The Tea Party and Catholic Social Doctrine

There has been a lot of ink spilled, slathered, and slothed about in attempting to explain (or, in many cases, explain away) the Tea Party movement. The key word or image used by many in the mainstream media is "angry", with a number throwing in "racist" for good measure (the latter ploy has gotten so out of hand that even WaPo columnists are becoming uncomfortable with it). What isn't as readily available are serious examinations of the roots and aims of the Tea Party movement. And even when attempts are made, the results can be a bit puzzling or misleading. For example, the October 17th edition of Our Sunday Visitor (for which I am a weekly columnist), has a piece, "Is the tea party movement in sync with Catholic teaching?", which has the following quote:

Stephen Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America, said that Catholic voters have been known for their propensity to switch party allegiance, but their strong show of support for the tea party comes as a surprise.

“What strikes me is that even though Catholics are attracted to this movement, there really is a pretty sharp tension between some of the basic teachings of the Church in regards to politics, the role of government and what we owe to the poor, and what these tea party advocates are promoting,” Schneck told Our Sunday Visitor. 

Church teaching, he explained, has an inseparable link between rights and responsibilities for both the citizen and the government, with both having an eye toward promoting the common good. The tea parties, however, have argued for rights based on liberty, not responsibility.

“From that perspective it’s all about getting the government out of our lives and about citizens being free from the demands and needs of the country as a whole,” Schneck said. “Much as we might like otherwise, the Catholic argument is that government and citizen are equally expected to be our brother’s keeper.”

Now, I'm not a member of the Tea Party movement, nor am I claiming special expertise on the topic, but I sometimes describe myself a as a Traditional Burkean-Kirkian Conservative and I've been following and studying American politics quite closely for nearly twenty years, and I find Schneck's comments to be misinformed at best. Sure, you can undoubtedly find self-described conservatives/libertarians who say they don't care one whit about other people, whether poor or not, or who scoff at any notion of social responsibility. But that certainly isn't the case of most folks who call themselves conservatives, and I'm fairly confident it's not even close to what most Tea Party participants believe. They would likely say that it's not a question of whether or not to be responsible and to help the poor, but a matter of how best to do so—and, even more importantly, why we do, in fact, have a responsibility to look out for those who are vulnerable and in need.

But why not let a Tea Party member talk about what the movement is about? Notice that there is an emphasis on a particular view of man, a specific anthropology. Then see Greg Forster's just posted piece, "Tea Party Metaphysics: Economics and First Principles", on the Public Discourse; Forster states:

The 20th-century economic conservatives did better than that, but not well enough. They argued against state control of property beyond a necessary minimum, but they did so on the basis of what was, ultimately, a set of utilitarian considerations. They argued we should respect what are traditionally called “ownership” and property “rights” because doing so makes everyone better off. On this view, property is not a political or legal convention, but it is still a social convention. “Rights” to property are civil, not natural rights.

Over against this, the human race at large, and almost all of its best intellectuals, have insisted that property is neither an arbitrary creation of the state, nor in any larger sense a useful human convention. The reality of property ownership is “just there,” whether or not we acknowledge it or find it useful. It is given in the human situation before we do anything and regardless of whatever we may think, say, or do about it.

So in the popular and traditional understanding, the statement “this is mine” commits me to believe in the existence of a whole invisible universe. Behind each visible object is an invisible reality that designates its ownership, and all these invisible realities are related to one another in a dense, intricate network of relationships. This invisible universe stands behind the visible universe and dictates its proper organization. It follows that we cannot simply rearrange the visible universe any way we like; there is a higher structure of meaning, purpose, and obligation to which our management of the visible universe must conform.

Most modern Americans are profoundly uncomfortable when confronted with metaphysical claims. But few of them feel uncomfortable looking at the house on which they’ve labored to pay the mortgage, the food they’ve labored to put on their children’s table, and the bank account they’ve labored to build up so they can pay the family’s medical bills and make charitable donations, and thinking: It’s not right for the government to just arbitrarily take this away from me. If they were taking it for a legitimate reason, like if there had been a national catastrophe, that would be one thing. But I can’t let them take it away just to reward irresponsible behavior and feather their cronies’ nests.

Far from being selfish, that is a profoundly pious thought. People do, of course, have selfish desires. But they also have desires that are not selfish. And the desire to fight back against a capricious redistribution of wealth that is transparently motivated by envy and cronyism is not a selfish desire. It is a manifestation of our invisible, intrinsic human dignity.

