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.
I said to you earlier that Catholic's believe that a person who died immediately after original baptism will go directly to heaven(not in these exact words)
This completely defends Anna Morisi from a Catholic perspective.
I wish you a blessed evening!
This completely defends Anna Morisi from a Catholic perspective.
I've read that little Edgar was quite ill, not that he was on his deathbed. Even if what you write were what RCs believe, I have my doubts about its applicability in this case.
For those of us who are Christians but not RCs, or who are Jews or non-Christians, RC belief and canon law by itself is no defense at all.
Forced baptism, followed by ecclesia- and state-supported kidnapping, is indefensible to all men of goodwill.
I'm still waiting for you to address the issue of why you appear to be using ends/means rationality to justify forced baptism and kidnapping, and whether or not you believe that Jews who have not been baptized into the Church of Rome are automatically condemned to Hell.
President Obama the Bastard -- both figuratively and literally true. What more can one say? It's going to be a long 4 years!
...people wonder why Zionists are Zionists.
People who wonder why Zionists are Zionists are people who don't know their European/Mediterranean basin history very well.
Good morning ,dear friend
If the means were the will of God,which according to Edgar it was because he said he believed supernatural grace was involved,thus, it means that it's justified as being the will of God
You can “intend” to propel yourself to the moon by eating enough beans, for all I care. That gives you more hope of success that a battle of wits, at least.
Institutions can learn to be good... but the first step is to, well, step on them hard enough to break their power to do evil.
How did you get along with the other eleven people on the OJ jury?
Yes. And, frankly, I don't see why an adherent of Communism or some such anti-family philosophy bothers to post here.
The Home/Family
The Church
Civil Government
Three separate spheres of authority.
What Christians are instructed to do for the poor or sick or imprisoned is not what civil government is instructed to do.
Any church that wants to create a health care system for its members, sharing health care costs, and conducting this on a voluntary basis, may certainly do so.
Any church lobbys civil government to take care of the sick and poor by forcing a system upon the population in general is out of order——out of its sphere.
The word you seek is “Mashallah” shared by similiar adherants to religion as you.
Your idea of conservatism suppresses individual liberty. Then again the RCC has never been a big fan of individual liberty.
You are correct. Individual liberty is the goddess of this broken world. When the Revolutionists murdered their King and sacked the great cathedrals of France, they did so in the name of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. At Notre Dame, they cast down the Crucifix and erected an idol of Liberty on the high altar itself. The rivers of innocent blood and the wreck of France that followed the takeover by the wearers of the Liberty Cap show what comes when individual Liberty is made to be the greatest good!
Jesus Christ, our Heavenly King, stands aganst the goddess Liberty. He preaches the sonship of man, not the arrogant fraternity of the Revolution. He demands childlike submission, not the Revolution’s false equality. And He calls His sheep to obedience, not to atomistic, self-deifying “liberty”.
The freedom one gains by being a submissive child of God is the only true liberty that exists. Man’s goddess Liberty is just another name for slavery to desire. We ignore this fact at our peril.
Ironic you identify yourself as a Texan.
One of the key cornerstones of the Texas revolution was freedom from the corrupt Mexican Roman Catholic bishops.
My identification as a Texan is not ironic in the least. I was born and raised here.
One of the key cornerstones of the Texas revolution was freedom from the corrupt Mexican Roman Catholic bishops.
So what? Another of the key cornerstones of the Texas revolution was the freedom to keep slaves. (Slavery was outlawed in Mexico on 15 September 1829). By your logic, a real Texan has to supprt chattel slavery as well.
You’re essentially espousing liberation theology, which Pope John Paul II specifically condemned. Although Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega are on your side.
By your logic, protestants should be hung and Jooos burned at the stake.
Sorry there are NO goddesses in the Heavenly Kingdom. Liberty or otherwise.
Since you're not up to speed on the subject, I'll explain it to you. So called liberation theology is a political and social movement held by certain Catholic theologians. It is based upon Marxism. It posits that the State has the duty to establish Christian social justice through the application of the force of law, such application to include the seizure of capital in private property by the State, an end or curtailment of private enterprise, and the distribution of wealth by the State for the benefit of the oppressed proletarian class and other classes oppressed by colonialism and/or capitalism in general. Marxian liberation theology is theologically heretical, philosophically unsound, and practically ineffective as a means of establishing social justice. In many cases, "liberation theology" was also a front for the global revolutionary activities of the USSR. I don't believe in it, I have never espoused it, and I respectfully reject your characterization of me as a proponent of it.
What I do espouse is the traditional social teaching of the Catholic Church as proclaimed by the Church throughout history. You may discover this teaching by reading Rerum Novarum (15 May 1891), the encyclical of the late Pope Leo XIII on the relationship between capital and labor. It and its successor encyclicals Quadragesimo Anno (Pius XI, 1931), Mater et Magistra (John XXIII, 1961), and Centesimus Annus (John Paul II, 1991) are a clear counter to the materialist philosophy of Karl Marx and to "liberation" theology, and serves as the basis of true Catholic social teaching in the modern world. I propose that teaching, and none other.
You didn’t teach me anything I didn’t know about liberation theology. However, I don’t think you realize how close what you’re describing as the ideal economic system is to liberation theology. Then again, I’m about as fundamentalist as they come when it comes to free market principles.
I am not a supporter of liberation theology, and Jesus was not a free market capitalist. Sorry.
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