Mitt Romney Picks Pro-Life [Catholic] Rep. Paul Ryan as VP Running Mate
by Steven Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 8/11/12 9:28 AM
www.lifenews.com/2012/08/11/mitt-romney-picks-pro-life-rep-paul-ryan-as-vp-running-mate/
Mitt Romney has selected strongly pro-life Rep. Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate. Ryan is a Wisconsin congressman know for his conservative stances on fiscal and budget issues but he is very strongly pro-life — saying he would never vote for abortion.
Ryan has made a solid pro-life pledge that will endear him to millions of voters looking for a pro-life Vice President to replace pro-abortion Vice President Joe Biden.
During the 2010 elections, Ryan told The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack, “I’m as pro-life as a person gets.”
He responded to a controversial “truce” that Mitch Daniels of Indiana had put forward saying social issues should be put on the back burner, and repudiated it.
“You’re not going to have a truce. Judges are going to come up. Issues come up, they’re unavoidable, and I’m never going to not vote pro-life,” Ryan said.
Ryan said he is equally adamant about both his conservative fiscal views as well as his position that every unborn child has the right to live.
“I write as an unswerving proponent of both free market choice and the natural right to life,” Ryan wrote in a Heritage Foundation piece called “The Cause of Life Can’t be Severed from the Cause of Freedom.” “It is unfortunate that ‘life’ and ‘choice’ were ever separated and viewed as alternatives.”
Ryan continued: “I cannot believe any official or citizen can still defend the notion that an unborn human being has no rights that an older person is bound to respect. I do know that we cannot go on forever feigning agnosticism about who is human. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.” The freedom to choose is pointless for someone who does not have the freedom to live. So the right of “choice” of one human being cannot trump the right to “life” of another. How long can we sustain our commitment to freedom if we continue to deny the very foundation of freedom—life—for the most vulnerable human beings?”
“All conservatives should find it easy to agree that government must uphold every person’s right to make choices regarding their lives and that every person’s right to live must be secured before he or she can exercise that right of choice,” he said then.
In the opinion column, Ryan also defended his pro-life stance — providing a historical recounting of how the Supreme Court realized African-Americans are persons but failed to recognize that fact about unborn children.
“Now, after America has won the last century’s hard-fought struggles against unequal human rights in the forms of totalitarianism abroad and segregation at home, I cannot believe any official or citizen can still defend the notion that an unborn human being has no rights that an older person is bound to respect. I do know that we cannot go on forever feigning agnosticism about who is human,” he writes.
He also released a statement to LifeNews explaining his solid pro-life views:
“Healthy debate should take place within the Republican Party on specific policies, but it is a false choice to ask which natural right we should discard: ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ is not a menu of options,” Ryan says.
“All planks – economic liberty and limited government; keeping our nation secure; championing America’s founding truths and the dignity of every human person – are rooted in same timeless principles, enshrined in our Founding and the cause of our exceptionalism,” Ryan added. “The American family must remain at the core of our free society, and I will remain ever-vigilant in its defense.”
The National Right to Life Committee, in tracking the votes Ryan has cast in Congress on important pro-life issues, has crafted a perfect 100% pro-life voting record.
This year, Ryan is 10 for 10 in pro-life voting — voting to repeal Obamacare, cut off taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood repeatedly, stopping taxpayer funding for abortions in various instances, banning sex-selection abortions, providing for pro-life conscience protections for medical professionals, and banning abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy in the nation’s capital.
In fact, in 78 votes NRLC has tracked where Ryan voted on key pro-life issues, he never voted against pro-life interests during his career in the House of Representatives. Ryan has voted to prevent taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research and to ban the horrific practice of partial-birth abortion.
Ryan has taken a tough pro-life position against the Obama HHS mandate, saying, “This is much, much bigger than about contraception. This is about religious freedom, First Amendment rights, and how this progressive philosophy of fungible rights of a living breathing constitution really clashes and collides with these core rights that we built our society and country around.”
Representative Ryan was born in Janesville, Wisconsin on January 29, 1970. A fifth-generation Wisconsin native, Ryan was the youngest of four children born to Paul Ryan Sr., who worked as an attorney, and Betty, a stay-at-home mom.
In April 2000, Ryan proposed to Janna Little, a native Oklahoman, at one of his favorite fishing spots, Big St. Germain Lake in Wisconsin. Later that year, the two were married in Oklahoma City. The Ryans reside in Janesville with their three children, Liza, Charlie and Sam. The family are parishioners at St. John Vianney Catholic Church.