I think Forster is correct. So, is this perspective one that fosters loss of responsibility? Lack of concern for others? Disdain for the welfare of those in need? Is it contrary to Catholic social thought? Before answering, consider this lengthy quote from a well-known Catholic:

These general observations also apply to the role of the State in the economic sector. Economic activity, especially the activity of a market economy, cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical or political vacuum. On the contrary, it presupposes sure guarantees of individual freedom and private property, as well as a stable currency and efficient public services. Hence the principle task of the State is to guarantee this security, so that those who work and produce can enjoy the fruits of their labours and thus feel encouraged to work efficiently and honestly. The absence of stability, together with the corruption of public officials and the spread of improper sources of growing rich and of easy profits deriving from illegal or purely speculative activities, constitutes one of the chief obstacles to development and to the economic order.

Another task of the State is that of overseeing and directing the exercise of human rights in the economic sector. However, primary responsibility in this area belongs not to the State but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society. The State could not directly ensure the right to work for all its citizens unless it controlled every aspect of economic life and restricted the free initiative of individuals. This does not mean, however, that the State has no competence in this domain, as was claimed by those who argued against any rules in the economic sphere. Rather, the State has a duty to sustain business activities by creating conditions which will ensure job opportunities, by stimulating those activities where they are lacking or by supporting them in moments of crisis.

The State has the further right to intervene when particular monopolies create delays or obstacles to development. In addition to the tasks of harmonizing and guiding development, in exceptional circumstances the State can also exercise a substitute function, when social sectors or business systems are too weak or are just getting under way, and are not equal to the task at hand. Such supplementary interventions, which are justified by urgent reasons touching the common good, must be as brief as possible, so as to avoid removing permanently from society and business systems the functions which are properly theirs, and so as to avoid enlarging excessively the sphere of State intervention to the detriment of both economic and civil freedom.

In recent years the range of such intervention has vastly expanded, to the point of creating a new type of State, the so-called "Welfare State". This has happened in some countries in order to respond better to many needs and demands, by remedying forms of poverty and deprivation unworthy of the human person. However, excesses and abuses, especially in recent years, have provoked very harsh criticisms of the Welfare State, dubbed the "Social Assistance State". Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State. Here again the principle of subsidiarity must be respected: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.

By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbours to those in need. It should be added that certain kinds of demands often call for a response which is not simply material but which is capable of perceiving the deeper human need. One thinks of the condition of refugees, immigrants, the elderly, the sick, and all those in circumstances which call for assistance, such as drug abusers: all these people can be helped effectively only by those who offer them genuine fraternal support, in addition to the necessary care.

The author of that piece was not, a Tea Party guy, nor an American conservative. But I think Pope John Paul II articulated some of the basic concerns of numerous Americans, including many Tea Party folks, when he wrote of the proper relationship between State and citizen, a relationship that has become a matter of grave concern as the federal government continues to vastly expand its economic and political powers. Where does it stop? What are the proper limits? Key to answering those questions, John Paul II further stated, is a recognition, defense, and upholding of authentic human dignity:

Faithful to the mission received from Christ her Founder, the Church has always been present and active among the needy, offering them material assistance in ways that neither humiliate nor reduce them to mere objects of assistance, but which help them to escape their precarious situation by promoting their dignity as persons. With heartfelt gratitude to God it must be pointed out that active charity has never ceased to be practised in the Church; indeed, today it is showing a manifold and gratifying increase. In this regard, special mention must be made of volunteer work, which the Church favours and promotes by urging everyone to cooperate in supporting and encouraging its undertakings.

In order to overcome today's widespread individualistic mentality, what is required is a concrete commitment to solidarity and charity, beginning in the family with the mutual support of husband and wife and the care which the different generations give to one another. In this sense the family too can be called a community of work and solidarity. It can happen, however, that when a family does decide to live up fully to its vocation, it finds itself without the necessary support from the State and without sufficient resources. It is urgent therefore to promote not only family policies, but also those social policies which have the family as their principle object, policies which assist the family by providing adequate resources and efficient means of support, both for bringing up children and for looking after the elderly, so as to avoid distancing the latter from the family unit and in order to strengthen relations between generations.

