Paul Ryan's bishop weighs in on economic policy and Catholic teaching

Bishop Robert C. Morlino, Bishop of the Diocese of Madison and Paul Ryan's bishop, has a superb essay in the Diocese of Madison's Catholic Herald. In the Catholic Church, bishops have the primary responsibility for teaching Catholic doctrine involving the faithful in their diocese.

I'll reproduce Bishop Morlino's essay in its entirety:

Subsidiarity, solidarity, and the lay mission
Bishop's Column 

Thursday, Aug. 16, 2012  

Dear friends, 

It was no shock at all for me to learn that our diocesan native son, Paul Ryan, had been chosen to be a candidate for the Vice Presidency of the United States. I am proud of his accomplishments as a native son, and a brother in the faith, and my prayers go with him and especially with his family as they endure the unbelievable demands of a presidential campaign here in the United States. It is not for the bishop or priests to endorse particular candidates or political parties. Any efforts on the part of any bishop or priest to do so should be set aside. And you can be assured that no priest who promotes a partisan agenda is acting in union with me or with the Universal Church. 

It is the role of bishops and priests to teach principles of our faith, such that those who seek elected offices, if they are Catholics, are to form their consciences according to these principles about particular policy issues. 

However, the formation of conscience regarding particular policy issues is different depending on how fundamental to the ecology of human nature or the Catholic faith a particular issue is. Some of the most fundamental issues for the formation of a Catholic conscience are as follows: sacredness of human life from conception to natural death, marriage, religious freedom and freedom of conscience, and a right to private property. 

Violations of the above involve intrinsic evil — that is, an evil which cannot be justified by any circumstances whatsoever. These evils are examples of direct pollution of the ecology of human nature and can be discerned as such by human reason alone. Thus, all people of good will who wish to follow human reason should deplore any and all violations in the above areas, without exception. The violations would be: abortion, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, same-sex marriage, government-coerced secularism, and socialism.

Where intrinsic evil is not involved

In these most fundamental matters, a well-formed Catholic conscience, or the well-formed conscience of a person of good will, simply follows the conclusions demanded by the ecology of human nature and the reasoning process. A Catholic conscience can never take exception to the prohibition of actions which are intrinsically evil. Nor may a conscience well-formed by reason or the Catholic faith ever choose to vote for someone who clearly, consistently, persistently promotes that which is intrinsically evil.

However, a conscience well-formed according to reason or the Catholic faith, must also make choices where intrinsic evil is not involved. How best to care for the poor is probably the finest current example of this, though another would be how best to create jobs at a time when so many are suffering from the ravages of unemployment. In matters such as these, where intrinsic evil is not involved, the rational principles of solidarity and subsidiarity come into play. The principle of solidarity, simply stated, means that every human being on the face of the earth is my brother and my sister, my “neighbor” in the biblical sense. At the same time, the time-tested best way for assisting our neighbors throughout the world should follow the principle of subsidiarity. That means the problem at hand should be addressed at the lowest level possible — that is, the level closest to the people in need. That again, is simply the law of human reason.

We can disagree on application

As one looks at issues such as the two mentioned above and seeks to apply the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity, Catholics and others of good will can arrive at different conclusions. These are conclusions about the best means to promote the preferential option for the poor, or the best means to reach a lower percentage of unemployment throughout our country. No one is contesting here anyone’s right to the basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, etc. Nor is anyone contesting someone’s right to work and so provide for self and family. However there can be difference according to how best to follow the principles which the Church offers.

Making decisions as to the best political strategies, the best policy means, to achieve a goal, is the mission of lay people, not bishops or priests. As Pope Benedict himself has said, a just society and a just state is the achievement of politics, not the Church. And therefore Catholic laymen and women who are familiar with the principles dictated by human reason and the ecology of human nature, or non-Catholics who are also bound by these same principles, are in a position to arrive at differing conclusions as to what the best means are for the implementation of these principles — that is, “lay mission” for Catholics.

Thus, it is not up to me or any bishop or priest to approve of Congressman Ryan’s specific budget prescription to address the best means we spoke of. Where intrinsic evils are not involved, specific policy choices and political strategies are the province of Catholic lay mission. But, as I’ve said, Vice Presidential Candidate Ryan is aware of Catholic Social Teaching and is very careful to fashion and form his conclusions in accord with the principles mentioned above. Of that I have no doubt. (I mention this matter in obedience to Church Law regarding one’s right to a good reputation.)

Peace and reconciliation in coming months

I obviously didn’t choose the date for the announcement of Paul Ryan’s Vice Presidential Candidacy and as I express my pride in him and in what he has accomplished, I thought it best to move to discussion of the above matters sooner rather than later. No doubt it will be necessary to comment again on these principles in the days ahead for the sake of further clarification, and be assured that I will be eager to do so.

Above all, let us beg the Lord that divisions in our electorate will not be deepened so as to have a negative impact on pre-existing divisions within the Church during this electoral season. Let there be the peace and reconciliation that flow from charity on the part of all. Thank you for reading this. God Bless each one of you! Praised be Jesus Christ!

Bishop Morlino provides an eloquent synopsis of classical Catholic social teaching. The grounds for such teaching are the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity. Solidarity is respect for all men as brothers-- the Golden Rule-- and subsidiarity is the principle that good should be done on a scale as close to those in need as possible. Both are essential Catholic social doctrine.  