Upon entering Congress in January of 1999, Ryan was the youngest member of the freshmen class at the age of 28. Prior to running for Congress, Ryan served as an aide to Republican Senators Robert Kasten Jr. and Sam Brownback, former U.S. Rep. and Vice Presidential Candidate Jack Kemp, and as a speechwriter for Education Secretary William Bennett.
Ryan is a graduate of Joseph A. Craig High School in Janesville and earned degrees in economics and political science from Miami University in Ohio. He is an avid outdoorsman and is a member is of his local archery association, the Janesville Bowmen.
Because it’s not Marco Rubio, there go Florida and the Hispanic vote. Also, Senator Rubio would have appealed to the Catholic vote (his past and current religion), the nondenominational Christian vote (his wife’s religion and the church he supports and attends on alternate Sundays), and the Mormon vote (his previous religion). Wait, there’s already a Mormon on the ticket.
Rubio is a barely in the closet protestant, not a Catholic.
Ryan is a Green Bay Packers fan from WI, like me. That’s frosting on the cake.
I can’t wait for the USCCCP response. They dumped all over Ryan before, and they will again. It will be fun to watch as they try to deliver the Catholic swing to Hussein while saving face on the mandate.
According to the Washington Post ( www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/under-god/post/ryan-pick-sparks-outpouring-of-reaction/2012/08/11/5d7cd59a-e3c6-11e1-a25e-15067bb31849_blog.html ), the Catholic social justice lobby NETWORK has weighed in on Romney’s choice:
“Our recent ‘Nuns on the Bus’ tour was created to point out immoral budget priorities present in Rep. Ryan’s proposed federal budget. Tragically, his budget passed the House of Representatives and has now been formally endorsed by Gov. Mitt Romney,” according to a statement posted on [its] web site …
NETWORK’s Executive Director Sister Simone Campbell, said in a statement Saturday morning:
“We agree with Catholic bishops that Paul Ryan’s budget fails the test of Catholic social teaching since it deliberately harms people at the economic margins. It is also unpatriotic because it says that we are an individualistic, selfish nation. This is emphatically not who we are. Both our Constitution and our faith teach us that ‘We the People’ are called to care for one another, to have responsibility for each other. This year’s election will present us with a critical choice. Do we want to favor the rich on the backs of people in need? Is that who we want to be?”
Also, according to Sarah Posner on Religion Dispatches ( www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/6277/romney's_vp_pick_of_ryan_will_bring_religion_to_the_fore/ ), the USCCCP is already on record:
[T]he USCCB did write letters to Congressional committees, citing concerns that Ryan’s budget failed to meet “moral criteria” because it was based on “disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor and vulnerable persons.” The result: politicians’ arguments not over the budget, but over what type of budget is supported by Catholic teaching. But these are arguments for Catholics, for academics, for theologians. Seeking clerical approval (or disapproval) of legislative and policy proposals is at odds with our secular democracy. (Believe me, I understand the impulse to discredit Ryan’s claim that Catholic teaching supports his budget, but there are serious problems with officeholders and office seekers using and abusing the imprimateur of religious authorities.) Romney’s pick of Ryan, though, virtually ensures that arguments over the meaning of Catholic teaching will become an integral part of the presidential campaign. And remember, now both vice-presidential candidates are Catholics—of different stripes.
Wherein the New York Times Decides Catholic Bishops Are Not Partisan Because It’s Time to Tear Down Paul Ryan
Ed Krayewski
Aug. 11, 2012
reason.com/blog/2012/08/11/wherein-the-new-york-times-decides-catho
It behooves Mitt Romney at this point in his campaign to market Paul Ryan as a fiscal hawk and deficit hero, despite some striking evidence to the contrary, like his votes for TARP, Medicare D and even George W. Bush’s wars, each a budget-buster of its own on the road to fiscal calamity. Nevertheless, because the Obama campaign and the Democratic party have decided that the way to win in November is to scare Americans by portraying Mitt Romney as a callous figure who intends on dismantling government, killing your grandmother, and whatever horrible thing it is that they think will scare people into re-electing the president, liberals actually share Mitt Romney’s goal of portraying Paul Ryan as a fiscal hawk, and worse. The New York Times published an op-ed today that tries to do just that:
Paul Ryan is so evil, argues the Times, that the Roman Catholic congressman has even drawn the ire of Catholic bishops with his budget proposal. The word of the Catholic bishops, in this case, should be taken at face value. But the Times is no friend of religious institutions or even of those same Catholic bishops. From a Times op-ed on “the politics of religion,” published just a few months ago:
Except, apparently, when that doctrine happens to align with a liberal agenda, then its a moral obligation for our political leaders. Thanks for clearing that up, New York Times!
