Friday, March 29, AD 2024 5:36am

Poverty and abortion on an equal footing?

Way back in 2005, then-Msgr. Robert W. McElroy wrote an article published in America in which he argued that Catholic public officials who endorse the legalization of abortion should not be denied communion. The then-Monsignor’s fear? He wrote:

The imposition of eucharistic sanctions solely on candidates who support abortion legislation will inevitably transform the church in the United States, in the minds of many, into a partisan, Republican-oriented institution and thus sacrifice the role that the church has played almost alone in American society in advocating a moral agenda that transcends the political divide.

Msgr. McElroy must have had then-Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in mind when writing that gem.

McElroy
The Most Reverend Robert W. McElroy
Auxiliary Bishop
Archdiocese of San Francisco

Well, that was then and the-now Auxiliary Bishop of San Francisco, the Most Reverend Robert W. McElroy, is once again writing in AmericaThis time, he’s arguing that the Church in the United States “must elevate the issue of poverty to the very top of its political agenda, establishing poverty alongside abortion as the pre-eminent moral issues the U.S. Catholic community pursues at this moment in the nation’s history.”

With Pope Francis serving as his inspiration, Bishop McElroy writes:

If the Catholic Church is truly to be a “church for the poor” in the United States, it must elevate the issue of poverty to the very top of its political agenda, establishing poverty alongside abortion as the pre-eminent moral issues the Catholic community pursues at this moment in our nation’s history. Both abortion and poverty countenance the deaths of millions of children in a world where government action could end the slaughter. Both abortion and poverty, each in its own way and to its own degree, constitute an assault on the very core of the dignity of the human person, instrumentalizing life as part of a throwaway culture. The cry of the unborn and the cry of the poor must be at the core of Catholic political conversation in the coming years because these realities dwarf other threats to human life and dignity that confront us today.

Arguing that “both abortion and poverty countenance the deaths of millions of children in a world where government action could end the slaughter,” Bishop McElroy asks his readers why, if the sanctity of the unborn human life is a doctrinal issue of the Church and, therefore, requires faithful Catholics to defend it in the public square, Catholics do not feel equally compelled to demand that their government fund social justice programs in the United States and abroad?

To answer that question, a brief review of the reasons McElroy provided in 2005 regarding why political leaders who support abortion legislation should not be denied Holy Communion is necessary:

  • it would be perceived as coercive;
  • it would identify abortion as a specifically Catholic issue and play into the hands of those who accuse the pro-life movement of imposing religious tenets upon Americans;
  • it would make it appear that abortion defines the church’s social agenda; and,
  • it would “cast the church as a partisan actor in the American political system.”

That was then, but now when the issue is “poverty,” McElroy writes in his current piece:

Choices by citizens or public officials that systematically, and therefore unjustly, decrease governmental financial support for the poor clearly reject core Catholic teachings on poverty and economic justice. Policy decisions that reduce development assistance to the poorest countries reject core Catholic teachings. Tax policies that increase rather than decrease inequalities reject core Catholic teachings.

Bishop McElroy’s conclusion? The “categorical nature of Catholic teaching on economic justice is clear and binding” (italics added).

Economic justice trumps justice for the unborn?

In The Motley Monk’s estimation, Bishop McElory is dead wrong for two reasons:

First: In the 2004 memorandum to the U.S. bishops titled “Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion — General Principles” then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote:

3. Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia. (italics added)

Second: Catholic moral theology holds that moral principles expressed in the negative (“Thou shalt not…”) are generally more binding than moral principles stated in the affirmative (“Thou shalt…”). It’s easy to see why this is the case. A precept expressed in the negative tells me one thing that I may not do, but one expressed in the affirmative does not tell me exactly what I must do; it merely expresses an end goal. For example, the commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother” does not tell me how to do that.

As this principle is applied to abortion, the obligation not to commit abortion has greater moral clarity than, for example, the obligation to provide healthcare for the poor, to solve hunger, or to stop the melting of glaciers. These latter precepts do not imply a clear obligation. Men and women of good will can and will legitimately disagree about the best ways to address issues like healthcare, hunger, and the melting of glaciers.