Apart from the family, other intermediate communities exercise primary functions and give life to specific networks of solidarity. These develop as real communities of persons and strengthen the social fabric, preventing society from becoming an anonymous and impersonal mass, as unfortunately often happens today. It is in interrelationships on many levels that a person lives, and that society becomes more "personalized". The individual today is often suffocated between two poles represented by the State and the marketplace. At times it seems as though he exists only as a producer and consumer of goods, or as an object of State administration. People lose sight of the fact that life in society has neither the market nor the State as its final purpose, since life itself has a unique value which the State and the market must serve. Man remains above all a being who seeks the truth and strives to live in that truth, deepening his understanding of it through a dialogue which involves past and future generations.

Further questions follow: Is the federal government in the U.S. supportive of the family? Or marriage? Of the most vulnerable among us? Of human life at every stage and at every moment? If the answers to these questions are generally, "No" (as I think they are), further questions follow: Why does the current situation exist? What should be done? Why and how? My impression is that many folks in the Tea Party movement, however they might articulate it, are concerned with these basic questions and issues. I concur with Angelo M. Codevilla's statements that "The ruling class is keener to reform the American people's family and spiritual lives than their economic and civic ones. In no other areas is the ruling class's self-definition so definite, its contempt for opposition so patent, its Kulturkampf  so open", and, "Since marriage is the family's fertile seed, government at all levels, along with 'mainstream' academics and media, have waged war on it. They legislate, regulate, and exhort in support not of 'the family' -- meaning married parents raising children -- but rather of 'families,' meaning mostly households based on something other than marriage."

That analysis speaks to the core questions about the nature of man, the nature of society/societies, and the purpose of government. For many of those in what Codevilla calls "the ruling class", government is not just the most important part of society, it essentially gives meaning to and is the purpose of society. And as Pope Benedict as observed, "The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person--every person--needs: namely, loving personal concern." (Deus Caritas Est, par 28b.) But it is not the State, but the human person, who is made by and for God, as the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church explains:

All of social life is an expression of its unmistakable protagonist: the human person. The Church has many times and in many ways been the authoritative advocate of this understanding, recognizing and affirming the centrality of the human person in every sector and expression of society: “Human society is therefore the object of the social teaching of the Church since she is neither outside nor over and above socially united men, but exists exclusively in them and, therefore, for them”. This important awareness is expressed in the affirmation that “far from being the object or passive element of social life” the human person “is rather, and must always remain, its subject, foundation and goal”. The origin of social life is therefore found in the human person, and society cannot refuse to recognize its active and responsible subject; every expression of society must be directed towards the human person. (par. 106) ...

The common good of society is not an end in itself; it has value only in reference to attaining the ultimate ends of the person and the universal common good of the whole of creation. God is the ultimate end of his creatures and for no reason may the common good be deprived of its transcendent dimension, which moves beyond the historical dimension while at the same time fulfilling it. This perspective reaches its fullness by virtue of faith in Jesus' Passover, which sheds clear light on the attainment of humanity's true common good. Our history — the personal and collective effort to elevate the human condition — begins and ends in Jesus: thanks to him, by means of him and in light of him every reality, including human society, can be brought to its Supreme Good, to its fulfilment. A purely historical and materialistic vision would end up transforming the common good into a simple socio-economic well-being, without any transcendental goal, that is, without its most intimate reason for existing.One need not be a Tea Party enthusiast or apologist to recognize that dismissing the movement as angry and incoherent (as President Obama seems to have done) is unfair, and that speaking vaguely about being "our brother's keeper" is not a substitute for seriously pondering and applying Catholic social teaching to the American situation. (par. 170)

Related Ignatius Insight Articles and Book Excerpts:

• What Is Catholic Social Teaching? | Mark Brumley
• Liberal Democracy as a Culture of Death: Why John Paul II Was Right | Dr. Raymond Dennehy
• The Religion of Liberalism, Or Why Freedom and Equality Aren't Ultimate Goals | An Interview with James Kalb
• Religion and Socialism | Peter Kreeft
• The Comprehensive Claim of Marxism | Peter Kreeft
• "Certain Fundamental Truths": On the Place and Temptations of Politics | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Secularity: On Benedict XVI and the Role of Religion in Society | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• On Being Neither Liberal nor Conservative | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.

