Why They Are Afraid of Pope Francis 13

 Ever since his election in March a growing panic among neo-trad Catholics (those who call themselves “conservatives” or “traditionalists” but whose lack of appreciation for the authentic tradition of the Church puts them more in a sort of ecclesiastical Tea Party trying to establish a retro-Catholicism reminiscent of the years immediately before the Second Vatican Council) has led to vociferous and increasingly enraged complaint about Pope Francis and where he is leading the Church.  From the very beginning there was panic and indignation among the neo-trads over his not wearing the traditional scarlet silk mozetta to meet the crowds in Saint Peter’s Square.   His simplified life-style has provoked contempt from the ultra-Catholic minority even as vast numbers of Catholics are cheered by his down-home everyday parish priest ways. Francis has moved away from the elegant remoteness of his predecessor and  it’s clear that the papal tiara is not coming back any time soon.   It was not long before they realized that Francis is no admirer of the TLM (Traditional Latin Mass or the “Extraordinary Form” of the Roman Rite) and it would no longer be possible—at least in this pontificate—to claim papal support for the revival of this antique rite.  Well of course things have only gotten worse.  Or better, depending on your perspective.  A more dialogic approach with Gay Catholics, the interview in La Civilta Cattolica, and then Evangelii Gaudium with its condemnation of “trickle down economics,” has shaken the ultramontane commitment of the neo-trads who suddenly have found themselves in the cafeteria line of Catholicism.  
Surprisingly one crucial moment of Francis’ pontificate that they have overlooked is his homily at Lampedusa, an island off the coast of Sicily, where in October hundreds of Africans perished attempting to immigrate (illegally) to Europe.  On October 3, last year a boat sailing from Libya (the nearest point of Africa to Italy, and overloaded with immigrants from Eritrea, Somalia, and Ghana sunk off the Italian island of Lampedusa.  The Italian Coast Guard was able to rescue 155 survivors but “more than 360” deaths were reported.  A second shipwreck occurred just over a week later within the territorial waters of Malta where at least 34 more victims—these from Syria and Palestine—drowned. 
Ironically Pope Francis has visited Lampedusa in July after an earlier boat wreck in which many died  and the Pope gave a remarkable homily touching on the plight of immigrants.   This is what he said—in part. 

“Adam, where are you?” This is the first question that God addresses to man after sin. “Where are you Adam?” Adam is disoriented and has lost his place in creation because he thought to become powerful, to dominate everything, to be God. And harmony was broken, the man erred – and this is repeated even in relations with his neighbour, who is no longer a brother to be loved, but simply someone who disturbs my life, my well-being. And God puts the second question: “Cain, where is your brother?” The dream of being powerful, of being as great as God, even of being God, leads to a chain of errors that is a chain of death, leads to shedding the blood of the brother!
These two questions resonate even today, with all their force! So many of us, even including myself, are disoriented, we are no longer attentive to the world in which we live, we don’t care, we don’t protect that which God has created for all, and we are unable to care for one another. And when this disorientation assumes worldwide dimensions, we arrive at tragedies like the one we have seen.
“Where is your brother?” the voice of his blood cries even to me, God says. This is not a question addressed to others: it is a question addressed to me, to you, to each one of us. These our brothers and sisters seek to leave difficult situations in order to find a little serenity and peace, they seek a better place for themselves and for their families – but they found death. How many times to those who seek this not find understanding, do not find welcome, do not find solidarity! And their voices rise up even to God! And once more to you, the residents of Lampedusa, thank you for your solidarity! I recently heard one of these brothers. Before arriving here, he had passed through the hands of traffickers, those who exploit the poverty of others; these people for whom the poverty of others is a source of income. What they have suffered! And some have been unable to arrive!
“Where is your brother?” Who is responsible for this blood? In Spanish literature there is a play by Lope de Vega that tells how the inhabitants of the city of Fuente Ovejuna killed the Governor because he was a tyrant, and did it in such a way that no one knew who had carried out the execution. And when the judge of the king asked “Who killed the Governor?” they all responded, “Fuente Ovejuna, sir.” All and no one! Even today this question comes with force: Who is responsible for the blood of these brothers and sisters? No one! We all respond this way: not me, it has nothing to do with me, there are others, certainly not me. But God asks each one of us: “Where is the blood of your brother that cries out to me?” Today no one in the world feels responsible for this; we have lost the sense of fraternal responsibility; we have fallen into the hypocritical attitude of the priest and of the servant of the altar that Jesus speaks about in the parable of the Good Samaritan: We look upon the brother half dead by the roadside, perhaps we think “poor guy,” and we continue on our way, it’s none of our business; and we feel fine with this. We feel at peace with this, we feel fine! The culture of well-being, that makes us think of ourselves, that makes us insensitive to the cries of others, that makes us live in soap bubbles, that are beautiful but are nothing, are illusions of futility, of the transient, that brings indifference to others, that brings even the globalization of indifference. In this world of globalization we have fallen into a globalization of indifference. We are accustomed to the suffering of others, it doesn’t concern us, it’s none of our business.
The figure of the Unnamed of Manzoni returns. The globalization of indifference makes us all “unnamed,” leaders without names and without faces.
“Adam, where are you?” “Where is your brother?” These are the two questions that God puts at the beginning of the story of humanity, and that He also addresses to the men and women of our time, even to us. But I want to set before us a third question: “Who among us has wept for these things, and things like this?” Who has wept for the deaths of these brothers and sisters? Who has wept for the people who were on the boat? For the young mothers carrying their babies? For these men who wanted something to support their families? We are a society that has forgotten the experience of weeping, of “suffering with”: the globalization of indifference has taken from us the ability to weep! In the Gospel we have heard the cry, the plea, the great lament: “Rachel weeping for her children . . . because they are no more.” Herod sowed death in order to defend his own well-being, his own soap bubble. And this continues to repeat itself. Let us ask the Lord to wipe out [whatever attitude] of Herod remains in our hears; let us ask the Lord for the grace to weep over our indifference, to weep over the cruelty in the world, in ourselves, and even in those who anonymously make socio-economic decisions that open the way to tragedies like this. “Who has wept?” Who in today’s world has wept?