Congressional as well as United Nations committees debate, and even legislate policies for dealing with issues like these. Individual bishops as well as national bishops’ conferences may very well agree with these policies and propose that Catholics support them. But, bishops cannot morally obligate anyone to do so.

Why not?

If Catholics believe there are better ways to address these issues than through the particular government programs that the bishops support (programs which, by the way, demonstrably involve enormous waste), Catholics are free—arguably, morally obliged—to opt for other ways to reach these laudable ethical goals than the means urged by the bishops.

In contrast, abortion is wrong in an absolute sense. Bishops and national bishops’ conferences can bind the faithful to oppose the legalization and government funding of abortion because the evil involved in the practice is absolutely clear and because defined Church teaching states so.

Examined from this perspective, when Bishop McElory writes that the “categorical nature of Catholic teaching on economic justice is clear and binding,” and deduces from this an obligation morally binding on Catholics to support specific government policies, he is not only wrong but also is making a mockery of Catholic moral theology as well as Catholic magisterial teaching.

The Motley Monk wonders whether Bishop McElroy wants it both ways, just like those Democrat pro-abortion Catholic politicians.

******

To read Bishop McElroy’s recent article in America, click on the following link:
http://www.americamagazine.org/church-poor

To read then-Msgr. McElroy’s article about not denying Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians, click on the following link:
http://americamagazine.org/node/147154

To read then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s 2004 memorandum, click on the following link:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/cdfworthycom.htm

To read The Motley Monk’s daily blog, Omnibus, click on the following link:
http://www.richard-jacobs-blog.com/omnibus.html

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deltaflute
deltaflute
Thursday, October 24, AD 2013 1:01pm

Perhaps the good Monseigneur forgets that there is a difference between extreme poverty and poverty. I assume he is referring to extreme poverty. Usually thats tied up with political issues in 3rd world contries. Often tyrants steal aid food. So is he advocating alignments with tyrants? How exactly does he hope to accomplish eradicating extreme poverty? War? Not sure he’s thought that through especially since he thinks the US should just share.

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Thursday, October 24, AD 2013 1:13pm

[…] Baran, MPRN A Married Mom & Dad Really Do Matter: New Evidence f/Canada – Crisis Poverty & Abortion on an Equal Footing? – The Motley Monk, TACatholic And the Candidates for President & Vice-President. . . […]

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Thursday, October 24, AD 2013 1:15pm

[…] at The American Catholic there is an entry by my friend The Motley Monk which needs your close […]

Paul W Primavera
Thursday, October 24, AD 2013 2:15pm

John 12:1-8

1* Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 There they made him a supper; Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment. 4* But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii * and given to the poor?” 6* This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was put into it. 7* Jesus said, “Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. 8 The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”

Pinky
Pinky
Thursday, October 24, AD 2013 2:24pm

Even if you were to argue that poverty and abortion are on an equal footing (I say “if” but I don’t think you can), it can’t be denied that the US has done more to alleviate poverty than any nation in history, or that the US has at least since 1973 promoted abortion inside and outside its borders. And this is a question about US politics, right? Let’s have a few years where we spend a trillion dollars per year on anti-abortion programs, then renegotiate the footing of abortion versus poverty.

Maybe that should be our deal. Put them both on equal footing. Have the UN have anti-abortion conferences, create a Peace Corps for the purpose of eliminating abortion worldwide, and build our tax code around support for those who might otherwise have abortions. Mandate that states match federal spending in anti-abortion programs. Set up a Department of Health and Human Life, and a Bureau of Indian Anti-Abortion Affairs commissioned to eradicate abortion on Indian reservations. Make it a deal-breaker in national politics: if you’re not anti-abortion, you’re not a legitimate candidate. That’d be an equal footing.

WK Aiken
WK Aiken
Thursday, October 24, AD 2013 2:50pm

The bishop may have gotten something right, without even knowing it. Since most poverty in this country is caused by government programs and waste, then to deny Communion to those responsible for poverty should be on par with denying Communion for those in favor of abortion.

They’re the same people.

