Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 12:16pm

PopeWatch: They Are Noticing

VATICAN-POPE-AUDIENCE

 

 

Hmmm, this is interesting.  More and more people on the left are waking up to the fact that Pope Francis is not necessarily a useful idiot for their side.  Amanda Marcotte, a pro-abort fanatic and anti-Catholic bigot who was thrown off the John Edwards campaign for her suggestion that the Virgin Mary should have used Plan B, writes at Slate:

Barbie Latza Nadeau of the Daily Beast reports that under Pope Francis, the Vatican shows no sign of laying off the crackdown on American nuns who Pope Benedict claimed were “pushing radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.” Saying he has the full support of Pope Francis, Cardinal Gerhard Müller recently attacked the LCWR for deciding to honor Sister Elizabeth Johnson, a theologian at Fordham University who writes reinterpretations of Catholic theology that emphasize a “living” God that is evolving and who incorporates feminism, environmentalism, and liberation theology into her work. Honoring Johnson “will be seen as a rather open provocation against the Holy See and the doctrinal assessment,” said Müller. “Müller then went on to inform the LCWR that it will be required to get approval from Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, whom Benedict assigned to guide the group through reforms, for almost everything it does that concerns the public,” writes Nadeau.

Go here to read the rest.  The thing about Pope Francis is that he is very much his own man.  PopeWatch has examined, and criticized some, of the stances of the Pope, but he really does not fit into the ideological boxes so useful for political analysis in this country.  While clearly a leftist on economics, Pope Francis does not apparently share the enthusiasm for heterodoxy so common among liberal Catholics in the West, or if he does that fact is not yet clear from an overview of all of his actions as Pope.

 

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Nick
Nick
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 4:44am

I don’t think the Pope has used his position to push leftist economics – to simply iterate that wealth must be distributed equally is a goal of the free market as well – if the current climate of world economics is that wealth is being distributed unevenly (whatever the cause may be), you can, as Pope simply make a call for change. Even if you are a pure laissez-faire libertarian, you would still have to recognize that the coercive power of the state to make laws is itself an intrusion in to the free market (otherwise you just have a black market, not a free one.) No reasonable person argues for non-government- Catholic social doctrine is pretty clear for more than a hundred years that every government has responsibility to ensure heads of families can earn a decent wage, collectively bargain, and so forth… -this would follow natural law in that when any man is born, he has a right to use the land that is his birthright- telling him that due to historical bad luck (or bad genetic inheritance), he will not be able to own any is not moral.
It is not free market economics that some people own all of society and use government regulation to enforce their aristocracy. I can be an anti-crony capitalist and call for “just redistribution of society’s resources.” What are thought of as “redistributive” or “socialist” policies can be completely legitimate balances of power to monopolization, cronyism, and so on.

Nick
Nick
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 6:42am

Shouldn’t you cite a source if you rebut my claim or make a positive claim toward the pope? The Pope did not “put the state in charge” of redistribution, the magisterium did. Have you not read rerum novarum, and the entire social gospel? The state is the economy and it has duties toward it, especially from a Catholic sense. You cannot be libertarian and Catholic, just FYI.

Also, look here for evidence that most of the “free market” policies here in the US are really just crony capitalist policies : http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-slow-death-of-american-entrepreneurship/

Nick
Nick
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 6:53am

That’s just not true and you are not fully embracing Catholic tradition by thinking that way – the ethics of the marketplace are grounded in the ethics of the natural law (grounded in God of course) and the Church’s sole authority, faith and morals, overlaps in to this territory.

Get a good summary here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_social_teaching

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 7:01am

If a market has a goal, is that market really free?

Nick
Nick
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 7:06am

He is not prescribing the best arrangements of the economy; he is merely saying that governments have a moral obligation to distribute resources fairly and that in his opinion, it is not currently happening. He is not advocating socialism, he is not advocating any particular tenet of government whatsoever – you have to understand the difference between practical government and the moral duty behind the practice.
It is not sufficient for the “free hand” of the marketplace to take care of folks – Catholic teaching is very clear that state governments have greater duties than to let things take their course. If you cannot accept this, you are simply engaging in an economic version of cafeteria Catholicism, the same as any pro-choice Catholic.
Don’t get me wrong, I am for low taxes, small government, but as a Catholic I must realize that the Church’s teaching on the duties of the state trump any economic ideology (which I don’t gather you recognize) and there are basic duties that every government must ensure to be considered just under the eyes of the Church and thus under the eyes of God.
You have to realize that Papal encyclicals are binding and free from error, do you not? Do you understand that the links I provided are a summary of encyclicals on the duty of state governments regarding economics?