Most Americans seem to think that Francis was speaking only to the people of Lampedusa and only in the context of the sinking of one boat, but as universal shepherd of the Church Francis was speaking to us in North America as well.  We have a problem of illegal immigrants and the dangers they face every bit as serious as has Italy and the nations of the European Economic Union.  I am surprised that those Catholics advocating for immigration reform have not picked up on Pope Francis’ remarks at Lampedusa.  I also am surprised that those Tea-Party types that claim to be devout Catholics have not looked closely at the Holy Father’s remarks and have not seen that he is speaking to us as well as to the Europeans.  Every year hundreds of lives are lost in the deserts of our frontiers as well as in the seas that separate Africa from Europe.  One cannot be a “good Catholic” and not be concerned about the situation in which the immigrants find themselves—but then so many who claim to be “pro-life” are not, in the end, pro-life at all.

By George 3

George Weigel

Let me come back to George Weigel’s book Evangelical Catholicism.  I had begun to discuss this in a number of earlier entries (November 19, 20, and 22^nd 2013). To recap, Weigel credits contemporary Catholicism as finding its roots in the vision of Pope Leo XIII, a pope who very much—in his day—engaged the (then) modern world and its questions and issues.  And, appropriate to his ministry, Leo brought the rich theological heritage of our Catholic faith into the dialogue.  Leo is probably best remembered for his startling encyclical, Rerum Novarum, which for its day was every bit as “radical” as the recent papal letter, Evangelii Gaudium.  I think Weigel fudges his history a bit—or rather paints the picture with strokes so broad as to be inaccurate in some details—but I think he is on to something in his thesis.  (My objections would center mostly in that I don’t see Pius X and his pontificate as standing in continuity with Leo (his predecessor) or with Benedict XV and Pius XI, his successors.  But I am willing to let the point pass.)   I am very much taken, however, by Weigel’s vision of an Evangelical Catholicism that anchors Catholic life in taking the Word of God to bear in our daily lives and nourishing ourselves by fully participating in the sacramental life of the Church.  Indeed, I think it was this immersion in Word and Sacrament that gave us the Second Vatican Council and especially its Liturgy.  The spiritual energy of places like Maria Laach and Beuron Abbey, Saint Séverin in Paris and Combermere in Ontario, the witness of people like Edith Stein and Dorothy Day and the Dominican friar Jacques Loew, and the scholarship of Josef Jungmann, Augustin Bea, and Marie-Dominique Chenu all reflect this spirituality of Word and Sacrament and all provided the resources from which the Council Fathers were able to imagine a new and renewed Church  that could project in our day and in our world the enthusiasm with which the Apostles propagated the Gospel in theirs. 
At the same time that this tremendous energy was flooding the Church, the world around the Church—or at least the European and American worlds—were falling into a post-Christian culture that would present the Church with an incredible challenge but one which we could meet strengthened by these resources of revived engagement with the Word of God and Sacramental Life.  The problems that prompted Leo to write Rerum Novarum—the sordid view of the Robber Baron Capitalists that the human person is no more than a tool to be used to make money—threated industrial societies with the grossest dehumanization.  Nihilism, the cynical philosophical system that swept away any idea of a moral compass by which the industrialists, the wealthy classes, and the State should be governed in their relationship with the masses, devoured whatever soul remained in Western society after the rise of secularism consequent to the “Enlightenment” and the Revolution it spawned.  The emergence of Leninism/Stalinism in Russia and its devaluation of the human individual in favor of the State as well as the rise of National Socialism with its dehumanization of the individual and its repugnant racial ideology were the results of this collapse of humanistic thought. 
