The Lord is my Shepherd - not DHHS
Timothy Birdnow
My father-in-law forwards this piece by Paul Kengor about the letter by Catholic professors to John Boehner.
http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=17005
From the Kengor piece:
"Unfortunately, there are at least three serious flaws with the letter:
First, the tone is seriously lacking in charity to Speaker Boehner, and even borders on the rude. I was surprised that the writers, from a PR perspective alone, didn’t tone down their emotions. Worse, the letter ends somewhat sanctimoniously by telling Boehner that he can rest assured that the professors will be praying for him and his vocation in public life. Their sincerity falls flat in light of their earlier language.
Second, and more significant, the letters fails to demonstrate even a remote awareness of the utterly disastrous fiscal situation that America faces. We have a $1.6 trillion deficit—numbers absent from this letter. For a sense of perspective, George W. Bush, going into the final year of his presidency, had a record—repeat, record—deficit of $400 billion. That was awful enough, but the current deficit quadruples that record, blowing the previous astronomical figure to smithereens. The Obama presidency and Pelosi-Reid Democratic Congress that preceded Boehner dug that hole.
[...]
Finally, the professors’ lecturing of Boehner for a “fail[ure] to recognize … important aspects of Church teaching” would have more credibility if they had written just one letter to previous Catholic Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her indisputably misguided attempts to fund everything from domestic contraception to Planned Parenthood International"
End excerpts.
Right he is! I made these points in my AT article yesterday http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/05/the_cruelty_of_caesars_charity.html and a few others to boot. A point to ponder:
Mathewt 18:15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
Now, this letter was not in confidence; it was clearly leaked to the media. Why? Was this really to help a lost brother return to the fold? No. It was done for purely partisan political reasons. Obama won the Catholic vote in the last election, despite being the most pro-abortion candidate we have ever had run for the presidency. It was this social gospel, this dogma of "social justice" that carried the day. These professors are hoping to recapture the Catholic vote, and to do that they must demonize Republicans and conservatives, and Boehner is the highest-ranking Republican they can reach. This had nothing to do with Christian purposes, and everything to do with politics. That's why these guys have been going on television and radio - it's a CAMPAIGN.
One of the commenters at my article said this:
Posted by: babsi May 13, 12:20 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am a certified catechist -- Diocese of Galveston-Houston, and I was taught (and teach) the following:
Catholic social doctrine begins with the principle of subsidiarity — namely, that fulfillment of human needs begins at the lowest level possible, starting with the individual. Only when necessary should social welfare turn to higher levels of society, and that means that government is the very last resort for the working of social justice.
1. Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum predicted his insistence on the state protecting public welfare with this statement:
"It is not right for either the citizen or the family to be absorbed by the state; it is proper that the individual and the family should be permitted to retain their freedom of action, so far as this is possible without jeopardizing the common good."
2. Pope John XXIII at the outset of his Mater et Magister encyclical quotes from Pope Pius XI's Quadraqesimo Anno:
"It is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they [individuals] can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry."
Good Pope John XXIII, known as the people's Pope, comments:
"Included among [basic rights of individuals] is the right and duty of each individual normally to provide the necessities of life for himself and his dependents. . .
"Experience, in fact, shows that where private initiative of individuals is lacking, political tyranny prevails."
3. Second Vatican Council: "Private ownership or some other kind of dominion over material goods provides everyone with a wholly necessary area of independence, and should be recognized as an extension of human freedom" (Gaudium et Spes, n. 71).
4. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is emphatic concerning subsidiarity:
"Socialization also prevents dangers. Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative. The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which 'a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the ... (350 word limit)
End comment.
This pretty well sums up the Catholic position. Ownership of property is a fundamental human right, and depriving people of property - no matter the intent - is to be done with great care.
Those interested in Catholic teachings on the subject, please read Rerum Novarum (On Capital and Labor) Pope Leo XIII encyclical from 1891.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/encyc/l13rerum.htm
Leo says, for example;
"To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man's envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy. But their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.
[...]
What is of far greater moment, however, is the fact that the remedy they propose is manifestly against justice. For, every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own.
[...]
The contention, then, that the civil government should at its option intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family and the household is a great and pernicious error. True, if a family finds itself in exceeding distress, utterly deprived of the counsel of friends, and without any prospect of extricating itself, it is right that extreme necessity be met by public aid, since each family is a part of the commonwealth. In like manner, if within the precincts of the household there occur grave disturbance of mutual rights, public authority should intervene to force each party to yield to the other its proper due; for this is not to deprive citizens of their rights, but justly and properly to safeguard and strengthen them.