Salvelinus
Salvelinus
Thursday, October 24, AD 2013 3:01pm

Comments like this bring so much scandal to the Church…. Its not even funny. I cant tell you the number of people that come up to me thinking that “The Church is okay with Abortion now” – When the biggest abortion cheerleaders are catholic (Biden/Pelosi/Cuomo/Kennedy’s, etc) it just makes it so much worse when an auxiliary Bishop confirms and validates the aforementioned.

Don the Kiwi
Don the Kiwi
Thursday, October 24, AD 2013 5:11pm

And this guy is a bishop? God help us.
Michael Voris will be onto him – if he’s not already.

DJ Hesselius
DJ Hesselius
Thursday, October 24, AD 2013 5:42pm

I too think that poverty is a serious issue which deserves a great deal more attention than it gets. Many of my friends are not doing so well for a variety of reasons. TO A PERSON, all of them would be doing better under a less regulated, lowered taxed economy–precisely what the bishops seem not to want.

I fear for one of my children who is seriously LD. Will there be any jobs he can do when he gets to that point? It is only 8 years away, maybe less. It is nearly impossible to belong to a Church whose leadership is helping to rob your children of their future.

Darwin
Darwin
Thursday, October 24, AD 2013 5:42pm

Along with everything else, he’s simply got his facts wrong when he says “both abortion and poverty countenance the deaths of millions of children in a world where government action could end the slaughter”. The only thing that kills “millions” or even “hundreds of thousands” of children in this country is abortion. One of the wonderful things about our modern age is that so few people die of want anymore. I’m not sure that you could argue that even “thousands” of children die in our country due to poverty anymore.

tamsin (was: old girl)
tamsin (was: old girl)
Thursday, October 24, AD 2013 5:53pm

Whenever I hear “poverty causes abortions; end poverty and you will end abortion”, I wonder: okay, how much do we have to pay? Name the price, for a baby delivered to term, at which point we can all agree the mother is not in poverty so she doesn’t have to have to kill the baby. Since the people who push poverty-causes-abortion must believe money-stops-abortions. So let’s put a price tag on it all. Skip all the spiritual wrangling, since it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person anyway. This is a pocketbook issue.

Just thinking out loud.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, October 25, AD 2013 4:53am

Darwin

According to the World Food Programme, “Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five – 3.1 million children each year.”

Although estimates vary, no one seriously challenges that the figure is in the millions.

Botolph
Botolph
Friday, October 25, AD 2013 6:18am

As I “argued” on this subject at this site the other day, I don’t think there has to be an “either/or” when speaking of abortion and poverty. However, there can be no doubt or equivocation that abortion or any other form of direct taking of innocent human life is a far greater evil.

The bishop’s statement concerning poverty reveals a certain reading of “poverty” which sees the subject in a socio-economic category. Certainly thee Gospel tradition would not exclude this socio-economic understanding when it speaks of “the poor” but by no means can be limited by it. For example, “Blessed are you poor” of Luke’s Gospel, and “Blessed are the poor in spirit” found in Matthew’s (see Luke 6 and Matthew 5). There can be no doubt that there is bountiful evidence in the Gospels of the need to respond to the suffering and needs of others. Even simply failing to respond is said to lead to the eternal loss of the Kingdom (the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 17).

I do have serious concerns however when a bishop or group of bishops make the jump between a moral principle and a particular piece of legislation. For. Example we believe that people have the right to health care. However it is a jump of unbelievable proportions to equate this moral principle with Obamacare, especially when we witness the secularist State’s aggressive stand against the Catholic Health Care System..

The bishop’s (bishops) role is to teach the moral principle involved on a particular issue. While it is important to move beyond principle to reality, I do not believe an understanding of the bishop’s (bishops) charisma and mission as found in Vatican II, supports a reading enabling the bishop(s) to equate certain pieces of legislation with those principles. For example the bishops need to keep the needs of the poor before legislators when issues of spending cuts is on the table. However, who can rightly argue that any cut back in governmental spending is automatically an attack on the poor. The Gospel mandate does not.call for the establishment of the democratic socialist state.