In the face of this implosion of civilization, Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular had the resources to provide an alternative view in which the human person retained his or her worth as a being and not dependent on the usefulness of the individual  to society or to the state.  Catholic philosophers such as Paul Claudel, Etienne Gilson, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,  and Gabriel Marcel presented philosophies in which the human person, far from being a tool of the State or having no intrinsic value, is the raison d’etre of being, the very center of existence for whose sake and good interest society exists. 
The philosophic debate is not over.  In the post-World War II period, secularism has espoused and advanced a philosophy in which there is no concept of the common good but in which ethics are guided by self-interest of the individual.  The impact of Ayn Rand, the doyenne of this school of radical self-interest, has transformed American society (and not, to my mind, for the better.)   American society today would seem to recognize no good that trumps the self-interest of the individual.  We are left with a “trickle-down economics” that sees the gap between a rich minority and an ever-poorer and growing majority increasing by the year. In 2009, the average salary of a CEO was 263 times that of the average American worker, a situation every bit as evil as that against which Leo XIII wrote in Rerum Novarum.  Americans are obsessed with alleged personal rights whether it is the right to possess firearms or the right to have an abortion.  We find our chief form of entertainment in the vicarious disposal of human life through media ranging from movies through television to video games for youth and consider this to be our “right.”  We perceive pornography—whether sexual or violence—to be a “victimless crime.”  The family is in shreds because “I don’t want to be married anymore” is sufficient cause—again the triumph of the selfish individual—to overturn commitments of marriage and parenthood.  Both “the left” and “the right” have bought into this heresy of “it’s all about me and my happiness.”
The antidote to this moral chaos is Weigel’s Evangelical Catholicism.  It is a revived commitment to a scriptural spirituality in which, as one medieval spiritual text explains:  Let the Sword of the Spirit, that is the Word of God, dwell in your minds and in your hearts that all that you do may be done in the Word of the Lord. What has been the genius of evangelical voices throughout the history of Christianity has been this call to “hear the Word of God and put it into practice.” (cf Luke 11:28).  
The error that I see Weigel making is not in his vision of Evangelical Christianity but in his understanding of how it is to be presented.  He sees it as a bastion against the philosophical/moral chaos of post-modern society.  He wants Christians to use their clout to contain and suppress this modern heresy of an “ethics” of self-interest.  He falls into the same error our bishops have fallen into these past thirty some years since Roe vs. Wade: change laws and everything will be alright.    But if Weigel knew the scriptures himself he would know that the mission God gave to the prophets and Jesus gave to his disciples is to change hearts.  It is a far more challenging mission to change hearts than to change laws, but it is the only path that will bring success.  I am all in favor of Evangelical Catholicism but it must be, well, evangelical—you know—evangelizing. 
I remember thirty years ago I was part of a committee a young priest was trying for form in our parish.  It was an evangelism committee—an attempt to evangelize our neighborhood in which many had fallen away from the faith and even more had never had it.  At the end of the organizational meeting a wise old nun (yes, an LCWR nun) who had served as novice mistress in her community observed: “ok, fine, but who will evangelize us so that we can go and evangelize the neighborhood?”  Yes, who will evangelize us?  I think Weigel makes an important contribution to this task but he needs to go back and re-read those scriptures. 

The Catholic Political Conscience

Who would have thougt that a saint would write this: 

“Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the public, only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all that they have so ill-acquired, and then, that they may engage the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please; and if they can but prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws…”

Do you see why Catholics didn't follow their bishops into the Romney/Ryan camp?  Saint Thomas More would have a few things to say today about certain political philosophies. 

