Religious Politics

Sorry this is a day late.  Life got in the way.

Two of my friends sent me links to a YouTube video.  The video is really rather scary in that it is dark, with a blacksmith at his fiery forge pounding on iron rods to form the words that will be in this year’s election, over and over, ad nauseum.  Economy and jobs.  But then it comes to “truths that are not negotiable”, and launches into right-to-life, sanctity of marriage, parental responsibility, and religious freedom.  The video then transitions to a woman with a ballot in her hand entering a voting booth, filling out her ballot, and exiting the booth.  And of course the words infer that if she doesn’t vote correctly, she will put her salvation in jeopardy.  If you want to view this for yourself, go to cc2w.org.  Catholics Called to Witness.  The homepage only lists the organization as a non-profit, but does not list a Board of Directors.  Only an address in Florida.

This ad is probably one of the most offensive I have seen in a long time.  My non-Catholic husband viewed it and commented that it looked like it was sponsored by a Vatican-PAC.  I wouldn’t go quite that far, but it certainly is sponsored by politically conservative activists, either in the Church or out.  It has long been apparent to many Catholics that some of our conservative Bishops have sided more with the Republican National Committee than in the values of compassion taught in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.  This ad exemplifies that.

Probably more than anything that offends me is the simplistic view of the four subjects the ad covers.  What is meant by right-to-life, other than abortion?  As I read recently in a comment to another blog, does anyone in the RNC care about whether ex-fetuses are hungry, or clothed and housed?  And if so, how do we as a society go about seeing to it that this right-to-life principal, which touts life from conception to natural death, also includes the many issues that face people after they are born? 

Since my husband and I will celebrate our 59^th wedding anniversary in a couple of months, I obviously believe in the sanctity of marriage.  But because of our long relationship I also know that there is more to sex than merely procreation; that there is a bonding that occurs in the loving relationship that cannot be explained to anyone who has not experienced it.  Which certainly includes the hierarchy.  I think it is the result of this experience that has caused so many Americans in general and Catholics in particular to change their views on marriage equality.  Even though same-sex couples cannot procreate, they can certainly love each other in a good and holy way, and can also establish a family in which children can be lovingly raised.  The New Testament Letter to the Romans, Chap. 1, 26-28 is often cited as a reason to decry same-sex sex.  But this is the only place in the entire New Testament that same-sex activities are discussed!  If Jesus hated it so much, it seems that He would have mentioned it a time or two, in particular in His Sermon on the Mount.  Further, the current marriage equality issues do in no way demand that the churches should change the way they teach.  It only gives same-sex couples civil rights they do not now enjoy. 

The third issue the video mentions is parental responsibility.  I would assume that this is birth control, although the video does not mention this.  Since surveys have shown that 98% of Catholic women have used birth control at some point in their lives, I think this video is shockingly out of touch with reality.  An experience of mine in college might sort of explain what is going on here.  I have laughingly joked that I was exposed to two years of French, but it never really took.  Well, the Catholic faithful have been exposed to some 81 years of Catholic teaching on birth control, but it hasn’t really taken. 

The final statement was on Religious Freedom.  Whose religious freedom?  It wasn’t until contraception surfaced as a Republican issue that some of the conservative Bishops jumped on that particular bandwagon to help overturn the Affordable Healthcare Act, even though it will really help some of those ex-fetuses we mentioned earlier.  It is my opinion that the Bishops see the election of a Republican Congress and President as the way for them to do away with the separation of church and state, and to have the Catholic Church become the established Church.  But if they do think that, what religious wars we will have between the Catholics and the extreme fundamentalist churches which still think the Catholic Church is the anti-Christ.  Regardless, the conservative Bishops are riding rough-shod over the religious freedom of anyone who doesn’t agree with their particularly ancient view of marriage by attempting to turn themselves into victims.  Well, they are not victims – they are the worst of bullies.

The most frightening thing about what is happening in both our country and the church of many of us is that a rigid, non-thinking fundamentalist way of regarding issues is becoming so strong.  And the people pushing these are not bad people.  They honestly believe they are absolutely and unequivocally right.  Which is what makes this all so frightening.

Romney and Bullying

When the news broke the other day about Mitt Romney’s high school bullying incident, I was rather annoyed.  As someone said, we probably all did stupid things in high school, so why make a big deal out of this.  That is the point of maturing – we grow out of our high school attitudes and mature into thinking, empathetic adults.  But then I began thinking about some of the other things Mitt has done and said, and in my mind they form a pattern.

