It's always interesting when an American Catholic bishop gives his colleagues the finger, so we would be remiss in not calling your attention to the full-throated defense of Paul Ryan that Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield Ill. offered up to the St. Thomas More Society of Green Bay after the Red Mass last week.
Paprocki's purpose was to defend the GOP vice-presidential nominee against persistent charges by progressive Catholic intellectuals that the free-market bludgeon he's been wielding at government programs for the needy is at odds with Catholic social teaching. Not at all, quoth Paprocki, for while the Church has certain timeless principles to which all must adhere (e.g. the need to care for the poor), it's a matter of prudential judgment how such principles are put into effect.
As in:
Bishops Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, California, and Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, chairmen of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development and the Committee on International Justice and Peace, respectively, urging Congress to resist proposed cuts in hunger and nutrition programs. In their April 16, 2012 letter to the Chairmen of the Senate Appropriationsubcommittee for Agriculture, Rural Development Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, Bishops Blaire and Pates wrote, “A central moral measure of any budget proposal is how it affects ‘the least of these’ (Matthew 25).” Here, quoting the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, the Bishops were stating a binding principle of the divine moral law as taught by Christ himself, that is, whether or not we fed the hungry during our lifetime will be one of the criteria by which we are judged at the Last Judgment. Later in the letter they say, “The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamps), received a $2 billion cut made to the reserve fund in the 2010 child nutrition bill. Restoration of funding is necessary as families continue to struggle with joblessness and poverty.” Here, they are not speaking of necessity in the sense that voting for this program would be necessary for salvation. They are simply making a prudential judgment that this program is a necessary practical means to feed the hungry. However, reasonable minds can come to different conclusions about more effective ways to alleviate hunger.
So, like, if it's not necessary for salvation, then go ahead and blow off what the bishops (not to mention the current redistributionist pope) have to say about it. It would be nice to hear Bishops Blaire and Pates (and their respective USCCB committees) respond to this undermining of what Bishop Paprocki calls the social magisterium.
If the magisterium were simply about enunciating timeless principles then why bother with it at all? To say that Paul Ryan's approach to government policy is at odds with Catholic teaching is not to condemn him to eternal damnation. It's to say that it's at odds with Catholic teaching. Bellini's allegory notwithstanding, prudence does not mean indifference.
Paul Becke | Sep 24, 2012 | 5:49pm
I unequivocally take issue with the bishop’s characterisation of care of the poor as a matter of prudential judgment. What prudential judgement did the widow show with her proverbial mite? Shame on her!
A brief compendium on Catholic teaching on social justice:
http://www.vinnies.org.au/files/pdfs/National/SocialJustice/20050630-SJ_CatholicTeachingonSocialJustice.pdf
pbecke | Sep 24, 2012 | 6:06pm
I unequivocally take issue with the bishop’s characterisation of care of the poor as a matter of prudential judgment. What prudential judgement did the widow show with her proverbial mite? Shame on her!
A brief compendium on Catholic teaching on social justice:
http://www.vinnies.org.au/files/pdfs/National/SocialJustice/20050630-SJ_CatholicTeachingonSocialJustice.pdf
It is neither a matter of prudential judgment, nor a counsel of perfection; it is a sine qua non, a bounden duty of the worldly-wise to succour their more spiritual brothers and sisters in their need - from the money they have garnered, at the expense of the the latter.
Abraham Lincoln also made a telling point:
‘Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.’
- December 3, 1861, Abrahan Lincoln’s first annual message to Congress
In fact, the one percent have so skewed the Western economies, polarizing their country’s wealth, in favour of the ‘rentier’sector, the stockholders, that employment opportunities have been decimated, as a direct result of their greed.
—December 3, 1861 - Lincoln’s First Annual Message to Congress
ctd | Sep 25, 2012 | 10:25am
Though I would take issue with a few statements in Bishop Propocki’s homily, it is not a “full-throated defense” of the Ryan plan. In fact, he avoids championing the plan itself. Rather, he merely makes the case that the plan might be one way among many to further the Church’s social teaching.
Most of the homily is an accurate restatement of the Church’s social doctrine. It does not conflict with the statement from USCCB since no one, including Bishops Blaire and Pates, would argue that the statement is doctrine, i.e., part of the magisterium. The statement, arguably like Ryan’s budget plan, is a prudential application of the doctrine.
Although embracing prudential judgment as an excuse for indifference is a serious problem today, Bishop Propocki’s homily does not embrace that error.
For what its worth, the beginning of the homily seems to suggest that parts of the Church’s social teachings are exercises of prudential judgment. This would be inaccurate and the bishop seems to state otherwise later on in the homily. Other than that, it is mostly an accurate restatement of Catholic social doctrine.
Doc Fox | Sep 25, 2012 | 1:08pm
Someone who thinks Rep Ryan’s actual proposed budget in any sense is good for the poor, the sick, the stranger, the child, the senior, is substantially detached from reality. Period.
Marcello | Sep 25, 2012 | 1:18pm
The Catholic Church means well. But the economic policies they endorse are immensely inefficient, often corrupt, and can have long-term consequences that are devastating to the poor. It’s utterly cruel to pretend otherwise, yet that’s what the Church calls us to do. We must bury our conscience in the sand, along with our intellect. The Magisterium has spoken!
But we’ll soon need to feed 8 billion, 9 billion, 10 billion people on this planet. Who seriously believes that institutional welfare will even come close to providing for their basic needs? Private enterprise, however imperfect and unfashionable it may be, has done far more to feed the hungry than two millennia of Christian charity.
There may be a remedy for the suffering in this world. But it will be found through innovation, not prostration. And we cannot wait for the Church to recognize this.
Neil | Sep 25, 2012 | 2:28pm
I read Jesus’ words as mandatory not optional. Maybe the bishops have a new edition.
Steve | Sep 25, 2012 | 10:39pm
“Thy kingdom come…on earth as it is in heaven…” But let’s be sure that none of that gets in the way of even LARGER tax breaks for the wealthy. Let’s be sure that Paul Ryan has an opportunity to shred the social safety net which, for instance, offers Social Security survivor’s benefits to children whose parents die before the child reaches eighteen—which, in fact, Paul Ryan’s mother drew on his behalf after his father’s untimely and tragic death. Tax breaks for the rich, and make them bigger! And if that God’s kingdom on earth stuff works out somehow, hey, that’s nice too.
Paul Becke | Oct 8, 2012 | 6:32pm
No. I think Jesus was really advocating what anthropologists call a division of labour:
‘I will rescue the poor man, the widow and the orphan from their oppressors.’ You just carry on oppressing them.’
In fact, again and again we find references in the Old Testament to the rich man, in apposition to ‘the wicked’, and the poor man in apposition to the virtuous man, the godly, the true Israel. Nowhere, of course, is his close association more starkly expressed than in reference to Christ’s burial:
‘He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. - Isiah 53:9
And this, mark you, was written in the context of a good, rich man’s liberality towards Jesus, so it’s significance should in no wise be understated.
In otehr words, encouraging the rich to seek further riches is a sin against three of the seven spiritual works of mercy:
To instruct the ignorant;
To counsel the doubtful;
To admonish sinners;
Paul Becke | Oct 8, 2012 | 6:35pm
Incidentally, in those same passages, it is noteworthy that violence and deceit are evoked in reference to economic oppression.