The Pope! A Democrat After All?

Sorry for the gap in entries.  I have been on the road a bit and also puzzled as how to post pictures on the blog because the posting mechanism has been changed.  I have a huge archive of photos—both my own and others’—and can’t seem to post from that archive any longer.  I am sure I will figure out a strategy but until then will have to depend on photos already used or available through the web. 
But as for content: In his New Year Day’s speech Pope Benedict deplored the increasing gap between rich and poor in our world.  He was speaking not only of rich nations and poor nations but also rich and poor within societies in the developed world.  This is a very pertinent issue considering the arguing about fiscal reforms in the United States and in particular about varying tax rates for rich and the middle class.  I can see the growing divide in the American economy as the middle class slowly slides downwards into (relative) poverty. 
The Holy Father deplored: "the increasing differences between those few who grow ever richer and the many who grow hopelessly poorer." The financial crisis took root, he said, "because profit was all too often made absolute, to the detriment of labor, and because of unrestrained ventures in the financial areas of the economy, rather than attending to the real economy." He urged people to resist the temptations for "short-term interests" at the expense of the common good.  Are you listening, Paul Ryan?  And you bishops who supported Ryan?  Damn! Who would have thought Benedict was a Democrat!

On All of Our Shoulders II

Yesterday I posted the first two sections of the statement “On All of Our Shoulders,” an evaluation of the Ryan Budget proposal according to the norms of the magisterium issued by 150+ Catholic scholars and theologians.  Today I am posting the next two sections.   My point, as I wrote yesterday, is not to portray Congressperson Ryan in a negative light and certainly not to make him out to be a “ bad Catholic,” but only to demonstrate that the choice for Catholic voters in this election is not a moral “slam-dunk” in the Romney/Ryan hoop.  I believe that a Catholic can, in good conscience, vote for the Republican ticket because of its opposition to legalized abortion.  I also believe that a Catholic can look at the moral issues of the Republican Platform’s economic policies and compare them unfavorably—again, from a moral standpoint—to those of the Democratic candidates and go for the Obama/Biden ticket.  There are serious moral flaws in the projects of each party.  Ironically the Democrats seem to understand this better than the Republicans, but I think it is important that we not only look at the spectrum of issues in making our choices, but respect those who also look hard at the same moral spectrum of issues and make a different choice.  So now, back to “On  All of Our Shoulders….”

Prudence Misused

Catholic promoters of Ryan's policies often invoke "prudence" to argue that since bishops are not competent to judge the details of policy proposals, there is no properly "Catholic" problem with his policies. This distorts the authentic Catholic meaning of prudence. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines prudence as "right reason in action." It is the virtue through which we "apply moral principles to particular cases." [2] In St. Thomas Aquinas's words, no one "can properly apply one thing to another unless he knows both the thing to be applied and the thing to which it has to be applied." [3] Thus, prudence demands both knowledge of the principles of Catholic Social Doctrine and honest attention to the details and realistic consequences of policies.
Aquinas also warned that prudence is a risky business. We are perennially tempted to use it as a cover for achieving goals contrary to our professed principles. Aquinas taught that the vice of "craftiness" often masquerades as prudence. Craftiness uses "means that are not true, but fictitious and counterfeit" to achieve its ends "whether good or bad." [4] For that reason, we must always scrutinize the principles that inspire our actions in prudential matters. Are our actions and policies consistent with the ideals we proclaim? Or would an honest assessment reveal they are guided by less laudable motives?
Prudence and Principle, Love and Truth:
The Church's social doctrine is not simply an imperative to believe in God and help the poor, for which any proposal can claim equal legitimacy by promising positive consequences. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church states that the Church teaches specific principles of social doctrine.
These principles of the Church's social doctrine "concern the reality of society in its entirety: from close and immediate relationships to those mediated by politics, economics and law; from the relationships among communities and groups to relations between peoples and nations." [5]
A Catholic use of prudence requires evaluating the compatibility between policy proposals and these substantial teachings.
Benedict XVI expressed the true challenge of Christian prudence in his great social encyclical Caritas in Veritate: the truth of Christian love must animate all dimensions of society. Caritas is more than a generic inspiration, if love is truth, it must give specific form to our actions.
Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word "love" is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite.
Without truth, without trust and love for what is true, there is no social conscience and responsibility, and social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in social fragmentation, especially in a globalized society at difficult times like the present. [6]

Prudence and Policy

Prudence also requires consideration of the full range of options available and an honest assessment of the outcome of policy proposals. After decades of tax cuts, honesty requires considering revenue increases in addition to program cuts. Government programs are not perfect and need to be improved. Proposals to slash or eliminate programs without proposing alternatives, however, is exactly the kind of indifference Jesus condemned in the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Rich Man and Lazarus.

