Health Care Debate: Putting the Catholic back in Catholic Action

Catholic Christians never fit in with the “the religious right.” I maintain it is because some of the otherwise conservative or “neo-conservative” political positions which came along with the package did not comport with Catholic Social thought. Too often there was a failure to focus on the foundation of the entire Catholic Social vision, the dignity of every human life, and then operate in accordance with a hierarchy of values. However, what is becoming clear is that what is called “liberal” or “progressive” in contemporary political parlance is repugnant. It embraces the culture of death in its acceptance of intrinsic evils such as abortion and euthanasia while claiming to be compassionate!

Our identity as Catholics grounds us in a vision for a new and true humanism rooted in the recognition of the dignity of every human person. It also marries us to defending real marriage, as between a man and a woman, open to love and life, and the family built upon that lifelong relationship. These are non-negotiables to Catholics, at least if they understand the teaching of the Church. Our positions on life and marriage are not simply based upon our “religious” convictions or because we embrace what the Magisterium (teaching office) of our Church teaches, but because they are objectively true, revealed in the Natural Law, and promote the common good.

The dignity of every human person must be the lens through which we consider every public policy issue. Without the right to life there are no other rights. Human rights are goods of the person given to us by the Creator. When there is no person there can be no rights to be received or exercised. Our insistence upon this is not based solely upon our belief in Revelation, though it is certainly found in both Sacred Scripture and the Christian Tradition. Rather, this truth is written on every human heart and knowable by reason. This Natural Law claim is essential if we hope to overcome the false assignment of our position to our “religious conviction.”

“did not comport with Catholic Social thought.”

Catholic Social thought eg Catholic Social Justice sees the ends it wants to achieve and then thinks that a top-down structure to impose a path to those ends is justified by the ends. Similar to the top-down structure of the church itself.

Catholic Social Justice has no faith in subsidiarity and is at odds with subsidiarity ... the position that governance and soical control should be at the smallest level possible.

In the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity the individual must first have self-control. Then the family is the first level of social control of other people. The family starts with a contract that is both social and holy before God between a man and a woman in holy matrimony. In that matrimony, they not only are obligated to social control of each other, they are obligated to social control of their children. The marriage is not just about the couple, it is about the entire family.

The next level of social control is then the extended family that includes both blood relatives and god-parents that might not be blood relatives.

That doctrine of subsidiarity then meets the secular world.

In the secular world, freedom to choose between buyers and sellers of goods and services has always been the path out of poverty and into economic abundance.

But current Catholic Social Justice is mistaken in which route best achieves the goals they seek. They do not trust subsidiarity. They do not trust freedom. They are elitists who believe they are called to be “priests” of social justice, and impose that social justice on others in violation of subsidiarity and freedom.

Two flaws are behind the errors of Catholic Social Justice:
- The sin of Pride in thinking the social justice priests are superior to those who need social justice
- The ignorance of real world economics. Ignorance of basic concepts like the law of supply and demand. Thus the priests are constantly trying to repeals the law of supply and demand.

What I describe above is the Catholic Social Justice of Msgr John Egan and Msgr Geno Baroni who did more to build the Alinsky movement than any other two men in history, inclduing Alinsky himself. Barak Obama would not have been a Catholic social justice paid community organizer if it were not for Msgr John Egan. This Catholic Social Justice dominates the Chicago Archidiocese, the largest and richest Archdiocese in the US. Barak Obama is very much in the mainstream of the Chicago Archdiocese, contrary to those who try to paint him as out of the mainstream.

That is unfortunate, but true. I know plenty of Catholic religious and lay leaders who are well to the left of Obama in terms of imposing their version of social justice on others.

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