[Does that mean Catholics in Alaska should abstain from voting for V-P or vote for the lesser of two evils? And who is that?]
Alaska bishop: both Biden, Ryan hold views that are ‘inconsistent’ with Church teaching
CWN – October 30, 2012
Both Vice President Joe Biden and candidate Paul Ryan hold views that are “inconsistent” with Catholic teaching, Bishop Edward Burns of Juneau said in a column that appeared in the city’s daily newspaper.
“Each vice presidential candidate has been inconsistent in the ways in which they have followed the moral teaching of the Catholic Church,” he wrote, adding:
Vice President Biden, while stating that he believes, as his Church does, that life begins at conception, and while professing his personal opposition to abortion, supports the virtually unlimited right to abortion that has resulted in deaths of millions of unborn children since the tragic Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. In addition to this position of his in conflict with the teaching of the Church, Vice President Biden has also come out in support of legalizing same-sex marriage.
By way of contrast, Congressman Ryan has been a resolute advocate of Catholic moral teaching on the defense of the unborn and traditional marriage between one man and one woman. However, the Federal budget that he has proposed could do harm to the poor and vulnerable by neglecting their legitimate needs. For example, Congressman Ryan proposed a budget that has received a critique by the Domestic Justice and Human Development and International Justice and Peace committees of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, stating that “a just spending bill cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor and vulnerable persons.”
Additional sources for this story: Bishop’s Perspective: Faith and politics (Juneau Empire) juneauempire.com/opinion/2012-10-27/bishops-perspective-faith-and-politics
Seems like apples and oranges to me. I am not defending Congressman Ryan nor his proposed budget, but isn’t whether it will “harm to the poor and vulnerable” a matter of speculation?
The experts at the USCCB may have, in fact, have discovered the absolute best means humanly possible to achive the end of helping the poor, but is it no longer allowed to legitimately disagree about the effectiveness of a particular action?
If I disagree, for example, about the effectiveness of the means used to achieve a “New Springtime”, does this now mean that I now “hold views that are ‘inconsistent’ with Church teaching”?
Yes, this is very like “apples and oranges.” In one case the candidate clearly rejects Church doctrine. In the other case the prudential judgment of the candidate in the field of economics is being questioned.
To equate cases involving Church doctrine on one hand and prudential judgment on the other is risible. Biden, like Obama, is an intentional killer and mass murderer. Ryan, even if his economic policies did turn out to be disastrous, can hardly be put in the same camp as antichrist.
The two issues are not apples and oranges, but just two criteria (among others) we have to use in selecting a candidate to vote for. I don’t think the budget matter can be argued in the abstract, I think we have to talk about the actual budget. The bishops don’t, either, at least in the press release. The conclusion we could come to, after an examination, is that we can’t vote for either, a pretty horrible conclusion in my opinion.
But it’s on us, actually. We have not done the work we have to do to have a candidate to vote for. We have accepted the political situation we inherited, when at least SSPX raised its voice last year and said something political at the end of the Christ the King conference: Father Rostand, the head of our district, closed that conference by telling us to go out and run for office, presumably by putting the principles learned there into practice regarding the just state, that it must have, before all, Christ the King at the center of its laws, its economics, the society’s morals and worship.
We didn’t do anything about that, and so we’ve not moved away from this same conundrum that has faced us from the beginning of our nation. It’s like this: there will never be a just policy regarding abortion or euthanasia, and there will never be a just budget, as long as Christ is not at the center of the platform. There will never be a just woman’s crisis pregnancy center that does not offer the faith along with the diapers and strollers. There will never be a just homeless shelter or soup kitchen that does not offer Christ in at least a blessing before the meal, and other follow-throughs. If Christ is not on the menu and the agenda, the volunteers are just stumping for secularism, for good, benevolent atheism. (Voting and volunteering are not apples and oranges either, apparently, in my mind.)
The bishops act like there can be justice, in this secular state, and so do we in our discussions, as well as in our good works. That’s the political legacy of Vatican II,, and Archbishop Lefebvre said it would be (in They Have Uncrowned Him).
Do we think that the Republican budget is based on the principle of the common good? Do we think that just because they are pro-life and anti-gay, that they automatically tend to be right on other issues like budgets and wars? I would just like to remind you that fascists were pro-life and anti-gay, as was every single American communist party member I ever knew back in the union-organizing heyday.There is no way that anti-regulation policies, ‘free market’ policies, are good for the average person, or follow Catholic teaching or practice at least as it was followed during the days of the Catholic state. The question of what we would devise now in a national budget and financial policies that honors Christ’s concern for the poor in both material and spiritual goods is never raised, never discussed, the question of the Catholic state is off the table, always and everywhere. The bishops leave it out and for that alone they deserve to be ignored. (Hungary is trying to deal with it, though.)
But we keep having this discussion of these lesser and greater evils and never the discussion of an alternative.
I think a discussion of the actual proposed budget would be a good idea. I suspect that you’ll be able to make a compelling case that the poposed budget will likely be detrimental to the poor. I still do not see though, how it can be thought of anything other than a mistaken prudential judgement.
Have the means used to achieve a particular goal become part of Catholic teaching? I do not see how this can be unless you plan to demonstrate that the means themselves are intended to cause harm