Footnotes

2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1806
3. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II: 47, 3 resp.
4. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II: 55, 3 resp.
5. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, #161.
6. Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, #3,4.

On All of Our Shoulders

Two weeks ago, over 150 Catholic theologians and scholars issued a statement “On All of Our Shoulders” to help us focus on making moral choices in the upcoming election.  Drawing on the magisterium such Catholic intellectuals as John Langan, S.J., Thomas Reese, S.J., Bryan N. Massingale, Dolores R. Leckey, James E. Hug S.J., Peter Steinfels, Elizabeth Johnson CSJ, Anthony Ruff OSB,  Alexander DiLella, John F Haught, Jay P. Dolan, and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, (along with twelve dozen others) have put out a thought-provoking analysis of the philosophical arguments that underlay the political choices in this year’s election.  “On All of Our Shoulders” certainly does away with the lie that the question of for whom a Catholic should vote in the upcoming election is an open and shut case.  It particularly demolishes the misrepresentation that Vice-Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan’s Catholic faith is the root of his political philosophy.  This is not to say that Congressman Ryan is not a good Catholic—far from it.  The Congressman has shown us the importance of his Catholic pieties but it does show us that his social vision is directly opposed to the Magisterium.   I am taking the liberty of posting  “On All of Our Shoulders” in several segments over the next few weeks.  This is not an endorsement of the Obama/Biden ticket.  Our bishops and their allies in the Republican Party (read Carl Anderson of the Knights of Columbus) have made us well aware of the serious moral questions posed by the Democratic Platform, in particular by the Democratic support for legalized abortion.  They have also waved the canard of the Obama Administration posing a threat to Religious Liberty in an effort to divide the Catholic electorate from its traditional home in the Democratic Party.  That strategy does not seem to be working any better in 2012 than it did in 2008.  What “On All of Our Shoulders” does, however, is to make clear to the Catholic voter that the alternative is every bit as problematic and at least as fundamentally opposed to Catholic teaching.  But then you are all adults and can think for yourself, so I will simply post the statement, as I said, in readable size portions.     

On all of Our Shoulders

A Catholic Call to protect the Endangered Common Good

We write as Catholic theologians, academics and ministers concerned for our nation and for the integrity of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. We write to hold up aspects of the Church's social doctrine that are profoundly relevant to the challenges our nation faces at this moment in history, yet are in danger of being ignored. At a moment when the ideas of Atlas Shrugged influence public debate and policy, we write to proclaim the Catholic truth that the stewardship of common good rests upon all of our shoulders together. This is a responsibility we dare not shrug. We fulfill this obligation in myriad ways, but indispensibly among them, through the policies of our government. We highlight these principles of the Church's social doctrine in the hope that their substance will better influence our political and policy debates.

A Tipping Point

America is at a tipping point where the traditional commitment of our government to protecting and advancing the common good is in very real danger of being dismantled for generations. Members of the "Tea Party," libertarians, Ayn Rand followers and other proponents of small government have brought libertarian views of government into the mainstream; legitimating forms of social indifference. After decades of anti-government rhetoric and "starve the beast" tax cuts, some even appear to exploit predictable fiscal problems to establish a privatized, libertarian order that reduces society to a collection of individuals and shrinks the common good to fit the outcomes achievable by private, for profit firms.

A Threat to the Church's Teachings

Congressman Paul Ryan's candidacy for Vice President brings the threat of this social philosophy home to the Church. We do not question Paul Ryan's faith. We are concerned however, that defenders of Ryan have gone beyond highlighting the aspects of Catholic moral teaching with which his political positions are laudably consistent, to argue that his Ayn Rand "inspired" individualist and anti-government vision and the policies they inform are themselves legitimately Catholic. They are not.