DJ Hesselius
DJ Hesselius
Friday, October 25, AD 2013 6:54am

Do people really have a “right to health care” though? If they do, doesn’t that mean that someone is required to be a doctor, nurse, dentist, or other health care practitioner? In many areas, there are ob/gyn shortages, although there may not be shortages in other specialties. Are we going to require the urologists living in areas with ob/gyn shortages to learn how to deliver a baby? (I suspect they have a good idea of how to do so, and may in fact do so in the ER on occasion.) Or do a complicated C-section?

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, October 25, AD 2013 7:47am

Property and its distribution has been the issue since the day Adam and Eve were thrown out of Eden.

It is all about economics (study the distribution of limited assets/resources/supplies among relatively unlimited wants/demands) and politics, which essentially is coercion and fraud/venality.

Nowhere in the Bible or the Apostolic Teachings of Church Fathers does it say you may delegate to Caesar those good works which you must perform for your brothers.

Here is one view of how it has worked since, say, fourth century before Christ Athens.

There evolve three main groupings.

The rich strive to preserve their wealth and try to exploit both the regime and the masses for their profit (think too big to fail, Buffett, Gates, Soros). Would we call them the oligarchic extreme?

The poor strive (through politicians/demagogues) to convert property to the regime and then to themselves (think Obama, Acorn, Democrat party). Would we call this the democratic/populist extreme?

The middle class: farmers, artisans, productive people are (not for long then or now) comfortabe and satisfied with their work and lives. They, when motivated/organized, generally oppose the democrat and oligarchic extremes. Would that be the reason both the democrat/populist and oligarchic extremes call tea party patriots, “teabaggers”?

Missy
Missy
Friday, October 25, AD 2013 8:06am

I really hate to be such a simpleton and I hate to admit this, but in my own teeny, tiny world, when my taxes & health insurance costs go up, along with all my other bills, my donations go down. To me, it seems very easy to figure out a way to “help the poor” by getting the government out of it. It really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that when people have less disposable income, they can’t help as much as they’d like. And when the government takes in more money than ever, and poor people are getting poorer, something is wrong.
Last Sunday at our parish, a man, who is the head of our Homeless Outreach, said that there are more homeless than ever in Baltimore. The first thing that popped into my mind was, “Thanks, Obama.” Unfortunately, no one else really (in real life, at least) seems to see the correlation. I read more than enough liberal comments about how they believe that the government really is taking care of the poor and if you’re against higher taxes then you hate the poor. I cannot understand that. And they cannot understand the opposite view.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, October 25, AD 2013 8:43am

T Shaw

As to the distribution of property, Saint Thomas says, ”Community of goods is ascribed to the natural law, not that the natural law dictates that all things should be possessed in common and that nothing should be possessed as one’s own: but because the division of possessions is not according to the natural law, but rather arose from human agreement [secundum humanum condictum] which belongs to positive law, as stated above (57, 2,3). Hence the ownership of possessions is not contrary to the natural law, but an addition thereto devised by human reason.” [ST IIa IIae Q66, II,obj 1] This would appear to allow legislators a wide margin of appreciation in framing such laws.

This view was revived in the 18th century. Thus, we have the great classical scholar, Charles Rollin (1661-1741), “Theft was permitted in Sparta. It was severely punished among the Scythians. The reason for this difference is obvious: the law, which alone determines the right to property and the use of goods, granted a private individual no right, among the Scythians, to the goods of another person, whereas in Sparta the contrary was the case.”

You can see this principle everywhere enunciated in the French Revolution, often described as a bourgeois revolution. Take Mirabeau (a moderate) “Property is a social creation. The laws not only protect and maintain property; they bring it into being [elles la font naître]; they determine its scope and the extent that it occupies in the rights of the citizens.” So, too, Robespierre (not a moderate) “In defining liberty, the first of man’s needs, the most sacred of his natural rights, we have said, quite correctly, that its limit is to be found in the rights of others. Why have you not applied this principle to property, which is a social institution, as if natural laws were less inviolable than human conventions?”

Jay Anderson
Friday, October 25, AD 2013 8:46am

As I said on a similar thread here the other day, I’d be willing to bet that all of us commenting here who are “obsessed” with abortion are also 100% in favor of doing what we can to end (though Jesus said the poor would always be with us) or alleviate poverty, though we may disagree on what is the best solution for doing so.