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 7:08am

For that matter, are markets there to spread the wealth around, or do they exist to distribute goods and services efficiently?

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 7:47am

Finally, who is this “government” or “state government” (if that is his full name) person or persons Nick keeps speaking of, and why are Popes constantly corresponding with him? Is he even Catholic?

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 7:55am

Finally finally (really this time) Why does the Church keep trying to outsource care for the poor to Mr. State Government, whomever he is? Is he better at it? Does he have a better grasp of justice than the Church?

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 8:51am

Ernst Schreiber wrote, “Why does the Church keep trying to outsource care for the poor to Mr. State Government, whomever he is? “
For about a thousand years, Church and “Mr State Government” shared this task. It begins with an ordinance of Charlemagne, as King of the Franks, in a general assembly of his Estates, spiritual and temporal, in 778-779 – “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.
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.
The dime was abolished by the French Revolution in 1789.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 9:13am

I wish I could share your confidence concerning his watchdog approach to doctrine. Muller is the outlier here. He surrounds himself with men who are…more flexible, shall we say.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/deaconsbench/2014/05/i-dont-identify-with-the-expressionless-person-who-stands-outside-the-abortion-clinic-reciting-their-rosary/

Mary De Voe
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 9:33am

This is one of three. I am so angry.
According to Amanda Marcotte: “Cardinal Gerhard Müller recently attacked the LCWR for deciding to honor Sister Elizabeth Johnson, a theologian at Fordham University who writes reinterpretations of Catholic theology that emphasize a “living” God that (THAT???)is evolving and who incorporates
feminism, environmentalism, and liberation theology into her work.”
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Anybody who refers to another person as “THAT, a thing or other entity,” has no business showing her face in public. Persons, especially God, the Creator of sovereign persons, are referred to as “WHO”, “WHO”, I TELL YOU, “WHO”, because these persons are persons. Persons are the image of the Supreme Sovereign Being. It appears that Elizabeth John son has no idea of WHO God is. The students Johnson is educating in error and atheism are sovereign persons as well and need to be educated in the dignity of the Supreme Sovereign Being of Whom Johnson knows nothing. I hope Cardinal Mueller tells Johnson that God is a Trinity of Persons, Whose Name is: “I AM WHO I AM”. And removes Johnson until she is informed of the TRUTH, Who is Jesus Christ. The dumber the individual is, the higher up they go in indoctrination, the devil’s advocate.
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The LCWR advocates and supports female priests in the Catholic Church which would make of the Holy Eucharist, the Body of Christ only a symbol of the Body of Christ, to which Flannery O’Connor said: “If it is only a symbol, it can go to hell” and taking the LCWR with it. The LCWR also advocates for abortion, the destruction of the will of God in the holy soul’s existence in the woman’s womb.
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More Marcotte: “I get the enthusiasm for “cool” Pope Francis, I really do. The idea that there could be a pope who is not clinging to a harshly medieval point of view but ready to move into the modern world is so appealing that of course we’re going to grasp onto any evidence, no matter how tenuous, that suggests that Pope Francis might be the one. Unfortunately, we’re kidding ourselves.”
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Actually the devil is “kidding ourselves”
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Jesus died before all ages. God, the Father, is outside of time and onmipresent to all ages. Get with the agenda Amanda or you will find yourself with the GREAT LIAR for a medieval eternity.
That’s three but there is none more point I must make, but who is counting?
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“Amanda Marcotte, a pro-abort fanatic and anti-Catholic bigot who was thrown off the John Edwards campaign for her suggestion that the Virgin Mary should have used Plan B, writes at Slate:”
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…The Blessed Virgin Mary willed to do God’s will perfectly at her conception. Mary, Christ’s Mother, is called the Immaculate Conception. God gave Mary the grace to fulfill her desire to remain a virgin eternally. Mary gave up all of her will to God and God sent His only Son to her through the Holy Spirit, the love who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and who is a person. This is how God preserved Mary from original sin. It is through Mary’s willing it and the Supreme Sovereign Being acting in her behalf.
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Every person who wills to do God’s will perfectly will be helped by the grace of God to fulfill his destiny and desire as a child of God, brother of Jesus and son and daughter of the Catholic Church. Every one of us, as soon as we know that we have the will to desire God in eternity, have recourse to our Mother Mary, here and in eternity. And we will enjoy and share in the perfect love Mary willed to have for God, and God’s response to Mary’s love, with His only begotten Son, His Word, the TRUTH.
Not only was Jesus begotten of the Holy Spirit but all three Persons of the Blessed Trinity stayed within the Soul of Mary in her sojourn here on earth. Mary had the Beatific Vision in her soul from the first moment of her existence, and to WHOM Mary’s fiat is now and forever.
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This is the why and how of every human being begotten and brought into existence through the will of God, brought into existence in virginity and perfect innocence, the standard of Justice, the compelling interest of the state in protecting and providing for our constitutional posterity. Those who would countermand the will of God, make of mankind a “no people”, “an eternal annihilism”…hell.
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Atheism is unconstitutional.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 9:36am

