[B-Chan]

Moral: A secular state cannot be expected to respect Christian values.

[EveningStar]

Moral: A secular state cannot be expected to respect Christian values.

So, do you want a theocracy?

[steve-b]

Our Lord is not a free marketer

Why are you posting Liberation Theology commie crap on FR?

[Blood of Tyrants]

Strange. They sure as hell respect Muslim and atheist values.

[Pessimist]

So it’s libertarians fault that the church couldn’t “protect” us from gvt?

LOL!

[Jewbacca]

I guess the papacy should be supreme over the United States, then, replete with forced conversions for all Proddies and Jews. I mean, it worked so well for the Spanish Empire.

“I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”

-— Ronald Reagan, Reason Magazine, July 1975

[steve-b]

the Divinely-ordained social order under which the Church provided these goods

So God provides the funding for these goods? How does that work, exactly?

[steve-b]

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...
invited the State to overstep its ordained bounds and intrude into areas of life within which it has no just business.

Ya need about... oh, maybe three more paragraphs of padding between these mutually exclusive statements. While that won't actually respect the reader's intelligence, it will at least provide a polite illusion of doing so.

[downtownconservative]

“Moral: A secular state cannot be expected to respect Christian values.”

Moreover, a secular state cannot be expected to respect any value system not determined to benefit the state. That is precisely why our founding fathers but huge constitutional restrictions on the power of the government that was formed.

They did not limit religion, they limited government.

Socialism, not libratarianism, is the cause of our current malaise. It has nothing to do with care of the poor and the sick and everything to do with power and control.

You need to work on your premise as it is flawed.

[Lurker]

Libertarians made this bed;

The author is a mouth-breathing idiot. Libertarians had absolutely nothing to do with this bed. Try reading up on what Libertarians think about this monstrosity.

L

[DManA]

What you (seem to) be advocating would require a new Constitution.

[fr_freak]

Human beings have the positive and Divine right to daily bread, health care, and other aspects of human dignity.

I could swear that the "he who does not work shall not eat" ethic originally came from the Bible. Nobody has a "right" to any material good in this world, and that includes food and medicine. Moreover, as I saw another Freeper post a while back (and I can't remember who), when you assume that a person has a right to medical care, then what you are actually assuming is that a person has the right to demand that other people perform services for him for free. If you have a "right" to medical care, then you have the right to force a doctor to work on you whether he wants to or not, effectively making that doctor your slave.

It may, indeed, be a Christian's duty to look out for those less fortunate, but that is charity. If one has no choice in the matter, for example when one has his money confiscated by the government to be redirected toward the poor or is forced by the government to perform services for the poor, then you no longer have charity. You have servitude. Either way, the requirement of charity is on the part of the giver. It is not meant as an entitlement for the receiver. That is a huge philosophical difference. Therefore, anyone who cites the Christian value of Charity to justify a "right" to other people's time or money is drastically abusing the concept. Those Christians who wish to practice charity should be doing so on their own, not supporting a governmental system that forces it on everyone else.

[laxcoach]

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.

This person is either an idiot, completely ignorant, willfully blind, a liar, a Christian poser, or some combination thereof.

I am going with liar and poser.

He gets it exactly wrong. Individualism does not decry charity. Individualism decries forced charity at the point of a government controlled gun. The latter is tyrany and theft of our life ($ is time spent working).

It is fairly well documented over time that conservatives in this country give more to charity.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

LMAO. How in the F can Libertarianism somehow destroy liberty?

Huckabee is that you?

[Seruzawa]

Libertarianism means individual freedom but the individual has total responsibility for his own acts and must be held accountable.

Liberalism means individual freedom, if approved by the govt, but the individual has absolutely no responsibility for his own acts and cannot be held accountable.

Only an utter idiot thinks both are the same.

[Reagan Man]

>>>>>.... libertarian thought (which is just Liberal thought with a different name)

While that is very true on issues related to foreign affairs and international relations, I'm not so sure the case you make is valid. Libertarians support a return to small(er) government and have opposed ObamaCare or any form of nationalized health care.

OTOH. Sadly, too many libertarians are minarchists and in some cases, outright anarchists. Not something mainstream conservatives and traditionalists find appealing.

"... there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. ~ Ronald Reagan, Reason Magazine Interview, 1975

[mysterio]

150 years of voting the same two parties into power destroyed liberty.