And on Insight Scoop:

• On poisoned water and the principle of subsidiarity (August 17, 2009)
• Governmental expansion and the principle of subsidiarity (March 4, 2009)
• On one hand, this should be obvious... (December 5, 2008)

Comments

[Fernando Umberto Garcia de Nicaragua, Prefectus Minimus: The Jacksonian Institute]

The Tea Party's reminder, however limited, of founding principles is good. But until they're willing to touch Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, these people are not serious. See:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/243417/progressives-legacy-bankruptcy-tiffany-jones-miller

When a group like this is thought of as "extreme," as liberals have called it, then we're far, far gone. The Tea Party would have us put out the fire - and only on a shingle of the house. Yet the house has burned down. Ashes. It's not about putting out the fire. It's about rebuilding the house. And this begins not with our fiscal bankruptcy, but with the moral bankruptcy from which this flows. Yet the Tea Party focuses only on the long-gone burning shingle.

"A country that legalizes the murder of its own children is doomed."

-Dietrich von Hildebrand

Tea Partiers have little to say about this, for example.

[Fernando Umberto Garcia de Nicaragua, Prefectus Minimus: The Jacksonian Institute]

By the way, the founders, especially Jefferson and Franklin, did indeed advocate a measure of welfare for the poor. So-called conservatives who say otherwise simply don't understand the founding. It was seen as an implication of natural rights theory that government would provide some minimum of poverty relief - but as a last resort, after family, church, a various private associations. Moreover, government help wasn't expected to be particularly comfortable, and for the able-bodied it was designed to be shameful.

See Ch. 6, Poverty and Welfare, of this:

Vindicating the Founders, by Thomas G. West

[David K. Monroe]

This is the usual leftist false dichotomy - either you support progressive taxation and the endless creation and expansion of entitlements, bestowed by the government and paid for with tax dollars, or you are a hard-hearted, selfish, extreme individualist who believes that you need have no concern for your neighbor whatever. There is no clear contradiction between Catholic teaching on caring for the poor and needy and the concerns and aims of the Tea Party or other conservative movements - none at all. The question is, what approach to governance is more likely to produce the circumstances in which people may prosper. Prosperous conservatives, especially prosperous religious conservatives, are in no way less likely to give to charitys or volunteer for charitable work. The whole approach, which evaluates compassion simply on the basis of whether or not one supports big-government solutions to social problems, is a calumny and ought not to be taken seriously by intelligent people.

[Todd Newbold]

I heard a Tea Party person on TV tonight say that over 85% of Social Security Medicare Medicaid goes to citizens over 60. No kidding genius. What would Americas Founding Fathers say about that statistic? Raising the retirement age doesn't make sense and cutting benefits doesn't make sense. Most of mankind hasn't lived past 50 years old. We are in a new era. Have your kids young and join the borrowed time club.

[Fernando Umberto Garcia de Nicaragua, Prefectus Minimus: The Jacksonian Institute]

"Most of mankind hasn't lived past 50 years old."

This is false. High infant mortality in the past skewed the numbers. The truth is that if one made it past infancy, one had a good chance of living 70-80 years. Look into it.

[Brian J. Schuettler]

Actually, Maureen "Moe" Tucker, former drummer of the Velvet Underground, has done the best job ever of explaining where the tea party stands and why it stands there. She also suggests the breadth and variety of the movement. In an interview this week in St. Louis's Riverfront Times, Ms. Tucker said she'd never been particularly political but grew alarmed by the direction the country was taking. In the summer of 2009, she went to a tea-party rally in southern Georgia. A chance man-on-the-street interview became a YouTube sensation. No one on the left could believe this intelligent rally-goer was the former drummer of the 1960s breakthrough band; no one on the left understood that an artist could be a tea partier. Because that's so not cool, and the Velvet Underground was cool.

Ms. Tucker, in the interview, ran through the misconceptions people have about tea partiers: "that they're all racists, they're all religious nuts, they're all uninformed, they're all stupid, they want no taxes at all and no regulations whatsoever." These stereotypes, she observed, are encouraged by Democrats to keep their base "on their side." But she is not a stereotype: "Anyone who thinks I'm crazy about Sarah Palin, Bush, etc., has made quite the presumption. I have voted Democrat all my life, until I started listening to what Obama was promising and started wondering how the hell will this utopian dream be paid for?"

As quoted from a Peggy Noonan piece

[Dan Buckley]

When compulsory tax money is used to aid the needy, the possibility of moral freedom is eliminated and the theological virtue of charity ceases to apply. One may argue that the only thing essential is that the poor be helped, but one then proposes that the end justifies the means.

[Matt]

Thanks for that post. For too long the "Catholic Social Teaching" mantra has gone unquestioned. It is a prudential, not dogmatic, manner, and prudence may dictate that gov't economic intervention does not really promote the common good. I won't be dogmatic about it either. I'm not a libertarian fundementalist. But it's good to have an open scholastic discourse and not just repeat ideological cliches.