The civil head of Christendom was also an annointed head back in the day, so it really doesn’t surprise me to hear about the dime, or when it was abolished.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 9:40am

“none more point” one more point. I only make a single mistake when I am furious… the angrier the better. Actually, I work in Word and often catch my mistakes before making my ignorance visible.

Paul W Primavera
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 9:54am

Nick wrote, “…governments have a moral obligation to distribute resources fairly…”

Luke 11:37-41 is the account of Jesus telling the Pharisees to cleanse the inside of the cup instead of merely observing the prescribed washing of the outside. Verse 41 is noteworthy. In the Catholic NAB translation the verse states, “But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.”

The New Latin Vulgate does a perhaps better job, saying, “Verumtamen, quae insunt, date elemosynam et ecce omnia munda sunt vobis.” Literally translated, that means “Rather what is inside give alms and behold all are clean for you.”

The actual Greek word for the Latin “insunt” (the infinitive is “inesse”) or the English “is inside” is “ἔνειμι”. This word means “to be in, what is within, i.e. the soul.”

Thus, what Jesus was telling the Pharisees was to give alms from what is inside the soul. Notice that Jesus did NOT say tax the people to redistribute what they have earned as alms. That never works, as our current government intervention so well demonstrates. Giving alms is NOT wealth redistribution. Giving alms (to be valid and fruitful) must be done out of the love of one’s heart for God and neighbor.

Now many of our Bishops in the USCCB (NOT all) would (like their Pharisee forefathers) have us vote for politicians who take wealth from those who earn to give to those who do not. This they call social justice. But here in Luke 11:41 we clearly see that Jesus told the Pharisees to themselves give from the inside: “Verumtamen, quae insunt, date elemosynam.” That same message applies to those Bishops of the social justice persuasion who have no right to steer in which way the working man’s earnings go.

Social justice starts on the inside. It’s an inside job. It is NOT the job of government to give alms to the poor. That’s OUR job to do VOLUNTARILY. When St. Paul was enjoining the people in the Church at Corinth to equal the Church in Macedonia in giving alms to the holy ones in Jerusalem, he quite correctly pointed out, “Each must do as already determined, without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2nd Corinthians 9:7b). As I recall, this was around the time of one of the famines in the Middle East when Claudius was emperor of Rome, so there was a real need to be met. But Paul did not demand that Rome tax and spend to rescue the poor in Jerusalem, nor did he confiscate the belongings of the people at the Church in Corinth to give to those in Jerusalem. But that is in effect what our many of our clerics demand. I guess that whether it is said in Greek, Latin or English, such clerics are so enamored with socialism that they can’t understand basic Biblical principle:

πλὴν τὰ ἐνόντα δότε ἐλεημοσύνην, καὶ ἰδοὺ πάντα καθαρὰ ὑμῖν ἐστιν
Verumtamen, quae insunt, date eleemosynam; et ecce omnia munda sunt vobis.
Rather what is inside give alms and behold all are clean for you.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 9:54am

Michael Paterson-Seymour: “From this time onwards, therefore, we may say the civil law superseded any merely spiritual admonitions as to the payment of tithes.”
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Deuteronomy 14: 22-29 on tithing, and Deuteronomy 14: 1-11 on Debts and the Poor, wherein man is instructed by God, to care for the widow and orphan, the levite and to make merry before the Lord.
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Well, now, our Government is making merry without us. Atheism has separated the people from the government and the people from their earnings and the people from their human souls. The devil does not believe in atheism. The government thinks that it owns its constituents, even Satan worshippers. The government owns Satan.
Alas, government cannot take any more than ten percent of our earnings for that is the definition of “tithe”. If God only asks ten percent, how is it that government, a finite construct, needs more????