As long as Ryan is not “Thera-Palin-ized” ( i.e., resrtricted by the Romney campaign for PC reasons while being set-up for injurious media agitprop by unscrupulous MSM editors ) he might just pull Romney over the line to victory.
His credentials in explaining the US budget and ObamaScare are unassailable. And, the prospect of Biden’s hair plugs falling out during the VP debate is an early Christmas present!
So, yes, for once, I can admit a bit of cautious enthusiasm for something! Amazing!
Every time I see Romney’s name any fragile hope I might have of applying Christian virtues in dealing with the current election evaporates. Actually, it’s probably closer to an explosion.
But Ryan, from what I have been able to dig up appears to be a decent human and also seems to actually want to be Catholic, not just claim that he’s Catholic.
Which is honestly pretty remarkable given the way things have been going.
[Pro-life Catholic Democrat congressional candidate] calls Ryan/Romney ticket anti-life, immoral
August 12, 2012
By: Tim McCown
www.examiner.com/article/congressman-shuster-s-opponent-calls-ryan-romney-ticket-anti-life-immoral
Pro-life and Catholic Democratic Party challenger Karen Ramsburg (D-Pa 9th), called the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan ticket, announced yesterday, immoral and stated that no one, particularly a Catholic, who really believes in the sanctity of life can in good conscience vote for this ticket. She cited the fact that both a group of nuns (Nuns on a Bus) and now the Catholic bishops have cited the Paul Ryan budget plan as immoral, as the source of her decision in response to Romney’s announcement of Paul Ryan as his running mate in the 2012 Presidential election.
Ms. Ramsburg cited Matthew 25:34-36 as she called the Ryan budget proposal immoral and noted that the budget priorities of the Romney/Ryan ticket and also of Congressman Bill Shuster, prevents someone who believes in the sanctity of life from voting for this ticket or Congressman Shuster. These proposal’s would seem to reflect the values of an atheist (Ayn Rand)not the views of the Gospell of Jesus Christ.
She cited the letter written to Ryan and signed by 90 faculty at Georgetown University prior to an address by Congressman Ryan at the school, as further proof for her contention the budget is immoral and anti-life. The professors noted, “Her call (Rand’s) to selfishness and antagonism towards religion are antithetical to the Gospell values of compassion and love.”
The Matthew 25: 34-36 verses Ramsburg cited state, “Then the King will say to those at his right hand, Come, you that are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Matthew 25: 40 states, “As you do to the least of these you do unto me.”
These Bible passages quoted here would seem to clearly call proposals cutting the social safety net for the poor in order to give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans an immoral act. She also noted that tax cuts are still spending so huge tax cuts would be more big government spending by Romney/Ryan and Congressman Shuster at a time they pass themselves off as being fiscally responsible, so should we call Romney/Ryan and Shuster tax-cut and spend Republicans, she asked.
Ramsburg closed her press release by citing a quote from FDR that reads, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.” Voting for Romney/Ryan and Congressman Bill Shuster is a vote for immorality as long as they maintain these positions,” Ms. Ramsburg stated in closing her press release.
Pro-life and Catholic Democratic Party challenger Karen Ramsburg (D-Pa 9th)
Oxymoron at its utmost.
Ramsburg, schmamsburg. This recylced dog’s breakfast of socialist cant is as anti-Catholic as just about everything else Demoncrats ( so-called pro-life or, hugely, not ) babble on about from the dogmatic epistles of Rooseveltian statism.
She’s simply the first charactrer assassasin to be sent out by her masters in the DNC. Her successors will be legion.
There is plenty of food, water, clothing, money, shelter, education, health aid, and everything else under the sun to be had in the USA and most of the Free World. The filthy little secret the Left will never admit is that it engages 24/7 in armed robbery of wage earners, risk-takers ( the folks who create jobs ) and investors ( the folks who put up the funds to start companies that end up employing people ) under the aegis of the IRS. And THAT is where the food, water, clothing, money, shelter, education, health aid and everything else ends up – in THEIR hands. To be dispensed according to a schedule of what will further the Democrat agenda, period.
And however much they pilch, it is never enough.
Ramsburg;s fervent devotions migh profit from recollection upon the capital sin of avarice. We could add pride, lust, envy, etc. but why bother?
If they ever get around to retranslating the New American Bible again, they could save a bit of space by deleting the delineated sins mentioned and simply insert, “Refer to the DNC platform.”
Pot: Kettle: Black, etc., etc., ad nauseam.