[LJ]

I've listened to a lot of the Tea Party people and some of the conservative leaders who are in sync with them.

What I hear is the other part of the Catholic social doctrine, subsidiarity. That is in fact why the Tea Party seems to be comprised of a broad cross-section of political nuance from the center right through to the right.

Individuals, towns, cities, counties, states, in that order, can much more efficiently and directly apply the charitable principles of Catholic doctrine than can the federal government. Moreover, that is exactly how the founders saw it as well (even though they were not Catholics for the most part). That is why the Tea Party keeps harping on the Constitution. It's all there.

No Catholic principle is sacrificed, but rather is enhanced. Liberty is safe-guarded, another Catholic principle, lest we forget, and the centralizing of power that lends itself to socialist tyranny is thwarted.

And, in answer to Fernando Umberto Garcia de Nicaragua, Prefectus Minimus: The Jacksonian Institute, the possibility of reversing the culture of death in America is more likely when the federal government's power and control are dispersed.

[Francis Beckwith]

Schneck states, “Much as we might like otherwise, the Catholic argument is that government and citizen are equally expected to be our brother’s keeper.”

Here's the problem: what happens when the government asserts that certain persons are excluded from the set of "brother," e.g., the unborn? What does a Catholic do when the government states that gender is socially constructed but sexual orientation is immutable? In both cases, we are given a false account of what counts as a "brother." So, to say that government and citizen are equally expected to be our brother's keeper, when the issues over which we debate hinge on who precisely is a brother, mother, father, family, etc., is to really say nothing at all. It's another empty abstraction that provides no practical direction on what we should actually do.

Professor Schneck surely knows that Europe's shame--and its 100 million murders of the 20th century--is not the result of the Tea Party Movement. It is the result of utopian dreamers whose high-minded planned economies were driven by their desire to be their brothers' keeper. How did that work out?

[Maurice Griffin]

37. Rights must be religiously respected wherever they exist, and it is the duty of the public authority to prevent and to punish injury, and to protect every one in the possession of his own. Still, when there is question of defending the rights of individuals, the poor and badly off have a claim to especial consideration. The richer class have many ways of shielding themselves, and stand less in need of help from the State; whereas the mass of the poor have no resources of their own to fall back upon, and must chiefly depend upon the assistance of the State. And it is for this reason that wage-earners, since they mostly belong in the mass of the needy, should be specially cared for and protected by the government.

Pope Leo XII "Rerum Novarum" 1891

Every social encyclical since then including Benedict XVI "Caritas in Veritate" says similar. You can't just be a cafeteria Catholic and pick subsidiarity, you have to embrace the whole of Catholic teachings.

[joe]

M Griffin: The question of nuance still applies. Federal govt? State govt? If we want to hammer on encyclicals, I'd point out that in 1891 inerrancy was the doctrine of Scripture with no dissent allowed. I think the menu on the cafeteria has expanded slightly there!

[Carl E. Olson]

You can't just be a cafeteria Catholic and pick subsidiarity, you have to embrace the whole of Catholic teachings.

If you really think that is what is being said here, you are missing the boat. Oh, sure (sarcasm alert!), Catholics constantly hear about subsidiarity, subsidiarity, subsidiarity, and almost never hear about solidarity and taking care of the poor. Seriously, how many Catholics have even heard of subsidiarity, let alone know what it means? But, of course, there are countless Catholics who think (or "think") that any mention at all of subsidiarity or limited government or personal responsibility is simply mean-spirited opposition to helping the poor. A balanced, Catholic position considers all of these factors together, employing prudential judgment and sound reasoning to gauge the application of the entirety of Catholic social doctrine to real life situations. Bringing subsidiarity into the conversation is not only reasonable, it is necessary, as the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church makes abundantly clear (pars. 160-163). The fact is, folks who talk about subsidiarity do not scoff at or ignore solidarity or the common good (far from it); however, many of those who harp endlessly about solidarity and "social justice" never, ever talk about subsidarity. What gives?

[Maurice Griffin]

I'm saying Schneck has it right. You can't read Rerum or the Compendium or the other encyclicals as they emphasize the special responsibilities of government to the poor, sick, and similar and not see some problems with the Tea Party's anti-government libertarianism from the Catholic perspective.