But the rulers of the commonwealth must go no further; here, nature bids them stop. Paternal authority can be neither abolished nor absorbed by the State; for it has the same source as human life itself. "The child belongs to the father," and is, as it were, the continuation of the father's personality; and speaking strictly, the child takes its place in civil society, not of its own right, but in its quality as member of the family in which it is born. And for the very reason that "the child belongs to the father" it is, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, "before it attains the use of free will, under the power and the charge of its parents."[4] The socialists, therefore, in setting aside the parent and setting up a State supervision, act against natural justice, and destroy the structure of the home.
15. And in addition to injustice, it is only too evident what an upset and disturbance there would be in all classes, and to how intolerable and hateful a slavery citizens would be subjected. The door would be thrown open to envy, to mutual invective, and to discord; the sources of wealth themselves would run dry, for no one would have any interest in exerting his talents or his industry; and that ideal equality about which they entertain pleasant dreams would be in reality the leveling down of all to a like condition of misery and degradation."
End excerpt.
So, it's fairly obvious that the State is to do the minimal, and little more. Remember, the State and the Church are different things, with different purposes. The King, according to the Bible, is granted "the power of the sword" to "punish evildoers" - not engineer redistribution of wealth. (Romans 13 4-5) That means their principle purpose is defense and law enforcement. They kill bad people. They are to be supported with tax dollars for this, I might add. But theirs is a different mandate than the Church or the People; it is the role of the Church to provide for those destitute and in need.
But the socialists have made the State into an all-powerful entity, into a golden idol for worship and obedience. As such, their sin is no different from the sins of worship of Baal, or of the Golden Calf fashioned by the Hebrews on Mt. Horab. It stems from the explosion of science in the 18th and 19th centuries; the world was dazzled at the success of reason and science, and many came to believe there was nothing that could not be done with these marvelous tools. Well, there is a world of difference between building a steam locomotive or telegraph and fundamentally restructuring the social order. The social order will never be just because Man is fallen, and inherently evil. THAT is Christian teaching; we may not be really rotten tomatoes, but our tendencies and impulses are not for others or for God but for our own benefit alone. The Left is entirely predicated on the theory that Man is inherently good and will do right if "freed" from malignant influences. Strangely, it leads to total repression as the Left seeks to order everything to bring forth that inherent goodness. It's a bizarre dichotomy; Man is bad because he is good, and there are bad people hell bent on keeping him bad even though he is good. These bad people (Christians, Jews, Conservatives) must be destroyed to pave the way for the Utopia that surely will follow. It's why Marx believed the state would wither away under the Dictatorship of the Proletariate...
Leftism - be it atheistic or parasitically religious - is ultimately about making Heaven on Earth through human effort. It will not happen; the human condition is a result of sin and Original Sin is omnipresent. That is why we say Man is inherently evil. That is why there is suffering and injustice in the world. Only Christ can overcome that.
But people like those professors believe the State and the "brains" of the State - meaning their august selves - can overcome the world on their own, through their own efforts. The State is elevated to the godhead, as are they. Oh, they would never dream of saying such a thing, but it is ultimately in their hearts. Remember, they are fallen; it's natural for a man to want to be a god. The problem is, being a god is really hard...
Frankly, I wouldn't want the job. As a radio preacher I once heard succinctly put it "you don't have to be god anymore" when accepting Christ; he takes the position for you, letting you rest. It's way too much work, and there are too many mistakes to be made.
Which is why, no matter how many programs the left puts in place, new problems arise on top of the old ones, which never seem to be solved. Every liberal solution makes things worse. They simply cannot accept that their reason is limited, their power limited, that the world is not perfectible.
Man is not here to enjoy life. Life has a very different purpose, yet liberal Christians seek to create a just social order to create a paradise that cannot exist. Especially true in Catholicism, one does not really want a paradise on Earth because it means more time spent in remediation for sin in the afterlife. That's not to say that we are to make things hard on people; our duty is to help others, to show love for others. It's as much a duty for us as for the other person; we need to become loving people, not selfish jerks. But we must accept that "the poor you will always have with you" and that suffering is going to be a part of life. We will never defeat it, any more than we will defeat gravity by wishing it away. Our task is to do the best we can and leave the rest to God.
That is something liberal Christians are unwilling to do.
If the Lord is my shepherd, then we don't need government to tell us what to do. There is only one shepherd, and the EPA isn't HIm.