Can Nancy Pelosi and her ilk claim the same thing with respect to abortion?

spambot3049
spambot3049
Saturday, October 26, AD 2013 7:37am

Not disagreeing with you, Jay that commenters here favor active efforts to eradicate poverty. Too often elsewhere, Christian commenters of the libertarian stripe oppose all government efforts against poverty, quote Mark 14: 7 [″For you always have the poor with you…”] in support of their position, then walk away without offering a concrete solution of their own. I understand that heavy-handed intervention by the government can be (often is) disastrous and counterproductive in the long-term, but what do we do about the short term? The hungry and the homeless can only wait so long for the economy to improve.

For my own part, I definitely favor private, charitable giving to good aid organizations that are ready and willing to help. But what happens when the depth of the crisis exceeds the magnitude of charitable giving? Not-a-libertarians such as myself cannot resist suggesting that tax-supported government programs might be the second best option available.

Back on topic:
I/we here support denial of Holy Communion from the “personally opposed to abortion” politicians: those who accept money from the industry and vote against even the most modest restrictions. What do we say about the “personally opposed to poverty” types who oppose welfare programs but who offer no solution of their own?

[I don’t mean to be a troll here. Terse replies and/or links to articles explaining “the answer” are fine by me. I don’t intend to argue with every reply.]

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, October 26, AD 2013 10:07am

How far a purely voluntary system of poor relief can be relied on, it is difficult to say.

As far as Church history is concerned, the duty of paying tithe was insisted on by St Jerome and St Augustine and by Caesarius, Archbishop of Aries (503-544). However, it does not appear to have been enforced by any ecclesiastical penalty, until the Council of Rouen in 630.

In the following century, we have an ordinance made by Charlemagne as King of the Franks, in a general assembly of his Estates, spiritual and temporal, in 778-779, that any outline of the history of tithes must start. The ordinance was in the following terms: “Concerning tithes, it is ordained that every man give his tithe, and that they be dispensed according to the bishop’s commandment.” A Capitular for Saxony in 789 appointed tithes to be paid out of all public property, and that all men, “whether noble, or gentle, or of lower degree,” should “give according to God’s commandment, to the churches and priests, of their substance and labour: as God has given to each Christian, so ought he to repay a part to God.” A Capitular of 800 made the payment of tithes universal within the fiscal domain of the whole Frankish kingdom. In 829, both the Emperor Louis the Simple and Lothair for Lombardy made payment enforceable by distraint, like debts due to the Fisc.

From this time onwards, therefore, we may say the civil law superseded any merely spiritual admonitions as to the payment of tithes. Their payment was no longer a religious duty alone; it was a legal obligation, enforceable by the laws of the civil head of Christendom.

In France, the ordinance of 778-779 remained in force until 1789, 1,010 years.

trackback
Saturday, October 26, AD 2013 10:07am

[…] couple days ago I posted about a response made by a writer at The American Catholic to an auxiliary bishop of San Francisco, Most. Rev. Robert McElroy, who – mirabile visu […]

Mary De Voe
Saturday, October 26, AD 2013 10:08am

Spambot3049: Separation of church and state has forced you to stop invoking Divine Providence. When the government has and may help the poor, the government is practicing the virtue of charity. Charity, all the virtues, are the domain of the church, so the government may and ought to engage church participation, which it has done with the HHS Mandate but to serve the devil instead of God. The opposition to the HHS Mandate is separation of church and state. The government does not have authentic authority to direct the charitable giving of any citizen, to impose the government concept of God or to divide the conscience of man from “their Creator.” In five years all citizens will be required to opt into Obamacare, like it or not.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, October 26, AD 2013 10:16am

Mary De Voe

And yet Charlemagne’s Capitular was greeted by Pope Leo III and the assembled clergy with cries of “Life and victory to the ever-august Charles, crowned by God, great and pacific emperor!”

Paul D
Paul D
Saturday, October 26, AD 2013 9:39pm

Priests like Msgr. Robert W. McElroy are a plague upon the Church and cause no end to human suffering on earth. Of the many dimensions of exegesis that could illuminate Mark 14: 7, one of the first has to be the inherent moral, spiritual, theological and political dangers of trying to establish a utopia through the City of Man.