Subsidiarity is great as far as it goes. Obviously, so is charity. But, for the encyclicals that doesn't mean the government shouldn't care for those who can't fend for themselves. Yes, and as the Compendium organizes it the four basic parts of Catholic social teachings are the dignity of the human person, the common good (as opposed to individual pursuits of happiness), solidarity, and subsidiarity. We don't get to pick one of these; we embrace them all. And, it would take some amazing theoretical tomfoolery to square solidarity and common good with the Tea Party's fringe.

[Carl E. Olson]

Maurice: Other than misrepresenting what most Tea Party folks believe (as in, what they actually say), downplaying the significance and place of subsidiarity in Catholic social doctrine, and engaging in ad hominem silliness, your "argument" makes perfect sense.

[Maurice Griffin]

So, Carl... All that talk about the role of government in the encyclicals and Compendium you'd just...what, erase? Bracket? Try to spin it in a way to fit some political preferences? Jeepers, isn't that what the pro-choice "Catholics" do with teachings they don't like?

If we're Catholics then we go with the teachings as they're written and as they're interpreted by the bishops.

[Fernando Umberto Garcia de Nicaragua, Prefectus Minimus: The Jacksonian Institute]

And let's not forget the need for the social reign of Christ the King: Pius XI, Quas Primas. Somehow we hear very little of this today.

[Carl E. Olson]

All that talk about the role of government in the encyclicals and Compendium you'd just...what, erase? Bracket?

I thought you had actually read my post, but apparently you haven't. You seem to be assuming that I am "anti-government", despite there being no evidence that I am (which makes sense, as I am not "anti-government"). Besides, if I was "anti-government", why would I bother to quote at length statements by John Paul II that speak of the rightful role of the State? I suppose I can take solace in the fact that your grasp of my position is about as secure as your grasp of Catholic social doctrine.

Again, John Paul II focuses on an issue that is, I am quite certain, of great interest to many Americans: "Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State." In other words, there are limits to what a State should do, and how it should do what it does. Asking what those limits are and debating how such limits should be recognized and addressed is completely within the realm of Catholic social doctrine; in fact, it is an important part of being a responsible and thinking Catholic. And it is in no way parallel to pro-choice Catholics, especially since such questions do not involve a renunciation of dogma, but the application of principles (common good, solidarity, subsidiarity, etc.) to concrete situations.

[Todd Newbold]

I will try to be pleasant. I believe the Catholic Church, Popes, Bishops, and Encyclicals are all right. I believe the WWII "Greatest Generation" is right, and lastly I believe Fr. Jerzy of Poland was right. I need to say one last thing - its not just abortion and infant mortality that skews demographics and statistics, but also all forms of birth control and population control. For Families and local Churches/Parishes to take care of "their own" you need large families as of old. I will give the Tea Party the benefit of the doubt, their intention is obviously must be to raise large/extendend families ( I am 40 with 4 beautiful kids) for only then will Governmant Philanthropy naturally dissolve. I am going to vote Democrat, "their are many different evils in this world."

[Kevin C.]

Dan Buckley: Bingo.

England before and after the persecution of the Church during the time of St. Thomas More is a good historical case study for a comparison between a society that has a proper balance between solidarity and subsidiarity (prior to the persecution) and a society that ignores subsidiarity (during and post-persecution welfare state).

[Susan]

I guess most Catholics do not understand the Principle of Subsidiarity. Most do not understand that in Catholic teaching acording to Pope Leo XIII, "When a government takes money from one who works for it with thier hand or brain, in the quies of giving it to those who have not earned it, then they are stealing it." This goes against Natural Law. Check this out at Traditionalcatholic.net.

[Todd Newbold]

I regret beleaguering the point friends, but with smaller families and men living into their 80's and women living past 100 now, the numbers require assistance and a comfortable life for citizens over 60 (past working age/health). Would someone please refute this argument with me, this blog is almost a week old? In the U.S. Marine Corps Leadership 101 taught that silence meant agreement?

[David K. Monroe]

Todd, the issue is not whether or not people require assistance but whether assistance MUST come from the Federal Government through tax dollars. The Federal Government is NOT the only source of charity on the planet and to assume that anything other than expanding Federal entitlements means the end of charity in our society is, as I stated before, a calumny.

[Todd Newbold]

Lets talk over coffee. SSA Medicare Medicaid cost about 1 trillion dollars. If you want to privatize those programs, my gut feeling is to many people would fall through the cracks - because of dozens of reasons, largely reasons that are protected by the Constitution for example (race, religion, sex, etc......)