The alternative to not voting for Romney/Ryan is to vote for the openly pro-homosexual, pro-abortion, pro-baby-killing duo of Obama/Biden. Get real folks, Our Lord and Savior is watching. So far, He has withheld His devastating Hand but it will not be for long.
There’s none more pro-abortion and pro-homo than Romney. He enabled perv marriage in MA while keeping a facade of plausible deniability. See www.massresistance.org/romney/
However, Hussein has created a new killing field, socialist medicine, and for this he must be defeated. If we can elect a favorable Senate and House, they’ll hold Romney to the promise of repealing ObamaCare. Otherwise, we will have, in addition to child murder, government mandated extermination of the sick and elderly as well.
Veep Pick Paul Ryan Is No Conservative
Written by Jack Kenny
The New American
9/12/12
www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/12432-veep-pick-paul-ryan-is-no-conservative
No sooner had Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate become known than the world of punditry was abuzz with talk of “Ryanmania.” Since mania is by definition an excessive or unreasonable enthusiasm, the label may be regarded as an understatement.For while the seven-term Republican congressman from Wisconsin and chairman of the House Budget Committee is not yet a household name across America, he does generate excitement within the “conservative movement,” an excitement and enthusiasm that suggests the talking heads at Fox News and the dot.com warriors at The Weekly Standard have no more sense of conservative, constitutional government than the cheering chanting crowd of Republican partisans who greeted the vice presidential hopeful in Norfolk, Virginia, Saturday morning.
Like him or not, the one thing politically aware Americans are supposed to know about Paul Ryan is that he is a fiscal conservative, a bold budget hawk. He is, after all, the prime author of the House budget plan (titled “the Path to Prosperity”) to repeal the Obama health insurance program (“ObamaCare”), turn the Medicaid program for low-income Americans over to the states and create a private insurance option for Medicare beneficiaries starting in 2023. The plan would also turn food stamps and other federal programs for the poor into block grants to the states, with limits on the growth of those programs. If Republican voters have any doubts about Ryan’s commitment to budget austerity, they need only hear the Democrats’ outcry that Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” will be a road to the poorhouse for elderly and low-income Americans.
But on the other side of the ledger, Ryan’s voting record shows a robust support of big-spending programs to enlarge the role of the federal government, especially when they are promoted by a Republican in the White House. Ryan voted for all of the big-ticket, budget-busting items of the administration of President George W. Bush, including the No Child Left Behind Act and the prescription drug benefit known as Medicare Part D, often described as the largest expansion of the welfare state since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Ryan voted to create the new Department of Homeland Security, including the Transportation Security Administration that has harassed air travelers, while making aircraft safe from shoes, belt buckles and grandma’s knitting needles. He voted for the PATRIOT Act, giving government enhanced powers for warrantless snooping into the lives of American citizens as well as foreign nationals. Ryan voted for the Troubled Assets Relief Program that bailed out the “too big to fail” financial institutions and inspired the Tea Party rebellion against big government and “crony capitalism.” He backed the auto bailout that turned GM into “Government Motors.”
And while conservatives generally like to leave wars and military spending off the list of costly “big government” programs, Ryan’s record on that front is also troubling. Like Romney, Ryan has no foreign policy credentials and no record of military service to point to in the election campaign. And like Romney, Ryan swallowed whole the Bush-Cheney line on Iraq and supported the decision to invade and occupy that country in a needless war that cost more than 4,000 American and hundreds of thousands Iraqi lives and has added roughly a trillion dollars to our soaring national debt. Ryan’s budget calls for no reduction in military spending, despite the continued presence of U.S. troops in some 130 countries around the world, most of which have no bearing on our own national security.
Even more troubling is Ryan’s vote last December in favor of the National Defense Authorization Act. The legislation included a provision authorizing the President to use the military to arrest suspected terrorists, including American citizens apprehended in the United States, and hold them indefinitely, without charges and without trial, in clear violation of due process rights guaranteed by the Constitution. This year Ryan voted against an amendment to remove that provision from the law.
Ryan did vote against reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, which grants loans and loan guarantees to foreign governments and businesses for the purchase of U.S. products. But his vote last year for the $915 billion Omnibus Appropriations Bill for 2012 went to support further spending on housing, education, foreign aid, and other programs for which there is no constitutional role for the federal government. On The New American magazine’s latest Freedom Index, matching congressional votes with the strictures of the Constitution, Ryan’s rating for the 112th Congress to date was an anemic 67 percent.