Mary De Voe
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 9:59am

Paul W. Primavera: I wish I could have said that truth as clearly as you have set the truth forth. God bless, one Hail Mary in Latin.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 10:18am

I added the (CST)’s to the quote.

David P. Goldman at Spengler: “If you corner a (CST) liberal and point to a disaster that followed upon his policy, at very most he will say–-with a tear in the eye and a quivering upper lip–-’We did the right thing.’ It’s all about having done the right thing according to the dogma of the ersatz liberal religion. (CST) liberalism has nothing whatsoever to do with policy and its real-world consequences. Instead of finding salvation on the path of traditional, (CST) liberals look for salvation in a set of right opinions–-on race, the environment, income distribution, or whatever.”

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 10:24am

US market began to stop being free beginning in 1913 (income tax, Federal Reserve Act); the trend accelerated under FDR, and has sped up since to this date.

Here is a short treatment on why government central planning/command economics/control don’t work in the economic sphere.

3/27/2014: Café Hayek, Quotation of the day: “from page 23 of Kenneth Boulding’s 1974 essay “The Dynamics of Legitimacy,” which appears in The Business-Government Relationship: A Reassessment (Neil H. Jacoby, ed., 1975):

“’In capitalist societies the main distinction is that businesses exist primarily in an exchange environment and survive because what they sell has a greater value in the market than its cost. In exchange there is neither obligation nor duty, and either seller or buyer in a potential exchange has a veto that can be exercised without fear of any sanctions, moral or material.

“’Governments, by contrast, even though they do buy and sell, operate in an environment that might be described as one of legitimated threat. Their income is derived mainly from taxes rather than from voluntary exchange; and most people pay their taxes to avoid serious trouble.’”

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 10:34am

“Atheism has separated the people from the government…. ” Mary De Voe

This is the breaking point, the separation of us from our Christendom past, when our governments and governors, though inadequate to the task, tried to be Christian.

The theologian at Fordham masqueraading as Catholic is being unmasked. The attack on the Church from within is showing. Thank God that the leftists are seeing it too. because the more it is talked about and exposed the better the chance that the upcoming generation will once again have holy nuns and sisters who will teach and minister healing.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 11:04am

Social justice starts on the inside. It’s an inside job. It is NOT the job of government to give alms to the poor. That’s OUR job to do VOLUNTARILY.

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That’s because government can’t love –in any sense of the word, including caritas.
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Nor would you want it to. [insert picture of Big Brother here]

Mary De Voe
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 11:23am

“Atheism has separated the people from the government…. ” Mary De Voe This is the breaking point, the separation of us from our Christendom past, when our governments and governors, though inadequate to the task, tried to be Christian.”
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Thank you Anzlyne: When our government separated the people from our Christendom past and Christendom principles, it also separated the people from our Constitutional past and our Constitutional principles.
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When the War on Poverty was begun, it morphed into martial law, which is the suspension of Constitutional principles and people’s civil rights. The circumstances of our existence do not admit to the imposition of martial law or the usurping of authentic authority from the people by the government, which is what imposing the virtue of charity, an expression of man’s conscience is as opposed to a states’ conscience, or rather a government’s conscience which is communism, a failed form of government. Imposing the government’s conscience using martial law, over the citizen’s conscience is communism and totalitarian. Government does not act through man’s conscience because government does not own the individual. Government officials are people, only people, and may not take what is not theirs.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 11:26am

“…the upcoming generation will once again have holy nuns and sisters who will teach and minister healing.”
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My constant prayer

Nick
Nick
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 11:33am

I have yet to see anyone successfully understand how the magisterium works (or in other words: the Church’s role in explaining revelation). Regardless of the personhood of state governments (Mr. Schreiber) or latin translations of the bible (Mr. Primavera), the fact is that the teaching office rests with great authority in the Pope and when he issues an encyclical, it is binding on all of us Catholics as far as matters of doctrine are concerned. Let me remind you guys what Pope John Paul II would consider Church jurisdiction re: economics –

