Posted on 11/10/2009 11:55:00 AM PST by B-Chan
The passage of sweeping national health care legislation by the U.S. House of Representatives has set the stage for the greatest intrusion of the State into the everyday lives of the American people in the nation's history. Across the Web, the groans and cries of the free-marketers, capitalists, and libertarians have begun to echo in response. Surprisingly, many of these voices condemn the Catholic Church for its "socialist" commitment to feeding the poor, caring for the sick, and doing the other things Jesus Christ commanded of us. "Without the support of you bleeding-heart Catholics," the refrain goes, "this socialist nightmare could never have passed."
An element of truth exists behind this complaint. A pious Catholic's heart does bleed for the sick, the aged, the destitute, the lame, and the suffering; in this, it mimics the Sacred Heart of our Lord Himself, who gave all He had, including His life, for the sake of the suffering.
But is the Catholic Church "socialist"? Impossible. Socialism is a materialist doctrine with a dialectical and teleological basis that is utterly incompatible with the word and example or our Lord. As such, it has been repudiated specifically in the teaching of the Church, most notably in the encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) of Pope Leo XIII, which states
the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonweal. The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property.1But if the Church is not socialist, neither is it capitalist. Capitalism, like socialism, is both philosophically materialist and ethically libertarian -- and libertarian thought (which is just Liberal thought with a different name) is completely in opposition to the teaching of Jesus Christ. Our Lord is not a free marketer, a capitalist, an entrepreneur, or a salesman. As the ultimate altruist and counter-example of rational sef-interest, He stands at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum from Rand's Nietzschean superman John Galt. Jesus Christ is a King, not a CEO*, and He commands His servant Church to uphold the Natural Law, which proclaims that every human being is a Child of God -- and as such, is deserving of food, medical care, and the other basic hallmarks of human dignity.
The Church is called upon to provide these social services. The State has no just role in pubic life except to keep the peace, protect the borders, establish justice, and preserve the national patrimony. In a Christian social order, the State officially recognizes the Church's special role in the life of the nation, and protects and support the Church in its provision of social services. This was the pattern of social organization throughout Christendom until the advent of the Lutheran heresy, which proclaimed the cult of individual Liberty and its separation of Church and State.
By destroying the proper relationship between Church and State, the "libertarian" movement invited the State to overstep its ordained bounds and intrude into areas of life within which it has no just business. In a post-Reformation representative republic such as our own, which pretends neutrality in matters of faith, the State cannot fulfill the role of Protector of the Church given to it by God; as a result, over time, popular demand forces the State to assume the provision of social services which in a Christian social order would be provided by the Church.
Human beings have the positive and Divine right to daily bread, health care, and other aspects of human dignity. In his Luciferian quest for individual Liberty, however, Western man has destroyed the Divinely-ordained social order under which the Church provided these goods. As a result, the heavy hand of the State will now intrude into every aspect of public life in its futile attempt to build a just society. Ironically, the worship of individual liberty instigated by the "reformers" of the Church and the secular counterparts of the "enlightenment" has destroyed the liberty under God that individuals once enjoyed as organic parts of the Catholic and medieval social order.
Nationalized health care is a fact. Soon, the power of life and death will rest entirely in the hands of the State. And as the smothering blanket of socialism settles slowly across our land, I invite libertarians to quit their whining. In their quest for freedom from the Church, they destroyed the institutions that kept the State in its proper place. Libertarians made this bed; we are now all going to be forced to sleep in it.
*That was L. Ron Hubbard's gig.
That’s very generous considering what the Liberals and Romanists, but I repeat myself, have done to our currency.
Thank God you're not slamming Catholics with your ludicrous paranoia.
Ahh... The boy who cried wolf and couldn’t define his faith.
Too bad you’re a Romanist.
Not to be dense, but aren’t there several denominations that call themselves “Catholic”?
Roman Catholic being the biggest.
I only ask this because I understand the Anglican Church calls itself a Catholic church.
Sorry to ask a stupid question.
You did? You couldn't?
Too bad you’re a Romanist.
Nope. I've never even been to Italy.
There are many rites within the Catholic Church. This is probably what you're recalling.
But the fact you deny something so easily verifiable is amazing.
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiachNAU Matthew 7:16 "You will know them by their fruits.Blessings ! Sister.
Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes
nor figs from thistles, are they?NAU Matthew 7:17 "So every good tree bears good fruit,
but the bad tree bears bad fruit.NAU Matthew 7:18 "A good tree cannot produce bad fruit,
nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.NAU Matthew 7:19 "Every tree that does not bear good fruit
is cut down and thrown into the fire.
I deny what is not true. I’m sure your verification would be very amusing if it weren’t so sad...much like your many other lies about Catholics and the Catholic Church.
No.
You should check into a clinic or maybe call 911.
I swear I just heard it again!
No, I just asked my secretary (who is Anglican).
She states they are a “Catholic” church, but not the Roman Catholic church.
She is a good secretary but no great theologian.
When the Pilgrims first arrived they instituted what can be best described as communism and almost perished as a result. They prospered when they embraced capitalism (Rush tells the story every Thanksgiving, you can hear it in two weeks). NOTHING about their form of worship changed.
Your hypothesis is ONLY VALID if colonists who didn't use the Calvin Bible failed and this isn't the case.
Sad Rome has to look outside the word of God for the truth of Christ risen.
Yes, the Apostolic tradition of doing EXACTLY what the Lord instructed. You should try it some time.
You shouldn’t drink the bong water.
Closer to Catholic than almost anyone else, but not in full communion with the Holy See.
There’s a schism developing, though, and some of them will be crossing Pope Benedict’s bridge over the Tiber rather soon I’d say.
So you howl after you smoke some weed?
Certain Roman Catholics (capital 'c') on these threads have started a peculiar trend in that they take some weird offense at the word "Roman Catholic" even though that's what most Roman Catholics call themselves, and the fact that the papacy is located in the Vatican in Italy.
Sometimes there's just no pleasing some people. 8~)
The world’s first agricultural collectivization wasn’t on some kolkhoz in a far-flung oblast of the Soviet Union.
No. It was in Massachusetts, set up by Calvinists.
And as you and Rush point out, it was a spectacular failure.
All God’s blessings to you, too!
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