Paul Ryan is, in short, a typical Bush-era Republican, whose selection as a vice presidential candidate is being trumpeted as a triumph by many of the same Republicans who are doing their best to flush the administration of George W. Bush down the memory hole. Republican candidates almost never invoke the Bush name and the most recent Republican President will not be attending the party’s convention in Tampa, where Romney and Ryan are expected to be officially nominated. Chances the name of the 43rd President will be mentioned in rare fleeting reference, if at all. Yet in his choice of running mate, Romney has chosen a loyal Bush Republican and reliable supporter of the programs and policies that made the Bush administration an anathema to genuine conservatives and an embarrassment to the nation.
Finally, the Ryan budget, while including a number of unspecified cuts in entitlement programs, would push overall spending higher than current levels. Despite its optimistic revenue projections, the Congressional Budget Office projects the Ryan plan will lead to a balanced budget by 2040.That suggests a rousing slogan for the Romney-Ryan ticket: “Slightly Less Socialism And A Balanced Budget in 28 Years.”
[Hat-tip to the National Catholic Reporter]
Paul Ryan’s Catholic Problem
by Deal W. Hudson
Aug 13, 2012
www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/13/paul-ryan-s-catholic-problem.html
His budget plan has drawn fire from some Catholic bishops for cutting programs that help the poor. Conservative leader Deal W. Hudson on what the GOP ticket needs to do.
With the choice of Paul Ryan as Romney’s running mate, the 2012 presidential election will be the first in U.S. history with a Roman Catholic on both sides of the ballot. The contrast between the Catholicism of Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Ryan perfectly represents the ongoing debate about the Catholic vote going back to the Reagan years.
Indeed, the choice between these two types of Catholic politicians could not be any more plain.
Biden is a “social justice” Catholic who claims to know how to connect with blue-collar Democratic Catholics, like those in his hometown of Scranton, Pa. During four of his last five years in the Senate, he received a 100 percent rating from NARAL. As vice president he supported federal funding for abortion, despite voicing opposition to it in 2008, and the Health and Human Services mandate requiring Catholic institutions serving the public to provide insurance coverage for contraception, including abortifacients and sterilization.
During the 2008 campaign, some of Biden’s remarks on NBC’s Meet the Press defending his position on abortion were publicly criticized by Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison, Wis., and Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, then of Denver, now of Philadelphia. Morlino’s diocese, by the way, includes Paul Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wis.
Paul Ryan, it appears, never had a “progressive” phase in the development of either his politics or his Catholic faith. From a fifth-generation Wisconsin family, Ryan attended public schools, graduating in economics and political science from Miami University, Ohio, and developed a liking for the works of individualist philosopher Ayn Rand during his high-school years. His interest in politics led him to work as an aide in 1992 to Sen. Bob Kasten and as legislative director between 1995 and 1997 for Sen. Sam Brownback, both ardent pro-lifers. Ryan worked as a speechwriter for Jack Kemp during the 1996 campaign after spending a few years at Empower America, the think tank Kemp ran with Bill Bennett.
Since being elected to the House in 1998, Ryan has developed a solid reputation with the grassroots as a pro-life, pro-marriage Catholic, and among Tea Party and fiscal conservatives, he has attained hero status for his extraordinary grasp of economic and budgetary issues. At age 42, Congressman Ryan is now often referred to as the “intellectual leader” of the Republican Party, a description repeated by Mitt Romney in announcing his VP choice.
Biden’s vulnerabilities as the choice for Catholic voters are neither more nor less than those of President Obama; the sitting vice president will have to continue to defend the expansion of the abortion mandate and the violation of religious liberty at the heart of the HHS mandate. Unless Biden repeats the mistake he made in 2008 on Meet the Press, it is unlikely he will draw any direct fire from the bishops.
While the choice of Ryan will please the Tea Party as well as fiscal and social conservatives, it creates an opening for the Catholic supporters of Obama: Paul Ryan’s 2012 GOP budget has already been the subject of official criticism by some Catholic bishops for failing to meet certain “moral criteria” and cutting programs that “serve poor and vulnerable people.” The media coverage failed to note that the four letters to Congress in April came from two bishops: Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, chairman of the Committee on International Justice and Peace, each speaking on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in their respective roles.
The first letter arrived April 4 at the House Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies. On April 10, Ryan ably defended himself and his application of Catholic principles in an interview with David Brody.
“Those principles are very, very important,” Ryan said. “And the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenets of Catholic social teaching, means don’t keep people poor, don’t make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life; help people get out of poverty, out into a life of independence.”
Ryan’s words were ignored amid the subsequent denunciations of social-justice Catholics, led by Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, who after underscoring her Italian, Catholic upbringing charged:
“The Ryan budget does not address debt nor fiscal responsibility. What it does is take care of the very wealthy at the risk of the middle class and people who are poor. That is contrary to Catholic teaching.”