My father-in-law forwards this piece by Paul Kengor about the letter by Catholic professors to John Boehner.
http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=17005
From the Kengor piece:
"Unfortunately, there are at least three serious flaws with the letter:
First, the tone is seriously lacking in charity to Speaker Boehner, and even borders on the rude. I was surprised that the writers, from a PR perspective alone, didn’t tone down their emotions. Worse, the letter ends somewhat sanctimoniously by telling Boehner that he can rest assured that the professors will be praying for him and his vocation in public life. Their sincerity falls flat in light of their earlier language.
Second, and more significant, the letters fails to demonstrate even a remote awareness of the utterly disastrous fiscal situation that America faces. We have a $1.6 trillion deficit—numbers absent from this letter. For a sense of perspective, George W. Bush, going into the final year of his presidency, had a record—repeat, record—deficit of $400 billion. That was awful enough, but the current deficit quadruples that record, blowing the previous astronomical figure to smithereens. The Obama presidency and Pelosi-Reid Democratic Congress that preceded Boehner dug that hole.
[...]
Finally, the professors’ lecturing of Boehner for a “fail[ure] to recognize … important aspects of Church teaching” would have more credibility if they had written just one letter to previous Catholic Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her indisputably misguided attempts to fund everything from domestic contraception to Planned Parenthood International"
End excerpts.
Right he is! I made these points in my AT article yesterday http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/05/the_cruelty_of_caesars_charity.html and a few others to boot. A point to ponder:
Mathewt 18:15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
Now, this letter was not in confidence; it was clearly leaked to the media. Why? Was this really to help a lost brother return to the fold? No. It was done for purely partisan political reasons. Obama won the Catholic vote in the last election, despite being the most pro-abortion candidate we have ever had run for the presidency. It was this social gospel, this dogma of "social justice" that carried the day. These professors are hoping to recapture the Catholic vote, and to do that they must demonize Republicans and conservatives, and Boehner is the highest-ranking Republican they can reach. This had nothing to do with Christian purposes, and everything to do with politics. That's why these guys have been going on television and radio - it's a CAMPAIGN.
One of the commenters at my article said this:
Posted by: babsi May 13, 12:20 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am a certified catechist -- Diocese of Galveston-Houston, and I was taught (and teach) the following:
Catholic social doctrine begins with the principle of subsidiarity — namely, that fulfillment of human needs begins at the lowest level possible, starting with the individual. Only when necessary should social welfare turn to higher levels of society, and that means that government is the very last resort for the working of social justice.
1. Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum predicted his insistence on the state protecting public welfare with this statement:
"It is not right for either the citizen or the family to be absorbed by the state; it is proper that the individual and the family should be permitted to retain their freedom of action, so far as this is possible without jeopardizing the common good."
2. Pope John XXIII at the outset of his Mater et Magister encyclical quotes from Pope Pius XI's Quadraqesimo Anno:
"It is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they [individuals] can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry."
Good Pope John XXIII, known as the people's Pope, comments:
"Included among [basic rights of individuals] is the right and duty of each individual normally to provide the necessities of life for himself and his dependents. . .
"Experience, in fact, shows that where private initiative of individuals is lacking, political tyranny prevails."
3. Second Vatican Council: "Private ownership or some other kind of dominion over material goods provides everyone with a wholly necessary area of independence, and should be recognized as an extension of human freedom" (Gaudium et Spes, n. 71).
4. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is emphatic concerning subsidiarity:
"Socialization also prevents dangers. Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative. The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which 'a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the ... (350 word limit)
End comment.
This pretty well sums up the Catholic position. Ownership of property is a fundamental human right, and depriving people of property - no matter the intent - is to be done with great care.
Those interested in Catholic teachings on the subject, please read Rerum Novarum (On Capital and Labor) Pope Leo XIII encyclical from 1891.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/encyc/l13rerum.htm
Leo says, for example;
"To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man's envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy. But their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.
[...]
What is of far greater moment, however, is the fact that the remedy they propose is manifestly against justice. For, every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own.
[...]
The contention, then, that the civil government should at its option intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family and the household is a great and pernicious error. True, if a family finds itself in exceeding distress, utterly deprived of the counsel of friends, and without any prospect of extricating itself, it is right that extreme necessity be met by public aid, since each family is a part of the commonwealth. In like manner, if within the precincts of the household there occur grave disturbance of mutual rights, public authority should intervene to force each party to yield to the other its proper due; for this is not to deprive citizens of their rights, but justly and properly to safeguard and strengthen them.