Now I believe SSA FICA MEDICARE MEDICAID taxes bring in about 500 Billion, so there is a shortfall of 500 Billion dollars. Another 1 Trillion dollars in the Sunday Collections at Church would be nice :)

[Robert Miller]

Catholics (and many non-Catholic Christian social conservatives) made a Faustian bargain with libertarians in the 1970s/1980s that is coming back to haunt us in the Tea Party allure of 2010.

For the sake of brevity, I'll call us "social conservatives".

Social conservatives, rightly alarmed by the excesses of the Great Society and the Warren/Burger Supreme Court, decided that the main objective of their political activity ought to be to reduce the scale and intrusion of government (confident as they were that a "silent majority" of good, solid American folk would use their "liberty" to reverse the agnosticism and amoralism of the 1960s and early 1970s). And so, they won a few elections -- and, arguably, things in the US are not as bad as they might have been).

Problem is that economic libertarianism breeds that democratic libertinism that enabled Hippies to become Yuppies -- and now old f___ts, who want to "balance the budget" on the backs of the corporal's guard of young people they grudgingly produced when they got around to it. It's the demography, Stupid!

The Tea Party, in my opinion, is trying to resurrect the old social conservative/economic alliance that was profoundly flawed from the beginning.

I think Fernando Umberto Garcia de Nicaragua, Prefectus Minimus: The Jacksonian Institute nailed it perfectly with his comment: "And let's not forget the need for the social reign of Christ the King: Pius XI, Quas Primas. Somehow we hear very little of this today."

Personally, I'll take Cristo Rey any day over and against the "Founding Fathers" (let's not forget that human fathers can produce b_____ds).

Finally, as readers of this blog know, I hold no brief for BO, but it seems to me that his stimulus measures (as distinguished from the general amoralism of the rest of his initiatives) are no more than any reasonably prudent president (as witness W's final acts) would have taken to prevent catastrophe. In fact, I reproduce Carl's quotation of JP2 below to underscore the principle:

"This does not mean, however, that the State has no competence in this domain, as was claimed by those who argued against any rules in the economic sphere. Rather, the State has a duty to sustain business activities by creating conditions which will ensure job opportunities, by stimulating those activities where they are lacking or by supporting them in moments of crisis."

Let's not join a bunch of idiots who are blasting BO for the only thing he has been doing that's in keeping with Catholic social teaching. Let's get organized to take control of this country, using its government in coordination with all subsidiary entities to establish a "Catholic" solidarity around sound natural law principles, whether or not the "Founding Fathers" would have approved.

[David K. Monroe]

Nope, not believing that the federal government is the best and most efficient engine to solve social problems. They've been trying ever since LBJ and the result is more people dependent on federal handouts. The claim that if the same or similar services were privately administered, the result would be all kinds of people denied services because of their race, sex, and religion is a further calumny. I'm stunned that people have such unshakeable faith in federal government programs largely engineered by one political party and have absolutely NO faith in private charities of any kind, apparently even those that may be run by their own Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Politicians did not engineer the Welfare State to end poverty. They did it to supplant private charity with government run charity and assure the re-election of themselves and their successors. I'm disappointed that people have complete cynicism about the private sector and think that the government and its programs are sacrosanct. The federal government has done nothing to earn such loyalty. Congressmen, senators and government employees are no less likely to be racist, sexist, or oppressive than anyone else, and Constitutional protections apply no less to private enterprise than to public institutions.

[Todd Newbold]

Robert Miller -

Bravo.

I would like to add to my previous post - "the vow of poverty needs to be added to non-Catholic churches before 1 Trillion dollars of Sunday collections makes sense. But I am attracted to the philosophy of Equal Rights - race, religion, sex, creed, and the list goes on and on.

Thank You Robert Miller

[Todd Newbold]

David K. Monroe -

If I may. Lets cut to the chase. When you say Welfare State, you are talking about Senior Citizens - that is where almost two thirds of the National Budget goes, can you address this? I am fine with those numbers. The old, poor, sick, uneducated need to be taken care of. What if people live to 120 ? That would be 60 years of need. We cannot fight medicine, better living standards, nutrition, and the sort. And by the way I would be fine if the Catholic Church took over SSA, Medicare, Medicaid - I may be wrong but do any other denominations vow poverty for their clergy?

