Cadgertator) said...



Now, let me run a couple syllogisms:

1. The Catholic Church hates wealth that is not under its control.

2. Hating wealth that is not under its control makes the Catholic Church a socialist body.

3. Socialist bodies are unjust.

4. Therefore, the Catholic Church is unjust. (M.P. 2, 3)

And then:

1'. A sensible person loves wealth that is under his control.

2'. A sensible person hates wealth that is removed from his control (e.g. not under his control by taxation). (M.T. 1)

3'. See steps 2–4, mutatis mutandis.

I'll allow you to sort out your own logic here.

2) leftism, in all its variants, finds its metaphysical justification for enslaving entire nations in certain erroroneous thinking and teaching of Catholocism.

Again, this kind of Hegelian rhetoric just enhances your pigeon-holing persona. "all… metaphysical justification… entire nations…, etc." See my points above about citing *actual* Catholic teaching.

Codgitator (Cadgertator) said...



3) AND, if you want to talk about what this or that scripture is primarily about, Christ commanded *you* to give to the poor, he did not authorize you to compell anyone else to "donate" the sweat of his brow to your vision of "helping the poor" ... which seems, always, to generate even more poor.

He did, however, teach that we must give to Caesar what is Caesar's, or to Uncle Sam what is his. If in Uncle Sam's coat we find hordes of the poor, to whom he wishes to give money, I can just as easily lobby the government for him not to do so. You seem to view the writers of the letter as villains for using their democratic rights to voice their moral concerns for the body politic.

Christ also warned us, with threat of eternal punishment, that failing or refusing to care for the lowest persons in the world entails our condemnation. James also writes that religion worthy of God is that which cares for widows and orphans. I could go on, but I hope you realize I'm not Ron Sider. I believe a chaste capitalism is good, okay? That doesn't mean, however, that practicing Catholic ethics means I'm "just a capitalist" any more than it means I'm "just a socialist."

Hence, I find you're being extremely black and white about this. So, I'd like to ask, what is your understanding of Christian social obligation (or is the very idea a Satanic perversion)?

I wonder if I've worked hard enough to consign myself to your ever growing roster of "the intellectually dishonest". Cue rending, gnashing, weeping, etc.

djr said...

Damned Catholicism, teaching people that they aren't entirely self-sufficient agents who are fully responsible for anything and everything that happens to them without someone else directly coercing them to do it. Thankfully the reformers brought us back to a purer, more Promethean Christianity.

Oh, wait...

This is one reason I love thoughtful Randians. They don't try to pretend that their ideology is anything but fundamentally inimical to Christianity. The whole attempt to fuse that sort of libertarianism with Christianity is, well, weird, to say the least. Not that I think Christians can't be libertarians -- just that they can't consistently be libertarians of the anything-anybody-does-to-coerce-me-is-unjust-no-matter-what-my-reasons-for-resisting-are variety.