We do not write to oppose Ryan's candidacy or to argue there are not legitimatereasons for Catholics to vote for him. Our concern is that Ryan and his Catholic supporters, must be informed—as prochoice candidates and Catholics who vote for them are perennially and appropriately reminded—that some of his positions are fundamentally at odds with the teachings of the Catholic Church.
We fear the Church's legitimate disagreement with the inadequate exemptions in the Obama administration's contraceptive insurance mandate will lead some bishops to avoid giving due scrutiny to Ryan's disagreements with or misunderstandings of the Church's social teaching. This would be a tragic failure of episcopal oversight. Presidential campaigns have enormous power to legitimate their messages. If Congressman Ryan's Randian vision is allowed to be promoted as Catholic, many believers will be confused and our nation will be deprived of the Church's full wisdom.
Congressman Ryan has forthrightly proclaimed his inspiration by Ayn Rand. This was no passing youthful phase. Few politicians have offered so comprehensive a statement of a social philosophy and shown its links to their policy priorities and political strategies as Congressmen Ryan did in his remarkable 2005 address to the Atlas Society. In addition to naming Rand as the "one thinker" whom he would credit for his entering public service, he stated that he repeatedly returns to Atlas Shrugged to "check my premises so that I know that what I'm believing and doing and advancing are square with the key principles of individualism." From this perspective he judged "defined benefit" safety net programs such as Social Security and Medicare to be "collectivist" and "socialist based." He called for privatizing of Social Security and Medicare into individually funded programs in order to "change the dynamics in this society" and to form "believers in the individualist capitalist system." [1] These values and policy priorities are evident throughout the several budget resolutions he has authored. Defined benefit programs are an explicit target in themselves because they foster "dependence"—a term he invokes 5 times in his 2013 budget resolution. Congressman Ryan's concerns about the growing Federal debt are commendable. It is clear, however, that he had a prior philosophical bias against publically funded safety net programs independent of these fiscal concerns.Given these values, it seems reasonable to conclude that Ryan's deep cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps are policy priorities themselves. Thus, it is not surprising, that the savings achieved by these cuts are swamped by revenue losses resulting from massive new tax cuts for high earners and corporations.
Ryan's rejection of Rand's atheism is laudable, as are his public avowal of the thought of Thomas Aquinas and Catholic social doctrine. We do not question the sincerity of his convictions, but must note that a shift from the social philosophy of Ayn Rand to the social doctrine of the Catholic Church is a radical change indeed. Such a conversion would take much time and reflection. Congressman Ryan's policies have remained unchanged through this shift. This suggests that they may in fact still be more indebted to the social principles of Rand than to Aquinas and the Catholic Church. Clarification of the substance of Catholic social doctrine will assist him and other Catholics in discernment of these policies.

footnotes

1  Address by Paul Ryan to Atlas Society "Celebration of Ayn Rand," 2005. (Published transcript is incomplete. Quotes are taken from audio file.) http://www.atlassociety.org/ele/blog/2012/04/30/paul-ryan-and-ayn-rands-ideas-hot-seat-again.

 

Catholic amd Democrat--The Roots Are Deep

When a Methodist gets money, he becomes an Episcopalian

When a Baptist gets money, he joins the Presbyterian Church.

The Rev, Samuel D.

Burdhard whose quip

that the Democrats

were the party of Rum,

Romanism and Rebellion

sealed the deal between
Catholics and the
Democratic Party

When a Catholic Priest is named a bishop

He becomes a Republican. 

Catholics have traditionally been Democrats—after all, the Democrats are the party of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion. (See entry for March 7, 2011.) What has caused our hierarchy to shift to the Republicans?  And why is our laity not following?