Foxfier
Admin
Saturday, October 26, AD 2013 11:43pm

Michael Paterson-Seymour-
that is an estimate of world wide; Darwin specifically said “in this country” and “in our country.”

I suppose we could mostly get rid of world poverty by invading, killing off the guys who keep food from reaching the kids, rebuilding the country so it can produce its own food, etc…but I don’t think that’d be too very popular. (Well, maybe if we did it to North Korea. Never mind.)

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Sunday, October 27, AD 2013 5:41am

Foxfier

But Bishop McElroy said that ““both abortion and poverty countenance the deaths of millions of children in a world where government action could end the slaughter,” and of Catholics demanding that “their government fund social justice programs in the United States and abroad…”

No one is suggesting this is a task for just one country; as Pope Paul VI asked in Populorum Progressio (1967), “Who can fail to see the need and importance of thus gradually coming to the establishment of a world authority, capable of taking effective action on the juridical and political planes?” Catholics, as part of a world-wide faith community are well placed to advance this goal, in collaboration with other Christians and with people of good will everywhere.

Foxfier
Admin
Sunday, October 27, AD 2013 12:16pm

MPS-
you corrected Darwin on something he didn’t say.

CAM
CAM
Monday, October 28, AD 2013 12:23am

The fact is even if poverty were totally eliminated, we would still have in utero babies murdered in this country. Basically it’s a lack of respect for life.
I don’t remember the exact statistics on the demographics but it’s not just poor women who abort, although Planned Parenthood, following the bigoted ideas of its founder Margaret Sanger, concentrates its clinics in inner cities.
The very few women I know who’ve had abortions were Caucasian, married, educated and of upper middle incomes. I have two friends whose husbands wanted them to abort because the pregnancies were inconvenient, but the women refused and carried their babies to term. All these couples are now divorced.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Monday, October 28, AD 2013 1:35am

A Capitular for Saxony in 789 appointed tithes to be paid out of all public property, and that all men, “whether noble, or gentle, or of lower degree,” should “give according to God’s commandment, to the churches and priests, of their substance and labour: as God has given to each Christian, so ought he to repay a part to God.”

How many Saxons died before the Franks could compel christian charity out of the rest?

Don L
Don L
Monday, October 28, AD 2013 4:07am

Regarding poverty–a very different evil than deliberate abortion:

The Church demanding “government” (Caesar) action to solve poverty ignores, which sidesteps two very important points.

One: There is that pesky “Principle of Subsidiarity” which the USCCB conveniently ignored in forcing Obamacare upon us all (the Stupak fiasco) only to find the socialist state committing grave evil against the very Church that allowed them the weapon–hardly the stuff of bishops being “…as cunning as serpents.”

The USCCB also has difficulty in comprehending the encyclical writings of Pope John Paul Ii in which he called the Welfare State the “evil” that it is.

It is through charity that the Church must work to alleviate the poor–educate the moral issues among the flack and the laity will handle the role of politics. That includes-illegal immigration which according to the Catholic Catechism is the business of the laity.

Perhaps these Bishops ought to be focusing on the millions of Catholic dollars that were given in sacrifice to the poor that only served to help Obama get elected (ACORN) and insuring the flock very publicly that such errors (intentional or otherwise) can never again occur.

Then there’s the issue of a tainted Catholic Relief Services which a pope had to warn us about.

Charity must be scrubbed pure of it’s leftist politics to really help the poor.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Monday, October 28, AD 2013 4:22am

Don L

But Pope Paul VI teaches “Individual initiative alone and the interplay of competition will not ensure satisfactory development. We cannot proceed to increase the wealth and power of the rich while we entrench the needy in their poverty and add to the woes of the oppressed. Organized programs are necessary for “directing, stimulating, coordinating, supplying and integrating” ( John XXIII, Encyc.letter Mater et Magistra: AAS 53 (1961), 414.) the work of individuals and intermediary organizations.