 First it was the high school bullying.  A bully cares only about his or her own feelings and doesn’t think, or care, about the feelings of the one being bullied.  Then it was the “dog on the car” episode.  This one bothered me because Mitt’s first answer was not only really ludicrous, but was a lie as well.  He commented that the dog carrier was really airtight.  If it had been airtight, the dog would have suffocated shortly after the trip began.  Further, if it had been airtight, the dog’s effluent wouldn’t have run down the back of the car.  There was no discussion about the condition of the dog at the end of the trip.  Then it was how funny it was that when his Dad closed a plant in Michigan and moved it to Wisconsin, the local band could only play “On, Wisconsin”.  No thought about the people in Michigan who had lost their jobs, or apparent care about what happened to them.  Later, he commented that he really loved to fire companies who were not performing to his standards.  No comment, or thought, about what happened to the people working in the companies he fired.  He had a habit while at Bain Capital of manipulating companies into bankruptcy after having gutted all of their assets for Bain Capital without a thought about what the workers of those companies would do for a living.  And finally, his op-ed piece regarding letting Detroit go bankrupt, knowing full well there was no private capital around to bail them out, and he objected to using tax dollars to do so.  Not a word about the thousands of people who would be out of a job.

Anyone of these incidents, if isolated, would not be enough to form a pattern.  Obviously.  But when one puts them all together they do form a pattern of someone, who in this case happens to be a man, who has absolutely no comprehension that his actions will have a severely detrimental effect on a great number of people.

Martin Bashir had a Democratic analyst, Julian Epstein, on his program today who made the same connection, for which I was thrilled.  At least there is someone who has the ability to get this pattern of Romney’s out into the public forum.  But that was today.

Now imagine this man, Mitt Romney, as President of the United States.  What a chilling thought.

An excellent article.

This past week I was truly "under the weather".  But I did find the article below which explains much better than I can what the differences are between what Paul Ryan says about Catholic social justice and what other Catholics say about the church's social justice teachings.  I hope it will inform you well. 

This article first appeared as a Common Good Forum in the Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good website. Distribution and reproduction of this article is permitted where the source is credited. For more Common Good Forums, visit www.catholicsinalliance.org

 Ryan, Weigel, and Subsidiarity: Politicizing the Social Magisterium

By Steve Schneck, director of Catholic University’s Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies and a CACG board member

So also we are many persons. But in Christ we are one body. And each part of the body belongs to all the other parts. Romans 12:5

A misunderstanding of subsidiarity is being advanced insistently by those who oppose the American bishops on protecting programs for the poor and vulnerable. Wrongly, this misunderstanding presents Catholicism’s teaching about subsidiarity as at odds with the principle of distributive justice. Wrongly, it presents subsidiarity as allied with anti-government and pro-market ideology. Wrongly, it is employed to minimize traditional teachings about government’s special responsibility to preference the needs of the poor and vulnerable.

In truth, subsidiarity conforms to the Church’s ancient teachings on distributive justice. Papal encyclicals enframe subsidiarity within the moral duties of government to care for the poor. Likewise, the magisterium’s understanding of subsidiarity is inseparable from its oft-reiterated demand that markets must be regulated for the common good and for the dignity of the human person.

The “subsidiarity misunderstanding” pops up everywhere at the moment. George Weigel, at the Ethics and Public Policy Center—whom I otherwise admire for his exposition of Blessed John Paul II’s personalism—disappoints in describing subsidiarity as “Catholicism’s anti-statist social justice principle.” Weigel imagines, incorrectly that thanks to subsidiarity, government should wither away (or concern itself only with muscular projections of American force abroad) and that free market magic would then solve the problem of the poor by “breaking the cycle of welfare dependency and unleashing the creativity the Church believes God builds into every soul.”

Similarly, Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) claimed in recent weeks that the House-passed (and Mitt Romney approved) budget he designed was somehow “Catholic” because of what he imagined to be its conformity with the principle of subsidiarity. Illustrating the misunderstanding, Ryan mused that subsidiarity “is really federalism, meaning government closest to the people governs best.” Ryan promotes an approach to poverty without “big government” wherein we all privately “take care of people who are down and out in our communities.” From this, by his own account, he felt justified in cutting Medicaid, Medicare, WIC, food stamps, school lunches, and similar programs while at the same time advancing tax cuts for the richest Americans.

Our bishops understand subsidiarity somewhat differently. Without mentioning Ryan by name, they rejected the idea that there was anything particularly Catholic about Ryan’s employment of the idea to defend his budget. Sending letters to the Agriculture and the Ways and Means committees they expressed their concerns.

Congress faces a difficult task to balance needs and resources and allocate burdens and sacrifices. Just solutions, however, must require shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and fairly addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs. The House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral criteria.