[David K. Monroe]

Todd, the situation we are in now, and the situation that you apparently have no problem with, is unsustainable. We are not going to be able to take care of millions of people for 60 years apiece in perpetuity with the current broken and wasteful system. It is the way to poverty, not by vow, but by economic disaster. It's al; good and well to be satisfied with two thirds of the budget going to entitlement programs because you see charity to the old, poor, sick, and uneducated as necessary, but if it just sets up a situation that is very likely to collapse at some point, then it is not good and is in fact a very bad thing. The collapse of these burgeoning programs stands to hurt many people in the future, perhaps even more than it ever helped.

I'd be find if the Catholic Church took over SSA, Medicare and Medicaid also. I do think that the Church would be infinitely better able to handle such services because her priests and bishops are not elected officials and would be far less likely to use charitable endeavors to enrich and empower themselves.

[Todd Newbold]

Thank You David K. Monroe -

Creativity is the correct answer.

[Todd Newbold]

Now lets have some Earl Grey Tea.
Long Term Care, Medicine, Biology is the New Economy.
Life use to be 100% before 50, now it is 50% before 50% after.
All disciplines can adapt.
The Pope wants us to Evangelize and convert. "Long Term" Opportunity.

[Bill Jerome]

IMHO, all the comments ignore one salient fact: the monstrous weath/income pyramid of the class system in where a very small per cent of the population owns a huge proportion of the nation's (and the world's) wealth. If you exclude use of government then you are left with begging the very wealthy for handouts. I think it makes more sense to tax them. Another point, where was all this talk of how bad the government is and all the money it spends during the past nine years of war at the rate of billions of dollars a day? Where was all this concern for loss of innocent life when scores of thousands have lost their lives as by-standers in our wars? Regardless of your intentions this rubbish is going to result in a huge gift to the wealthy and a kick in the pants to the elderly, and poor. This is most assuredly Catholic social justice.I am praying thatthe Holy Spirit melts your hearts!

[Bill Jerome]

Oops, in my hast and distress I omitted the "not" from the next to last sentence. Sorry!

[David K. Monroe]

Bill, where were you during the Bush administration? Did you not hear all the protesting about money spent and lives lost for the sake of Iraq? Did you not hear many people saying "I voted for Bush twice but he's run up all these deficits and I no longer support him and am no longer a Republican?" Seriously, it's bad enough that you're trying to pull the old tired "Ignore the present! Talk about Bush!" canard, but your implication that all that happened in the Bush years passed without criticism is bogus.

Begging the wealthy for handouts? How about being hired by "the wealthy?" I've never worked for a poor man or woman. Wealth creation is what we need in this country and on this planet. Wealth creation is the engine of employment AND of charity. Excessive, punitive taxation kills both. I pray the Holy Spirit opens your eyes.

[Todd Newbold]

Idea.
Tax schedule based on 3 criteria

1 - age
2 - 1 years income
3 - net worth

example 1 - 20yr old, 25,000 income, 0 net worth
11% tax rate

example 2 - 40yr old, 50,000 income, 100,00 net worth
33% tax rate

example 3 - 60yr old, 100,000 income, 500,000 net worth
66% tax rate

with a flat 5,000 child tax credit
with a flat 20,000 mortgage interest tax credit

[Manuel G. Daugherty Razetto]

David K. Monroe:

Amen to that.

[Todd Newbold]

Here would be my Tax Schedule - philosophy (have kids early)

1. anyone under 30 only pays 5% income tax
2. ages 31 - 50 pays 25% income tax
3. anyone over 50 pays 50% income tax
4. anyone with a gross net worth over 1M at anytime pays 66% income tax
5. no deductions

[Gregorio]

I'm usually a huge fan of yours, Mr. Olson. But in this case, I think you've given Mr. Schneck a far more measured and courteous response than he deserves. Where does he get off saying that tea partiers don't care about the poor and that the tea party movement is all about "citizens being free from the demands and needs of the country as a whole"?

I am flummoxed at this statement, and flummoxed as well that you -- in your altogether patient and reasonable style -- address it seriously.

Woody Allen recounts being accused of cheating in a Metaphysics class, when, during a test, he looked into the soul of the student sitting next to him. Apparently Schneck did the same thing; otherwise, how could he make such an absurd, biased and irrational statement about the private inclinations of millions of people?

To be preached to by someone guilty of such patent intellectual dishonesty -- not to mention snobbery -- is intolerable. Schneck deserves to be pilloried.

(Not to worry, by the way. I am maintaining my subscription to InSight Scoop.)