I was shocked to see that according to a recent Pew survey, President Obama leads Governor Romney among Catholics 54% to 39%.   While the majority of African-American Catholics and Hispanic Catholics are strongly pro-Obama, a slight majority of White Catholics are now sliding into the Obama camp.  A clue to this surge might be found in the surveys that indicate that the one faction of the Catholic vote that is not weighted toward the President are the White Catholic weekly Mass-goers among whom Romney has a slight edge.  Some attribute this to weekly Mass-attendees being “more faithful” Catholics who are inclined to follow the leadership of their bishops.  While that may be true, the converse conclusion must then also be true: that there is a majority of White Catholics, including both those who attend Mass weekly and those who have stopped attending regularly, who have lost their confidence in the leadership of the bishops.    
What shocked me about the Pew Survey results is not that the majority of Catholics are not following the bishops’ lead, but that I would have thought that since the majority of (white) Catholics in this country have gradually slipped up into the better-off classes and are no longer among the working (labor union) class, that their politics would have turned as well from the traditional alliance between the Catholic Church and the Democratic party.  But they haven’t.  What are the reasons that they are staying locked in the Democratic Party?
It may be that despite their newly acquired relative affluence Middle and Upper Class Catholics are still convinced of the basic Catholic view of society as a cooperative unit in which those who have more have responsibility for those who have less. Catholic social teaching over the 120 years or so since Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum has embraced the idea that not only are individuals responsible for works of charity but that society itself has an obligation from each of its members towards all of its members.   This corporate view is at odds with Paul Ryan’s Ayn Rand views of a world in which each person must look out for his or her own interest first rather than for the “common good.”   It may be that the boomer generation of Catholics gratefully remember their parents’ stories of  the Church’s support for organized Labor in the years of the great depression and realize that without the boost that Catholic Social teaching—along with the Democratic New Deal and the G.I. Bill—gave their parents, they—the boomers—would not have had the social and educational opportunities that empowered them to make the jump into the Professional and Managerial classes.   It may also be—and given that the Catholic boost in the Obama ratings comes because of the non-weekly attendees—a sign that not only have the bishops become irrelevant to many of the Catholics-in-the-pews but there is actually a backlash against their leadership among those whose disaffection with the leadership of the last twenty years or so has made them indifferent towards formal Catholicism.  Given the recent scandals and the poor quality of Episcopal leadership this factor cannot be discounted.  As hard as the Timothy Dolans and Sean O’Malleys try to pedal forward the bike of American Catholicism, the number of foot-draggers on the bishops bicycle built for 450 (or whatever the number of American bishops) is holding back the advance of the Institutional Church.  O well, there may be grace in that too. 

Paul Ryan and the Catholic Cafeteria



Thomas Aquinas

 Vice-Presidential nominee Paul Ryan is a cradle Catholic.  He attended public schools in Janesville WI and Miami University in Oxford Ohio where he became interested in the writings of liberal Austrian economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, and the American, Milton Friedman.  Now one of the tricky things is to understand that when you talk about “liberal” and economics, you are not talking about “liberal” in the ordinary sense we use it today—a political liberal.  To the contrary—usually those who espouse economic liberalism (which is unrestricted free-market capitalism) are politically conservative.  Economic liberalism is the foundation for “Big Business” and is geared to the issues of corporate good rather than the interests of the working and consuming classes.  Congressman Ryan is also a devotee of the late philosopher/novelists Ayn Rand.  In a 2005 speech he said

"I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are and what my beliefs are. It's inspired me so much that it's required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff.  . . .the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism."

Congressman Ryan claims that his social and economic philosophy is rooted in the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas though it does not appear that he has ever studied Thomas in any depth.  Indeed nothing could be further from Thomas’ vision than the radical individualism of the atheist Ayn Rand for whom the individual was the only focus of “the good” whereas Catholic social theory has held for the “common good,” an idea that Congressman Ryan labels “collectivism.” 

While Congressman Ryan is with the Church on specific issues of the right-to-life of the unborn (he is not consistently pro-life but anti-abortion) and same-sex marriage, he differs from Catholic teaching in other areas such as the rights of immigrants and rights of workers to organize for collective bargaining.  More the point, however, is that he lacks a Catholic understanding of the nature of society and the primacy of the common good over the interests of individuals.  Some of his other stands are troubling as well. 

It is unrealistic to expect a politician today to form his political philosophy totally in accord with his religious faith.  No one else does.  That is unfortunate.  But Paul Ryan shows us that cafeteria Catholicism is the norm. It seems that no one but a bishop eats a full meal these days, and most of those gentlemen could afford to lose some weight.     

Biden Catholics and Ryan Catholics

Well, the choice of Paul Ryan for the Republican Vice-presidential nominee has thrown a barking dog in among the Catholic chickens.  Liberal Catholics are appalled; conservatives delighted.  Of course, at the present we have Catholics slated for the number 2 slot in both major parties, though—and I could be wrong—I don’t believe that I have heard that it is certain that President Obama is keeping Vice President Biden on the ticket.  There can always be a switch though Biden has certainly been a team-player—with a more than occasional foul, of course—with the President. 