Letters from our bishops to Congress asking for distributive justice are increasingly common. In the last year or so about a half dozen have been sent to Congressional leaders. Over and over these letters have maintained that the burdens of deficit reduction need to be shared by everyone and that it was unfair to help the rich at the expense of safety net programs for the poor. One take away for Ryan, Weigel, and others should be that subsidiarity—correctly understood— is neither anti-government nor at odds with distributive justice.

Church teachings about the responsibilities of government, about distributive justice, and about subsidiarity, all fit together in a seamless arrangement—along with allied Catholic ideas concerning solidarity and the common good. The critical insight for understanding this fit is to recognize that for the Church the human person is NOT the hyper-individual in competition with others that Ayn Rand and libertarians and Tea Partiers and some advocates of market thinking imagine. Our teachings instead present the human person as part of what St Paul described as a Mystical Body, which is in the fulsome sense the Church in the world and en route to salvation. Distributive justice is giving each part of that body its appropriate proportional share, as measured by the common good of the whole (which is measured in part by the good of those “least” of our brethren). Subsidiarity, which has as its root the idea of subsidy, is part of the ethic of corporate distributive justice. It obliges us to empower and promote all the lower parts of the corporate whole to their fullest extent so that each part complements the other for the common good.

So, subsidiarity is not Tea Party federalism translated into Latin. It’s not about simply preferring state and local government (or private markets) over the national government. It’s about having a just distribution of power, responsibilities, goods, and privileges in society so that all the parts of society are fully dignified for doing what is best for the whole. It’s about distributive justice in the fullest sense.

Throughout the 20th century and up through Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate, papal encyclicals have described responsibilities of government in light of this rich conception of the social order. Government has a moral obligation to promote the common good of the whole. It does this badly when it loses sight of distributive justice. It can fail in distributive justice in light of subsidiarity if it exceeds its proper role and takes too much power, responsibility, and so forth into itself (about which Weigel and Ryan worry). It can also fail the test of distributive justice—as our bishops are warning in regard to the budget—when it does not rise to the responsibilities it bears for the poor, the vulnerable, or other parts of the common good of the whole.

In so many ways, the ideals of Catholic social teaching offer much guidance for addressing the crises of contemporary American political life. Subsidiarity, properly understood in the context of distributive justice, is especially pertinent to thoughtful reflection on budget and tax priorities relative to the common good. But, the social magisterium is compromised when shoehorned into the shallow ideologies of today’s America. The Church’s teachings on subsidiarity— like similar teachings on the common good, solidarity, and the dignity of the person—transcend political ideologies. Therein lies their glory. That’s why politicizing subsidiarity should concern us all.

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good • 1612 K Street NW, Suite 400 • Washington, DC 20006

Tel/fax 202-466-1665 • www.catholicsinalliance.org • email@catholicsinalliance.org

This article first appeared as a Common Good Forum in the Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good website. Distribution and reproduction of this article is permitted where the source is credited. For more Common Good Forums, visit www.catholicsinalliance.org

Government vs Corporations

First off, for any consistent readers, let me say that our old dog is getting deaf, so yesterday we got two puppies for him to teach how to be good puppies while we still have him.  Thus, I’m a day late.

Be that as it may, with the political discussions going on this week regarding government, government services, privatizing government services, etc., I would first like to share an illustrative incident that took place when I was still in office.  We had a very interesting law suit filed against the county, but on an issue which was extremely rare.  As a result, our county counsel’s office contracted with a private law firm specializing in that particular issue.  There immediately was an outcry over how much this was going to cost the county, etc., etc.  So our county counsel ran some numbers on how much it would cost to keep an attorney on staff at all times for such a rare event, and how much it was going to cost the county to contract out.  Of course, it was much less to contract out than to hire a full time attorney specializing in something for which she might only be required for every 10-12 years.  I recognize that there are times when it becomes cost effective to privatize a government service.

Generally speaking, however, this is not the case.  For run-of-the-mill government services, it is much more cost effective to provide those services in-house, so to speak.  And for one very good reason.  A private business is in the business to make a profit.  So on top of paying for the actual service provided, government must then provide the profit on top of what it would have cost government to do it in the first place. 

Government, however, ought not to be in the business of routinely providing business with a profit.  That is not in the government job description.  Government is in the business of providing needed services to the people in exchange for tax dollars.  These needed services must be provided as efficiently and as economically as possible, of course.  That, in my opinion, goes without saying.