But the rulers of the commonwealth must go no further; here, nature bids them stop. Paternal authority can be neither abolished nor absorbed by the State; for it has the same source as human life itself. "The child belongs to the father," and is, as it were, the continuation of the father's personality; and speaking strictly, the child takes its place in civil society, not of its own right, but in its quality as member of the family in which it is born. And for the very reason that "the child belongs to the father" it is, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, "before it attains the use of free will, under the power and the charge of its parents."[4] The socialists, therefore, in setting aside the parent and setting up a State supervision, act against natural justice, and destroy the structure of the home.
15. And in addition to injustice, it is only too evident what an upset and disturbance there would be in all classes, and to how intolerable and hateful a slavery citizens would be subjected. The door would be thrown open to envy, to mutual invective, and to discord; the sources of wealth themselves would run dry, for no one would have any interest in exerting his talents or his industry; and that ideal equality about which they entertain pleasant dreams would be in reality the leveling down of all to a like condition of misery and degradation."
End excerpt.
So, it's fairly obvious that the State is to do the minimal, and little more. Remember, the State and the Church are different things, with different purposes. The King, according to the Bible, is granted "the power of the sword" to "punish evildoers" - not engineer redistribution of wealth. (Romans 13 4-5) That means their principle purpose is defense and law enforcement. They kill bad people. They are to be supported with tax dollars for this, I might add. But theirs is a different mandate than the Church or the People; it is the role of the Church to provide for those destitute and in need.
But the socialists have made the State into an all-powerful entity, into a golden idol for worship and obedience. As such, their sin is no different from the sins of worship of Baal, or of the Golden Calf fashioned by the Hebrews on Mt. Horab. It stems from the explosion of science in the 18th and 19th centuries; the world was dazzled at the success of reason and science, and many came to believe there was nothing that could not be done with these marvelous tools. Well, there is a world of difference between building a steam locomotive or telegraph and fundamentally restructuring the social order. The social order will never be just because Man is fallen, and inherently evil. THAT is Christian teaching; we may not be really rotten tomatoes, but our tendencies and impulses are not for others or for God but for our own benefit alone. The Left is entirely predicated on the theory that Man is inherently good and will do right if "freed" from malignant influences. Strangely, it leads to total repression as the Left seeks to order everything to bring forth that inherent goodness. It's a bizarre dichotomy; Man is bad because he is good, and there are bad people hell bent on keeping him bad even though he is good. These bad people (Christians, Jews, Conservatives) must be destroyed to pave the way for the Utopia that surely will follow. It's why Marx believed the state would wither away under the Dictatorship of the Proletariate...
Leftism - be it atheistic or parasitically religious - is ultimately about making Heaven on Earth through human effort. It will not happen; the human condition is a result of sin and Original Sin is omnipresent. That is why we say Man is inherently evil. That is why there is suffering and injustice in the world. Only Christ can overcome that.
But people like those professors believe the State and the "brains" of the State - meaning their august selves - can overcome the world on their own, through their own efforts. The State is elevated to the godhead, as are they. Oh, they would never dream of saying such a thing, but it is ultimately in their hearts. Remember, they are fallen; it's natural for a man to want to be a god. The problem is, being a god is really hard...
Frankly, I wouldn't want the job. As a radio preacher I once heard succinctly put it "you don't have to be god anymore" when accepting Christ; he takes the position for you, letting you rest. It's way too much work, and there are too many mistakes to be made.
Which is why, no matter how many programs the left puts in place, new problems arise on top of the old ones, which never seem to be solved. Every liberal solution makes things worse. They simply cannot accept that their reason is limited, their power limited, that the world is not perfectible.
Man is not here to enjoy life. Life has a very different purpose, yet liberal Christians seek to create a just social order to create a paradise that cannot exist. Especially true in Catholicism, one does not really want a paradise on Earth because it means more time spent in remediation for sin in the afterlife. That's not to say that we are to make things hard on people; our duty is to help others, to show love for others. It's as much a duty for us as for the other person; we need to become loving people, not selfish jerks. But we must accept that "the poor you will always have with you" and that suffering is going to be a part of life. We will never defeat it, any more than we will defeat gravity by wishing it away. Our task is to do the best we can and leave the rest to God.
That is something liberal Christians are unwilling to do.
If the Lord is my shepherd, then we don't need government to tell us what to do. There is only one shepherd, and the EPA isn't HIm.
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 6:46 AM
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