[wintertime]

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.

Maybe if the Catholic Church had reformed its abuses there would have been no need for a Protestant "heresy", commonly called "The Reformation".

Also...Is this guy actually suggesting that we as a society should return to a government and church relationship that existed before Martin Luther? UNBELIEVABLE!

The ranks of the Catholic hierarchy and intelligentsia is full to overflowing with idiots like this writer. It is one among many reasons why I started looking for a different church 30 years ago. Wow! Am I ever glad to be out of the hold of this nuttiness!

[Alex Murphy]

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.

This reminds one of Max Weber's thesis about the inner connection between capitalism and Calvinism, between the formation of the economic order and the determining religious idea. Marx's notion seems to be almost inverted: it is not the economy that produces religious notions, but the fundamental religious orientation that decides which economic system can develop. The notion that only Protestantism can bring forth a free economy — whereas Catholicism includes no corresponding education to freedom and to the self-discipline necessary to it, favoring authoritarian systems instead — is doubtless even today still very widespread, and much in recent history seems to speak for it.
- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), Market Economy and Ethics, 1985

"...Protestants showed ‘a special tendency to develop economic rationalism’; that is, a particular approach to creating wealth that was less focused on the gain of comfort than on the pursuit of profit itself. The particular satisfaction was not in the money extracted to buy things (which had always driven money making in the past), but in wealth creation based on increased productivity and better use of resources."
- Book review: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by Max Weber

Related threads:
Book review: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by Max Weber
The Pope predicted economic Armageddon back in 1985
Pope brands financial system selfish, short-sighted
Short-sighted speculation harms economy, endangers peace, Pope writes in World Peace Day message
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USCCB Clarifies Its Position on the Regulation of Hate Speech
USCCB Comm. Office Backs Bid to Clamp Down on Conservative Radio Hosts for "Hate Speech"
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[stfassisi]

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.

An excellent statement- Truth is.... the modernist don't have a clue,thus calling themselves conservatives and liberals- they are both really liberals who have no idea what true freedom really means compared to Pope Leo XIII and Pope Benedict XVI

From the words of Blessed Bishop Fulton Sheen...

"Under this system there is no will but the class will or the national will or the race will. The person no longer exists."

True freedom does not give man the right to do whatever you or I please, not the duty to do whatever you must; but it means the right to do whatever you ought- and oughtness implies law, responsibility, purpose. In other words freedom in inseparable from the God of Love Who made us.

[Poe White Trash]

Human beings have the positive and Divine right to daily bread, health care, and other aspects of human dignity.

If by "positive" you're referring to a system of positive law, which system are you referring to in the context of a right to "daily bread, health care, and other aspects of human dignity"?

As for Divine right, what authority are you referring to here as the basis of a right to daily bread and health care? What Scripture? What Tradition?

In his Luciferian quest for individual Liberty, however, Western man has destroyed the Divinely-ordained social order under which the Church provided these goods.

Which "Divinely-ordained social order" are you referring to? During the Late Middle Ages, we had a disintegrating feudalism and a nascent capitalism. Which do you prefer? In terms of a political order, we find political entities such as kingdoms, republics, and empires (among others). Why no valorization of empires or republics on your part?

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.

I've read that the EU will be able to avoid the "heavy-handed State" problem. You see, they've got these principles of subsidiarity and solidarity in the EU constitution, and as everyone knows the mere presence of these principles is sufficient to protect a people from tyranny...

...or not.

And although it is true that the modern State is...well, modern, it's also the case that many pre-Modern governments could be heavy-handed, too (especially when it was tax time). Just ask the Christians under Nero or Diocletian.

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.

Please be specific.

Do you mean the "Catholic" and medieval social order that had polities that were so weak that Viking, Muslim, and Hungarian raiders (and armies!) could attack at will for centuries?

Where famine and plague ravaged urban poor and serfs in the countryside alike?

Where those self-same urban poor and serfs had very little of what we would recognize as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"? Not to mention no King's Justice, which they couldn't afford.

Where local economies were so cash-starved that elites either squeezed their serfs for what they could get; raided, robbed or cheated their neighbors; or financed armies for the purpose of obtaining slaves to be sold "down south" to labor-hungry Islamics?

THAT "Catholic" and medieval social order?