Posted on 11/14/2011 6:24:41 AM PST by Alex Murphy
The U.S. bishops' relative silence contrasts with a recent Vatican document that urges stronger regulation of the financial sector and a more just distribution of wealth. Urging reforms to the left of even the most liberal Democrat in Congress, the Vatican spoke in stark terms about a global financial system that is unhinged from moral values. It's a thoughtful critique of free-market fundamentalism, in keeping with centuries of Catholic teaching as articulated by several popes. A Vatican cardinal even acknowledged that the "basic sentiment" behind the Occupy Wall Street movement aligns with Catholic values on the need for ethical corporate practices and humane financial systems.
[SNIP]
Most Americans probably don't know that Catholic bishops helped lay the groundwork for the New Deal as far back as 1919, when they advocated for a minimum wage and insurance for the elderly, disabled and unemployed. Much of this proud legacy is under threat today from lawmakers, including prominent Catholics like House Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Paul Ryan, who think tax breaks for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans are more important than funding nutrition programs for low-income women and children.
The U.S. bishops deserve credit for their participation in an interfaith coalition defending government safety-net programs that save lives and provide a measure of dignity to the most vulnerable. Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the bishops' conference, was right to recently urge pastors to address poverty from the pulpit. And the bishops' national anti-poverty initiative, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, is a vital resource that helps community-based organizations empower those living on the margins of society.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
....Most Americans probably don't know that Catholic bishops helped lay the groundwork for the New Deal as far back as 1919, when they advocated for a minimum wage and insurance for the elderly, disabled and unemployed. Much of this proud legacy is under threat today from lawmakers, including prominent Catholics like House Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Paul Ryan, who think tax breaks for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans are more important than funding nutrition programs for low-income women and children.
The author of this editorial is Francis X. Doyle, the former associate general secretary to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Abdicating church responsibility to the government is a good thing?
Social justice types whining the Bishops are moving (with glacier like speed) back to normalcy.
The writer complains:
“Where are the bishops’ priorities today? In recent years, church leaders have opposed historic health care reform, lashed out at the University of Notre Dame for inviting President Barack Obama to give a commencement address, and publicly chastised pro-choice Catholic politicians even as they give a pass to Catholic lawmakers who push economic policies antithetical to Catholic teaching about the common good. The bishops’ decades of advocacy for comprehensive health care took a detour last year when they opposed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act because of concerns it would provide taxpayer funding of abortion — a flawed policy analysis, according to independent experts, some pro-life lawmakers and even the Catholic Health Association.
In recent weeks, the bishops have augmented their campaign against same-sex marriage, appointing a “defense of marriage specialist” to a top position at the U.S. bishops’ conference, and challenged the Obama administration to create a stronger exemption for Catholic organizations that oppose insurance coverage of contraception.”
Be great if someone could run down there and hold a sign reading:
Why should anyone listen to you when even Martin O’Malley
is still given communion?
What profound ignorance of economics this betrays. The statement assumes that there is a fixed pie of wealth and any money that goes to the "rich" is that much less available for the "poor". This is false - there is no limit to wealth and most wealth is new wealth which in turn creates more new wealth. Money going to rich is not being taken from the mouths of the poor. Thus, "just distribution of wealth" is an absurdity.
The U.S. bishops’ relative silence contrasts with a recent Vatican document that urges stronger regulation of the financial sector and a more just distribution of wealth.
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Good for the US Bishops.
Government forced “more just distribution of wealth” is plain old Communism.
Francis X. Doyle sounds more like Karl Marxshalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
than what Yah'shua has told us.
I’ll stand next to you with a torch in one hand and a pitchfork in the other, if I can mention Abp Edwin O’Brien by name.
The bishops conference operates by the rule of consensus. What this means that the social justice crowd no longer has a majority but is powerful enough to prevent the use of stronger language.
Doyle represents that crowd who brought the Church a seat at the table of the New Deal polity. They lost that place in 1972 when the “progressives” —the old Henry Wallace group—took over the Democratic Party. Ten years later, under Bernardin, they were still trying to buy back in. The social justice types didn’t see that the Priest scandal put an end to any role they might play in the Democratic Petty. The “Catholic”politicians have simply told them they are wasting their breath.
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