In spite of the fact that DeLauro completely ignores the latitude allowed to prudential judgments based upon Catholic principles, her charge will be repeated ad nauseam against the Romney-Ryan ticket over the next 90 days.
DeLauro’s interview April 17 was prompted by the arrival of three more letters to Congress from two Catholic bishops, once again accusing the Ryan budget of hurting the poor and failing the measure of Catholic social teaching.
Ryan knew he had more explaining to do, so on April 29 he sent a four-page letter to the president of the USCCB, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, explaining how his budget was guided by the principles of Catholic social teaching. Ryan argued that as a Catholic he was justified in taking into account the bigger picture of the entire economic situation facing the nation. He argued there was a moral obligation “implicit” in Catholic social teaching to address “difficult basic problems before they explode into social crisis.”
The supportive letter of May 18 Ryan received in response from Dolan was hardly noticed. But the major points Ryan made in both his Brody interview and his letter to the archbishop were clearly acknowledged: “The principles of Catholic social teaching contain truths that need to be applied,” wrote Dolan, by the application of “prudential judgment.”
The level of opposition to the Ryan budget among the bishops is not unsubstantial. At their June meeting in Baltimore, the bishops voted 171-26 to approve a proposal brought by Blaire, the chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, to begin drafting a message on the U.S. economy, entitled “Catholic Reflections on Work, Poverty, and a Broken Economy.” This draft will be presented to the entire body of bishops at their November 2012 meeting after the election.
But the fact that this document is in the works, and that it was prompted specifically by the Ryan budget, is indicative of criticism that will undoubtedly be leveled at the GOP, its ticket, and Congressman Ryan himself: the charges of “cutting programs,” “hurting the poor,” and “destroying the safety net” will reinforce the stereotype of the GOP as uncaring, heartless, and the “party of the rich.” (Blaire, it should be noted, is the bishop of Stockton, Calif., which just a month ago filed for bankruptcy protection.)
The bottom line is this: the Romney-Ryan campaign must acknowledge the Catholic concerns about the budget as a major obstacle to winning the election Nov. 7. It will make or break the GOP ticket’s appeal to Catholics in a state like Pennsylvania, where I am presently putting together a Pennsylvania Catholics Network. Romney, Ryan, and their surrogates need to be proactive and explain, before the criticism reaches a fever pitch, how Ryan’s budget does in fact satisfy the “moral criteria” of Catholic social teaching. The argument, I believe, can be made, but the campaign must have the will to make it.
Anyone who has read Rerum Novarem and Quadragesimo Anno (which would exclude most bishops) knows that Ryan’s economic views conform with the Church’s moral teachings better than Biden’s.
The way to handle this issue would be to stop talking about Ayn Rand, an epitome of evil, and to start talking about Catholic principles like subsidiarity and the common good.
[Speaking of the Natonal Catholic Reporter, a comment by one of its contributors]
Paul Ryan: Champion of Dissent
by Michael Sean Winters on Aug. 11, 2012
ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/paul-ryan-champion-dissent
Mitt Romney’s choice of Congressman Paul Ryan to be his running mate is electrifying. But, electricity is dangerous at times and, in this instance, Ryan is standing in a pool of watery dissent from Catholic Social Teaching that has existed on the Catholic right for some time.
In 1961, William F. Buckley published a critique of Blessed Pope John XXIII’s encyclical, Mater et Magistra, Mother and Teacher. Buckley’s article was entitled, “Going the rounds in conservative circles: ‘Mater, si, Magistra, no.’” The phrase came from a not-yet converted Garry Wills in a telephone conversation with Buckley. It was the first significant instance of public dissent from the magisterium of the Church by an American public intellectual. Note the date: 1961. Before the Second Vatican Council. John XXIII’s encyclical was not a fruit of the Council. It was based on a long line of Church teachings, rooted in the anthropology and ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas, and explicitly applied to modern social, economic and political circumstances beginning in 1891, with Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum. The basic threads of Catholic Social teaching were developed further by Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII. All before the Council, all before “dissent” became a phenomenon associated with the Catholic Left. The teachings from which Buckley then, and Congressman Ryan now, dissent are traditional teachings, rooted deeply in an understanding of the human vocation.
Buckley, of course, would not go as far as Ryan. One has a hard time imagining Buckley heaping praise on Ayn Rand as Paul Ryan has done. (Of course, Buckley had actually known her.) Here is Buckley: “Her scorn for charity, for altruism, was such as to build up an unfeeling system.” (“Unfeeling system” seems to be a perfect description of the Romney-Ryan worldview!) Buckley also recalled her saying to him, “You are too intelligent to believe in God.” Here is Ryan, in a 2009 campaign video [4]: “Ayn Rand, more than anyone else, did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism and, to me, this is what matters most.”