Starting with Ronald Reagan and his famous statement, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help’,” there has been a constant drumbeat against government and against public employee unions.  Stop and consider this for a minute.  The only people or entities who could possibly benefit from this are business people or corporations.  The general public certainly has not benefitted.

What we, as citizens, are faced with if this proposal is carried out to its logical conclusion is that we will be paying taxes to go to providing a profit to businesses, along with a lower level of service for ourselves.  The reasons the lower levels of service are automatic is that businesses tend in increase their profit margins as much as possible.  And a lower level of service is one way to achieve that goal.

Now I’m going to play with the puppies.

Friendly Fascism

OK.  It’s Friday, so I must think of something original to write about.  Having a major case of writer’s block is no laughing matter.  But there is so much going on in today’s political environment that it is virtually impossible on our first really warm day of Spring to concentrate.

Perhaps I can just light on some definitions.  In order to focus my mind on this I went to a book, “Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America”, Bertram Gross, 1982, which I had read years ago, and was still on my shelf.  In seeing if it was still in print, I did find where, unfortunately, Mr. Gross had died, so there was not a further update.  The following paragraphs are from the preface to the 1982 paperback edition.

“Friendly Fascism portrays two conflicting trends in the United States and other countries of the so-called ‘free world’.

The first is a slow and powerful drift toward greater concentration of power and wealth in a repressive Big Business-Big Government partnership.  This drift leads down the road toward a new and subtly manipulative form of corporatist serfdom.  The phrase ‘friendly fascism’ helps distinguish this possible future from the patently vicious corporatism of classic fascism in the past of Germany, Italy and Japan.  It also contrasts with the unfriendly present of the dependent fascisms propped up by the U.S. government in El Salvador, Haiti, Argentina, Chile, South Korea, the Philippines and elsewhere.  (Remember this was written in 1982.)

The other is a slower and less powerful tendency for individuals and groups to seek greater participation in decisions affecting themselves and others.  This trend goes beyond mere reaction to authoritarianism.  It transcends the activities of progressive groups or movements and their use of formal democratic machinery.  It is nourished by establishment promises—too often rendered false—of more human rights, civil rights and civil liberties.  It is embodied in larger values of community, sharing, cooperation, service to others and basic morality as contrasted with crass materialism and dog-eat-dog competition.  It affects power relations in the household, workplace, community, school, church, synagogue, and even the labyrinths of private and public bureaucracies.  It could lead toward a truer democracy—and for this reason is bitterly fought…”

These two definitions are very important in this election season as we listen to the candidates for the Presidency.  We need to ask ourselves, which America are they talking about?  If we can keep this question always in the front of our minds, it will be a lot easier to make a decision.

When Mitt Romney talks about “American values”, which of these Americas is he talking about?  Is he talking about the no longer slow “…but very powerful drift toward a greater concentration of power and wealth in a repressive Big Business-Big Government partnership.”  Where in his speeches is he talking about human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties?  He talks about economic freedom, but whose economic freedom is he talking about?  And when it comes to civil rights, does he support civil rights for women?  Has he come out against the refusal of the Legislature to renew the Violence Against Women Act?  Has he slapped down Scott Walker for repealing Wisconsin’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act that insures that women get paid the same amount as men doing the same work?  If he has, I haven’t noticed.

I know that is isn’t politically correct to talk about candidates being fascists.  But if Allen West can call 80 members of Congress communists, why can’t we progressives discuss this move toward friendly fascism?  It is time we call this new Republican Party exactly what it is.  Not so friendly fascists.

For all of you progressives I recommend you read Bertram Gross’s book, Friendly Fascism.  You will never think the same way again!

And now to enjoy this lovely day.

Fascists, Friendly Fascism, Bertram Gross,Mitt Romney,Violence Against Women Act,Republican Party,Allen West

Kill at Will Laws

One of the innumerable comments re: Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law,which I will henceforth call “Kill at Will” law, was one that resonated with my memories, and that is that these laws echo sentiments of the Old West.

My grandfather was born in Southern California in 1872.  This was the time portrayed in the old, and not so old, western movies where gun fighters supposedly could pull their gun at any time and in any place, and shoot at will, presumably to kill their opponent.  My grandfather found this depiction to be really absurd, and used to make fun of it frequently.  He lived to be 94 years old, so had seen some westerns, and refused to see more.