“The Pope immediately adds another right which the worker has as a person. This is the right to a “just wage”, which cannot be left to the “free consent of the parties, so that the employer, having paid what was agreed upon, has done his part and seemingly is not called upon to do anything beyond”.23 It was said at the time that the State does not have the power to intervene in the terms of these contracts, except to ensure the fulfilment of what had been explicitly agreed upon. This concept of relations between employers and employees, purely pragmatic and inspired by a thorough-going individualism, is severely censured in the Encyclical as contrary to the twofold nature of work as a personal and necessary reality. For if work as something personal belongs to the sphere of the individual’s free use of his own abilities and energy, as something necessary it is governed by the grave obligation of every individual to ensure “the preservation of life”. “It necessarily follows”, the Pope concludes, “that every individual has a natural right to procure what is required to live; and the poor can procure that in no other way than by what they can earn through their work”.24″

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_en.html

That is just a small bit of Pope JP2’s summation of Catholic social doctrine (or even what can be considered sound doctrine in opposition to unbridled capitalism) that had been in development in response to modern economics for more than a hundred years. There are at least five major encyclicals (from rerum novarum to caritas in veritate) that speak to it, and you better believe it is on your consciences as Catholics to accept that state governments have obligations to social justice – it is not okay to say that social welfare should solely be left to charity, etcetera, etcetera – if you believe this, you are a heretic, plain and simple.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 11:53am

Nick I hear what you are saying.. and what the pope was saying on the 100th anniversay of Leo’s encyclical. There is some difficulty for me with the fact that time and circumstances have changed as Mary De Voe pointed out– our governments are now (and once again) pagan. As are so many of the governed..
How common the idea is that ” it’s the economy, stupid” .
No it is the humanity. “O, the humanity”
The passage of time and circumstances doesn’t change the truth of the teaching, but it changes the hearing of the truth. Our pagan governments care not one whit about the general welfare or what Leo said or John Paul either. They know the teachings of the popes have only a small effect on society.
Our social teaching has been diverted and hijacked by clerics and religiious and lay people so that many look and listen with a but of jaundice.
I don’t think the pope intends to “push” leftist economics or ideology. I hope not. but I think he is either not very good at proclaiming the message or the devil is hyperactive.

Also, although Bernadin has ruined the seameless garment metaphor, it remains that All the Commandments are of the same cloth and you can’t break one without breaking them all. We had a boss at one time who literally separated his business practice from his Christian principles. Can’t do that.

Phillip
Phillip
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 12:33pm

Nick,

Though from what you post, it seems the Church is ensuring what is necessary for life, not for equal outcome of status. It would seem the call therefore for redistribution (or what in developed countries like the U.S. might more accurately be called greater redistribution for there is already a great degree of redistribution) would ultimately be a matter of prudential judgment.

Thus, one could disagree with the Pope that the U.N. would be the vehicle for an even greater degree of redistribution as many countries do not require more of such. Particularly since, as Anzlyne notes above, one may be giving an unjust degree of power to a reckless authority.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 1:17pm

False advertizing, as well as endowments to “Catholic” institutions, that are no longer Catholic, might be looked into as a non-profit.org advertizes as a Catholic University, when it is anti-Catholic and a fraud. Not only Georgetown, but Notre Dame, Fordham, and all, teaching everything but Catholicism ought to be forbidden by false advertising laws from swindling prospective customers and corrupting the upcoming generation.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 1:41pm

Phillip: “Thus, one could disagree with the Pope that the U.N. would be the vehicle for an even greater degree of redistribution as many countries do not require more of such. Particularly since, as Anzlyne notes above, one may be giving an unjust degree of power to a reckless authority.”
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“reckless authority”? Criminals. The U.N. workers were giving donated food to the poor and hungry for sexual favors, raping the poor, cheating the poor and extorting with what was not theirs. Raping and sacking the very people they were hired to help.
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Nick: “There are at least five major encyclicals (from rerum novarum to caritas in veritate) that speak to it, and you better believe it is on your consciences as Catholics to accept that state governments have obligations to social justice – it is not okay to say that social welfare should solely be left to charity, etcetera, etcetera – if you believe this, you are a heretic, plain and simple.
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It is for government to hear and obey what you say Nick, for government to acknowledge that the charity, the virtue of charity, is done in the name of the people, by the people and for the people,
that charity remains recognized as charity. At the Democratic Party Convention, the participants refused to allow the mention of God in their platform. How soon do you think that they will practice charity, as an exercise of freedom of religion and an act of individual conscience, a virtue of God? It is the taxpayers’ money. The government denies the taxpayers as human beings with body and soul, created by God…and again leaving the definition of social justice and redistribution to a government with agendas and emanations and penumbras, criminal in its establishment of atheism, executions of the unborn, the proliferation of pornography, hating the Holy Scripture, erasing sanctions against sodomy and cursing, profanity and blasphemy. I agree with you, Nick, if you insist on calling it government. Most child protection agencies would remove the child from those in the White House.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 1:41pm

even Rosemary’s baby.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 3:00pm

obamaphones, cable/satellite TV, hi-speed internet, X-boxes, game boys, i-Pads, weekly dining out, leased luxury automobiles etc. etc. etc.
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none of those are things required for life.
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Yet I’m subsidizing those thing for other people out of my taxes.
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Which is why I don’t have those things.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Thursday, May 15, AD 2014 3:35pm