Despite Ryan’s reputation as a serious intellectual, it is difficult to see how deep his intellect actually runs if he can so uncritically praise such a hateful human philosophy as Rand’s. How hateful? How unChristian? Here is a taste of her worldview, from her novella Anthem:
I am done with the monster of “We,” the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: “I.”
Serfdom? Really? All from the little word “we”? I understand that, in 1937, Rand had reasons for fearing the collective in ways that seem remote to us today. But, talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater! Surely a woman as purportedly intelligent as she would have known that not every instance of collective social expression was fascist or communist. Surely she could have recalled the long tradition of ethical teachings about the Common Good that informed the Catholic worldview or the Covenant theology that informed certain strands of Protestant theology. Alas, Ms. Rand was not so much of a fan of religion, as this video shows.
Congressman Ryan has, this year, tried to step away from Rand. He told an interviewer at the National Review that he rejected her philosophy, offering a preference for the epistemology of St. Thomas Aquinas. (Alas, I did not know the critical issue for a congressman or putative vice president was epistemology!) But, it is hard to step away when you had previously told a Washington audience, “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one person, one thinker, it would be Ayn Rand.” A man can change his views, but it is hard to run from one’s biography as Ryan is about to discover. More importantly, if in 2005 he was willing to credit Rand with inspiring his entire career, and in 2012 is rejecting her philosophy, can Mr. Ryan point to a single change in his views on a single policy that has resulted from his conversion from Rand acolyte to Rand apostate? Surely such a shift in weltanschauung should produce some change, no? Or does Ryan consider philosophy to be like an set of second-hand clothes, the kind of thing that comes easily off and on? Is this the intellectual firepower of today’s GOP?
Mr. Ryan has taken to invoking Catholic Social Teaching, and especially the concept of subsidiarity, to defend his budgetary schemes. Alas, he could not tell the difference between subsidiarity and sausage. He uses subsidiarity to protest against federal government programs. It is true that subsidiarity advocates resolving all social, political and economic issues at the level of social organization closest to the individual. But, it is a two way street. If lower levels of social organization – the family, the community, local government – cannot solve an issue, then it is incumbent upon the higher levels, like the federal government, to step in. Subsidiarity, after all, comes from the Latin word subsidium, help. If Mr. Ryan were advocating innovative local and state programs to help the poor, his pleas for less federal spending might be credible. As it is, he is not. He wishes to slash federal spending on programs that help the poor so he can provide the super-rich with more tax breaks and hope that the miracle of the Unseen Hand of the Market will fix every social ill. Did he sleep through the autumn of 2008? Does he really believe that the market can fix everything?
I believe with every fiber of my being that the gravest ideological threat to the America I love is the rise of libertarianism. On the left, libertarianism focuses on issues of pelvic policy, resulting in the embrace of the most liberal abortion laws in the world. On the right, libertarianism results in social policies best labeled social darwinism. I reject the libertarianism of both left and right, although at least Rand was consistent in her libertarianism, applying it to everything. In our day, however, because our culture tends to reduce all of us to our economic status, advancing a false anthropology that sees the human person as homo economicus and homo consumericus, I believe it is the libertarianism of the right that is the more dangerous. Their penchant for reducing the human person to calculations of effectiveness and utility bode ill not only for programs that benefit the poor and the aged, but for core issues like the fight against euthanasia.
The most significant bulwark against the rise of libertarianism is Catholic Social Teaching, and the centrality of such key concepts as the Common Good, the universal destination of goods, subsidiarity and solidarity. These have nothing to do with the inflated ideas of human autonomy that animate Ryan and Rand. These core Catholic ideas also have nothing to do with the collectivist schemes of fascism and communism, not least because these Catholic ideas predate those modern enormities by centuries and are rooted in a simple, dogmatic belief: The common brotherhood of man is rooted in the common Fatherhood of God. That dogmatic belief obviously carried no weight with Ms. Rand. It is far from clear that it carries any weight with Mr. Ryan. But, that is the issue. It is not about “prudential judgment” in discerning alternative economic strategies. Mr. Ryan has put forward no strategy for assisting the poor, protecting the vulnerable, guaranteeing health care to all. He simply wants to roll back the role of government to pre-FDR days. And, to be clear, to achieve his goal, he is willing to engage in explicit dissent from years and years of explicit magisterial teaching. Dissent may not bother non-Catholics. It may not, in this instance, bother some Catholics. But, I look at our socio-cultural landscape and think Catholic Social Teaching is the only thing that can save our ideologically confused, socially centrifugal culture from itself. Ryan’s willingness to dissent from it – and for what? for Rand? – is not only bothersome. It is dangerous.