He did have a real sense of what seeing such scenes of irresponsible gun use could have on children, however.  When we grandchildren visited his ranch we had certain responsibilities that we simply had to live up to.  The “or else” was hearing his massive, really deep voice explaining to us, at length, exactly what we had done wrong, and exactly what we had to do to make up for it.  Once a cousin came in for lunch, leaving his pony tied up to a tree with no food or water.  Major no-no for our list of responsibilities which was to take the saddle and bridal off of our pony, curry-comb it down, put it in the corral to roll around and eat or drink before we ever thought about taking care of ourselves. Which my cousin then had to do while the rest of us had lunch.  My cousin got what was left. My grandfather’s point was that those ponies were giving us a great deal of pleasure, and we were to see to it that we took care of them first in return.  And, as he explained, as we grew up and relied on horses to work for us on the ranch, we needed to learn how to care of them so they could work for us. 

If we lived up to our responsibilities as small children, one of our rewards was to be taken down the outside hall/porch to where his locked gun cabinet was.  The key was in his pocket.  He would open the cabinet doors and we would look with awe at the rifles and shotguns.  As we got older, the next step, if we had exhibited responsibility in other areas, was to be able to touch the gun.  Still firmly in the cabinet.  Later, of course, we learned how to take care of the guns, how to carry one with the barrel always pointed down, and how to shoot.  As a result, I have a great and healthy respect for a gun.

These kill-at-will laws completely ignore responsibility. They legally allow all sorts of people to shoot other people, who may be totally innocent of any crime other than being in the wrong place at the right time for a killing.

My opinion, which is a tad colored by my up-bringing, is that in this era of attempting to privatize any and every government responsibility, including trained law enforcement services, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has gotten these kill-at-will laws passed in 25 states in an effort to convince people that the average citizen can take care of him or herself, and do not need to rely on trained law enforcement personnel to do it for them.  So, do away with the police. 

Of course there are times when law enforcement is necessary, so contract those services out to a private security company.  Say like Xe, the former notorious and highly suspect Blackwater.  Citizens will have no control over such a security company because it is a corporation.  However, the Supreme Court decision, Citizens United, declared that corporations are people, and we presume citizens, too. 

Carrying this out to its logical extreme is the situation in Michigan that is truly appalling.  The Governor there can declare any special district, city or county to be fiscally incompetent, and disband that jurisdiction’s duly elected Board or Council.  Governor Kasich can then appoint a General Manager for the jurisdiction who can do exactly whatever he, or she, wants, including doing away with any government agency within that jurisdiction such as law enforcement which can be replaced by a private security company, under only the Manager’s authority.  

These are very daunting times we live in.  To keep a democracy we have to have a mutual and universal sense of the common good which we all can agree on.  Our sense of responsibility for that common good is rapidly being eroded.  We rely on this sense of common good to work for us.  We need to take very good care of it, as well.  Which is taught to children when they learn to care for their ponies, or for each other if no pony is available!

Easter Blessings

Dear readers -- This is a strictly Christian message, but I also want to extend Passover greetings to my Jewish readers, and to those of other faiths and traditions, please enjoy and revel in this spring time of newness.

The below is from Catholic Democrats. org.

Easter Blessings Dear Sisters and Brothers in Faith, We are an Easter people and Holy Week is a time to give thanks and reconcile ourselves with God. In the midst of an uncertain and tumultuous world, this Easter season is a time to remember God's love for us and the sacrifice that Jesus made for our eternal salvation. It is also a time for us to remember what Jesus taught us. The mystery and love of God is revealed to each of us in different ways at different times. It can depend on where we are in our own life's journey yet it is always present through prayer, through the Eucharist, and through our own life experience. It's also made manifest to us through one another, even in the realm of political action. Easter is a time that can both challenge us and console us. We can be both pruned for growth and enriched. We can be called to love and be loved. It is a time for us to remember that while our individual journeys may be lonely, we are never alone -God is always with us. As it was for Jesus, this is a time for us to understand ourselves through God, not only as individuals but also in community with one another. We remember that we are all God's children, all brothers and sisters, and that God is present to us through each other. Our Catholic heritage has been defined by an understanding that we are called to bring our faith into the world, a faith that is rooted in the love and hope of Easter. We can be grateful that our Church - in spite of the divisions we witness today - has given us and the world the rich Catholic Social Justice Tradition to guide us in working for the common good. As Jesus taught us when he washed the feet of His Apostles, let us reflect and act on the importance of serving and caring for others - both as individuals and as a society. We are an Easter people. Let us pray that the hope and joy of these days will fill us throughout this year both for our own journeys and for the work before us during this important year in the life of our nation. And as the Spirit moves us to work in a polarized public square, as advocates for those most in need, let us remember the words and actions of Jesus at the Last Supper - "I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do." (John 13: 15). With our love, gratitude, and sincere wishes for a peaceful and joyful Easter, Patrick Whelan, MD, PhD Suzanne Morse Lisa Schare Steve Krueger