Our government and the U.N. are not prudent nor just. I don’t think giving them more money to waste is really an act of charity.
The pope’s OJT is probably bringing him up to speed on the U.N.

We get some tax relief for what we give to charity- maybe that idea could be expanded.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 2:30am

Pope Paul VI in Populorum Progressio (1967) carefully distinguished the roles of private individuals and the public authorities: “33. 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” (35) 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.”

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 2:54am

Mary de Voe wrote “Anybody who refers to another person as “THAT, a thing or other entity,”
In English,UK English, at least, non-restrictive relative clauses employ “who,” whereas restrictive ones employ “that.”
“The people that live on the far side of the river were flooded.” – Restrictive. It defines the people that were flooded.
“My friends, who live on the far side of the river, are coming to dinner.” – Non-restrictive. It merely provides additional information about them and could be omitted without destroying the sense.

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 5:54am

Michael Paterson-Seymour: “Mary de Voe wrote “Anybody who refers to another person as “THAT, a thing or other entity,”
In English,UK English, at least, non-restrictive relative clauses employ “who,” whereas restrictive ones employ “that.”
“The people that live on the far side of the river were flooded.” – Restrictive. It defines the people that were flooded.
“My friends, who live on the far side of the river, are coming to dinner.” – Non-restrictive. It merely provides additional information about them and could be omitted without destroying the sense.”
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Call it what you will. Calling a person a “that” is punishment, denying them acknowledgement of their recourse to God, their sovereign personhood made in the image of the Triune God. Legalizing “that” does not change the fact, that when you are a “that” you are not a “WHO”… and you do not live in WHOVILLE and Horton does not hear you…neither does God, “I AM WHO I AM”.
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If heaven is being with God, all the “thats” are cast out, and only the “WHOS” get to stay.

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 6:09am

Zacheus said that he gave half of all of his possession to the poor. Our taxes are now at the fifty percent level. What is left for people to practice their virtue of charity?
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Obamacare says it is a penalty. John Roberts says it is a tax.
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To strap a man into 50% bankruptcy and then require him to abandon his conscience and soul, is not good government, nor is it freedom.
Tax relief would be a tithe, 10% of our earnings. If it means cutting out bloated government, 90% needs to be cut.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 6:31am

Bottom line (I’m bascically an accountant): The Pope is infallible in matters of faith and morals (Objective Truth), not so in matters of accounting and finance (prudential judgment).

As usual, Mary De Voe hits the “nail on the head.”

In medieval (The Dark Ages!) Europe, serfs paid the lord of the manor about one-third of their product. If I remember my Ancient History, the serfs of Athens started “democracty” when the lords raised their “taxes” from 10% or 33%.

My largest “expense” is Federal income tax (with AMT it’s 20% of gross, it is more than Fordham U. cos per year); then NYS income taxes (7% of gross), then property taxes (6% of gross). Then, SS and Medicare (11% of gross). We are up to 44% of gross. I can’t keep track of all the sales and other taxes. And, then there are the hidden taxes: gas and diesel taxes (on everything you buy that was trucked) to start, [sigh]

Then, I contribute 7% to the pension plan, and health insurance and life insurance – No! scratch that, I don’t have a duty or a right to provide for my wife and children..

And, they tell us that we don’t pay enough and that we earn too much. I’ll tell you the commodity that suffers from a deficientcy in supply: bullets.

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 16, AD 2014 1:56pm

Michael Paterson-Seymour: more thoughts on “WHO”
.
“WHO is like unto God”, Saint Michael, the Archangel’s name acknowledges the Name of God, “I AM WHO I AM”, the metaphysical world of God, Guardian Angels and human souls.
“that” acknowledges the physical thing, the material world of the human body but not the human soul and the human soul’s dependence upon God.

Interestingly enough, your name is Michael: “WHO is like unto God.”

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