What a nutcase. To dissent radically and 100% from the Church’s teachings on abortion, birth control, and homosexuality, as the Democrats do, is infinitely worse than to dissent partially and even negligibly from the Church’s social teachings.
Both are bad. But to say that you should vote for Obama because Ryan is bad is like saying you should commit a mortal sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance in order to avoid a venial sin.
Sorry, but the time for GOP nonsense has long since past. How long will we continue to be suckered in by GOP rhetoric? And let’s not forget it’s Romney, not Ryan, who is at the top of the ticket, when it is all said and done.
I urge folks to consider Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party. Far from perfect, but a superior choice to Romney. Or how about consider writing in a prominent American traditional Catholic?
Slandering Ryan
By Phil Lawler | August 14, 2012
www.catholicculture.org/commentary/the-city-gates.cfm?id=384
Since charity begins at home, we can count on the bloggers of the Catholic left to treat their fellow Catholic Rep. Paul Ryan with respect, even if they disagree with him. Right? Wrong.
A National Catholic Reporter blogger sets the tone, comparing Ryan with Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Suggesting changes in Medicare, it appears, is tantamount to promoting suicide. But on the Commonweal blog, Luke Hill went further, voicing his fear that Ryan’s foreign-policy influence would approximate “the Reagan administration’s (criminal) Central American policy—a policy that abetted not only the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, but also the killing of American nuns and lay missionaries, as well as Jesuit priests and their housekeepers.”
Actually Archbishop Romero was murdered in March 1980–8 months before Reagan was elected. The brutal murder of four female American missionaries took place in December of the same year—after the election, but before Reagan entered the White House. For that matter, the Jesuits in El Salvador were killed in November 1989, several months after Reagan’s retirement. So it’s not clear how any reasonable person could hold the Reagan administration responsible for those atrocities.
But we’ve been put on notice. The assault on Ryan will not be reasonable–let alone charitable.
Tell me, Phil, if Ryan was a rad trad, how would he fare at CWN?
Phil can’t answer today (August 15th), because CWN is shut down for the holyday (Assumption of Mary). Nonetheless, I think that he would have the same opinion of Rep. Ryan if he were a trad, because Phil is more favorable toward trads than his colleague Dr. Jeff.
Ryan could end up disappointing many Trads, if he even manages to interest them in the first place. After all, it has not been the SSPX management team’s opera buffa of late that, alone, has discouraged and disoriented not a few Trads. The economic assaults that have overwhelmed all Americans since the abomination came to power four years ago would have been more than sufficient.
And it is really on that point that a certain emphasis must be maintained in any question of the political survival of this republic. A bankrupt state is no state at all. And, while it is true that – on paper – the US is already deader than dead, there are ways and means ( requiring fantastically disciplined, tough approaches ) to revisit literally every expenditure made by government and to restructure federal debt. If this is not taken up, even by a Romney administration, then it really won’t matter, from the practical perspective, who wins in November.
However, Ryan’s presence does indicate it just might be taken up. And, one hopes, taken very seriously.
If I can weigh in on this issue from north of the border, I’d like to make a few points.
First: The Catholic Church has ALWAYS strongly encouraged Charity (remember that third theological virtue).
The Church has never approved socialism, which is basically softened communism (think wolf in sheep’s clothing), and has even condemned it. It is immoral to rob the rich of their justly obtained wealth, and mandatory charity is not Charity at all.
Second: For me, any election boils down to a question of morals, and the support of intrinsic evils. If a candidate or a party supports abortion or same-sex-unions, then I can not vote for them, no matter what their opinion on the economy.
Also, since we don’t live in a perfect society, we may be forced to choose the lesser of two evils. We can not sit by twiddling our thumbs and waiting for a political party of traditional catholics to come along.
The civil order will be renovated when Rome is converted which WILL occur when the consecration of Russia is completed.
Till then, we have to do our best with what we’ve got.
Thats my two cents,
Thanks
Good points, gpmtrad and LucasB. I don’t think the election is merely a choice of the “lesser of two evils,” but rather, the need to counter a categorically greater evil in the current administration. One evil is the new killing field created in ObamaCare that will inevitably devolve into state mandated euthanasia for the sick and elderly. The other evil is Communist destruction of the state which will result in death and squalor. In other words, this election isn’t like Bush vs Kerry wherein they differed only by degree.