It is for the public authorities to establish and lay down the desired goals, the plans to be followed, and the methods to be used in fulfilling them; and it is also their task to stimulate the efforts of those involved in this common activity. But they must also see to it that private initiative and intermediary organizations are involved in this work. In this way they will avoid total collectivization and the dangers of a planned economy which might threaten human liberty and obstruct the exercise of man’s basic human rights.” (Populorum Progressio 33)

He also sees the need for action, not only at the national, but at the international level, for he asks, “Who can fail to see the need and importance of thus gradually coming to the establishment of a world authority capable of taking effective action on the juridical and political planes?” (Populorum Progressio 78)

Don Schenk
Don Schenk
Monday, October 28, AD 2013 8:54am

Remember back when the bishops were in favor of the living wage? Well, supporting illegal immigration means supporting flooding the labor market at a time when the “labor participation rate” is at it’s lowest in 34 years–so supporting flooding the labor market means supporting driving more Americans into poverty.

Spambot3049
Spambot3049
Monday, October 28, AD 2013 10:53am

“Then there’s the issue of a tainted Catholic Relief Services which a pope had to warn us about.”

The recent controvery about CRS aired by LifeSiteNews and the Population Research Institute has been effectively rebutted, in my view, by several bishops in Africa who say the allegations are untrue. The CRS website contains various statements, explanations of their expenditures and rebuttals. I am satisfied that CRS is a prolife charity.

(I realize this item is off-topic.)

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, October 28, AD 2013 3:40pm

Don Schenk: Generally, bishops aren’t economists (largely hokum, anyhow – i have no respect for the field), nor was Thomas Aquinas.

Milton Friedman: “You can have open borders or you can have the welfare state; but not both.”

Regarding the venal parody (no sic) of poverty’s moral equality with abortion: The Gospel (contemporary edit of Matt. 25): “I told YOU to feed the poor . . . not make laws that steal from people to do it.” From Dan Mitchell’s piece “Libertarian Jesus.”

Bernd
Bernd
Monday, October 28, AD 2013 10:13pm

Perhaps the good bishop should share his feelings directly with Rome before publishing heresies regarding abortion in the US. I’m sure that once given guidance he will repent and “clarify” his thoughts. All Catholics must take a stand to stop murder of the unborn.
Abortion is not a tool to fight poverty.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Tuesday, October 29, AD 2013 10:11am

Bernd

Is not his Excellency simply following the Holy Father’s lead? “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion… But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context.” And, again, “The most serious evils currently afflicting the world are unemployment among young and the solitude in which the elderly are left…”

Cynthia A.
Cynthia A.
Tuesday, October 29, AD 2013 5:30pm

Corrupt governments and rigid class systems create ailing/failing economies which lead to high rates of unemployment or as we used to say, joblessness. Large number of aimless males lead to wars. A simplication perhaps. In my state candidates for governor on down were asked their opinion on a proposed law banning abortion for gender selection. Only the republicans supported such a law; from the other political parties’ candidates the answers were NR.

trackback
Friday, November 1, AD 2013 9:25am

[…] what MSW calls a “shell game.” In MSW’s opinion, The Motley Monk’s analysis published in The American Catholic doesn’t delve sufficiently into “the weeds of facticity.”  MSW then goes on to […]

Micha Elyi
Micha Elyi
Sunday, November 3, AD 2013 2:58am

West Coast Walk for Life takes place in San Francisco and now the auxiliary bishop there turns it all into a sham.

Denis Wilde
Sunday, November 3, AD 2013 9:58pm

Social justice begins in the womb. It’s as simple as that. Certainly it does not end there, but psychologically, chronologically, biologically, morally and any other way you can slice it or spin it, all other dimensions of justice seeking must begin with the tiniest embryo.
Fr Denis Wilde, osa
Associate Director
Priests for Life

Foxfier
Monday, November 4, AD 2013 8:53am

The best thumbnail of social justice as a teaching, rather than a hammer for liberal policies, is “creating a society where each can attain their due justice.” Being killed– at any point– clearly violates that. Slavery, either direct or by taking too much from anyone who happens to get successful, violates that. Treating folks as components in a theory, as machine parts, as robots to be trouble-shot by flow chart with no recognition of THEM, ditto. Leaving folks to rot because they had bad luck of one sort or another, etc…..

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