I was away over the weekend and in my room at a beautiful retreat house in the mountains, was a copy of Catholic Digest.   I hadn’t seen this little magazine in years.  Someone had written to it asking about the possibility of the “Social Justice Catholic Church” being reunited to the “Orthodox Roman Catholic Church.”  The columnist responding made it clear that the “Social Justice Catholic Church” is and consistently has been well within the boundaries of the “Orthodox” Roman Catholic Church.  But the question was interesting because it shows how successful elements of the religious right have been in pushing those Catholics who support the very causes of social justice taught by the magisterium—opposition to the death penalty, rights of workers to organize, rights of access to education, health care, housing, and other necessities, human rights and freedoms (worship, speech, association, press), equal dignity of women, rights of women and children, rights of people to migrate—how Catholics supporting magisterial teaching have been emarginated within the Church by those whose politics ironically differ from magisterial principles.   For some who consider themselves to be “faithful Catholics” there are only two magisterial points that matter—opposition to abortion and to same-sex marriage.  They condemn “cafeteria Catholics” while they themselves hit only the coffee-bar of Catholic teaching. 

At the end of the day, one has to say that both Paul Ryan and Joe Biden are practicing Catholics.  Neither Paul Ryan nor Joe Biden are the Catholics they should be.  I am happy to see them both at communion on Sunday Mornings, I wish both of them would bring their religious faith more into their politics.  More to my concern, however, is that there are increasingly two Catholic Churches in this country.  There are historical reasons that go back a long way—actually into the early nineteenth century with the split between the old time Maryland Catholics whose heirs are today’s “liberals” (and Joe Biden Catholicism) and the “new immigrant Catholicism” of the 1840’s whose heirs are the “conservatives” (and Paul Ryan Catholicism.)  (See entries for January 21, 23, 26, 28, March 7, 9, 2011, January 6, 7, 2012)  When you know the history of the American Church you know that both groups have long and strong roots; the challenge today is to keep them together at the same altar sharing the One Bread of Christ’s One Body.

Another Catholic in Congress Who Needs a Refresher in Catholic Doctrine

Sorry for the absence there for a few days--and I hope to get back to the history of Saint Peter's Basilica--but I noticed the following article in today's paper and how it--or references to it--are popping up all over the web. I doubt it will pop up in the pulpit as well, or at least as often as concerns over the contraception mandate and anxieties over religous freedom.  But it does show us that there is no clear path for Catholics through the current political morass.  It also shows that maybe Congresspersons Ryan and Peolosi should go for a bi-partisan refresher in Catholic Doctrine,

WASHINGTON–A week after House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan claimed his Catholic faith inspired the Republicans' cost-cutting budget plan, the nation's Catholic bishops reiterated their demand that the federal budget protect the poor, and said the GOP measure "fails to meet these moral criteria."
That and other strongly-worded judgments on the GOP budget proposal flew in a flurry of letters from leading bishops to the chairmen of key congressional committee.
The letters to Capitol Hill were highlighted in a Tuesday statement from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that came after Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican and rising conservative hero, told an interviewer last week that his fiscal views were informed by Catholic social teaching.
The hierarchy's pushback comes after liberal Catholics in Congress and progressive activists challenged the bishops to resist the GOP budget proposals with the same vigor that they have challenged the Obama administration's contraception mandate and its perceived violations of religious freedom.
Even though the Republican-passed House budget has almost no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate or the White House iit is nonetheless serving as a proxy economic platform for Republicans in the presidential campaign, and as a counterpoint for Democrats.
Last Thursday, the bishops' Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty called for American Catholics to engage in a "Fortnight for Freedom" campaign — starting in late June and ending on July 4 — to actively resist the contraception mandate and other measures that the bishop say impinge on religious liberty.
The next day, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations, wrote to the bishops' president, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, saying that as a Catholic she felt the bishops should highlight the injustices she and others saw in the Republican plans.
"What I am asking for is a campaign for the poor, the hungry, the middle class, the people who are going to be eviscerated by the Ryan budget," DeLauro told Catholic News Service. 
That same day, some 60 Catholic social justice leaders, theologians and clergy also released a atement saying that "this budget is morally indefensible and betrays Catholic principles of solidarity, just taxation and a commitment to the common good."
Tuesday's statement from the bishops came the same day as Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., called a proposed cut in benefits for children of immigrants "unjust and wrong." Blaire, chairman of the bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, also decried any cuts in food stamps while preserving federal subsidies for industrial farming enterprises.
"Congress faces a difficult task to balance needs and resources and allocate burdens and sacrifices," Blaire wrote to the House Agriculture Committee  "Just solutions, however, must require shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and fairly addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs."
"The House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral criteria."