In matters involving intrinsic evil (abortion, eugenics, euthanasia, etc), there is no room for disagreement among faithful Catholics. Evil is to be opposed, always and everywhere. 

In matters that do not involve intrinsic evil-- such as the question as to how to best provide assistance to the poor-- the Church recognizes the need for prudential judgement. As long as the intention is to help the poor, there is great room for differences in approach to helping. In politics, the Church does not prescribe means. It prescribes ends, and, within ethical bounds, leaves the means to the prudential judgement of those charged with making such decisions. 

Socialism is not Catholic social doctrine, notwithstanding the spin of the Catholic left. In fact, socialism, as a violation of subsidiarity, is specifically denounced (#15) in Catholic social teaching. 

For those acting in good conscience, the debate on Medicare and other government programs to help those in need is about prudence, not good and evil. If specific policies were pursued for political ends, rather than for the purpose of helping those in need, that would be evil. 

What would be evidence of evil intent in this debate? Gross intentional misrepresentation of the views of others for political gain would seem to be such evidence. 

The debate hinges on this: which side of this debate-- conservative or liberal-- has the best prudential judgement? What steps are necessary to ensure the solvency of the social safety net? How can the poor and needy be cared for best-- by statist solutions or by market-based solutions? How will insolvency of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid affect the people dependent on the programs? Is it ethical for the government to spend each year a trillion dollars more than it collects in revenue? Is it ethical to leave tens of trillions of dollars in debt for our children to pay? 

As the liberals' misrepresentation of Ryan's views demonstrates, liberals will do anything to avoid debating these economic issues on their merits.

Ryan's conservative economic views are well within the bounds of Catholic social teaching, as are the honest (non-socialist) views of those who favor more liberal policies. I would propose that Ryan's view-- his prudential judgement-- is more in keeping with the basic Catholic principles of subsidiarity and solidarity than the statist views of his liberal opponents.

Sex-selective abortion and being "broken by grace"

Timothy Dalrymple has an astonishing essay on sex-selective abortion.

Excerpt:

So you learned the baby you helped to conceive is a girl and not a boy. Already frightened by the idea of fatherhood, already concerned about all the hardships and sacrifices parenting entails, already disoriented by the potential radical change this requires in the way you envision your future, you feel now — even if only slightly — more inclined to want your partner to abort. 

Perhaps it’s natural. You know how to relate to a boy. With a boy, all you have to do is wrestle on the floor, make some ripe fart sounds and squish a potato bug between your fingers — and you are a legend. You could take a boy to the Boston Celtics, but cannot abide the thought of taking a girl to the Boston ballet. You wanted to show your kid how to play Diablo III (or whatever version is out by then), not Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom. You understood the hit you would be taking to your wallet and your social life, not to mention your sex life, but you balanced the ledger against baseball games and taking pictures of your little gangsta and busting out the old Transformers collection. Now, you’re supposed to stick around and help take care of a girl, a girl who will probably show an absolutely irrational preference for the color pink, a girl who will be fascinated with faerie princesses and Hello Kitty and (God forbid) Barbie, a girl who will probably prefer your wife and conspire with her against you. 

So now you’re fantasizing about an abortion again...

This was not a problem envisioned by early advocates of legalized abortion. It emerged as new technologies like ultrasound imaging made it common for expectant parents to know the sex of the baby in the womb. Economic pressures are only one factor. Sex-selective abortion is as big a problem in wealthy Korea as it is in rural China, and all but unknown in some of the poorest nations in the world in sub-Saharan Africa or Latin America. Sex-selective abortion is most common where (1) ultrasound imaging is easily available and (2) the prevailing culture is patriarchal and places a greater value on men for their earning potential, their capacity to help with physical labor, their responsibility to care for parents in their old age, and their ability to acquire a dowry with a bride. Many of the same cultures where infanticide was common, but now outlawed, have simply found in sex-selective abortion another form of exterminating unwanted females. A Population Council study of 301 induced abortions in China found that fully one-third of the abortions were undertaken specifically because the unborn child was female. The problem is also severe in India and other parts of South and East Asia, and in the former Soviet bloc nations, where few girls, especially when their parents already have a girl, survive the abortionist’s needle.
As many besides me have noted, it’s one of the most tragic ironies of the modern political world that this supposedly great “victory” for women’s rights has led to a cheap replacement for female infanticide. And the social pathologies that arise when the male-female ratio is out of whack are also terrible for women, especially (since there are too few women for every man to have a wife) the dramatic increase in prostitution and sex-slavery and human trafficking... [emphasis mine]

Dalrymple tells the story of his own daughter:

I had told myself that I just wanted a healthy baby, boy or girl. But when I first learned that the child growing within my wife’s womb was a girl, I felt a pang of disappointment. I had always looked forward to the father-son relationship. This will sound egotistical — and it is precisely that — but I had also wanted to see what a boy with my genetic inheritance, but with the opportunities and direction I could give him, could accomplish.

My firstborn is a total daddy’s girl, a free and brilliant spirit with boundless energy and courage and curiosity, a pseudo-tomboy who likes the Little Mermaid but loves to play in the mud on the riverbank. Although she won’t (yet) squish bugs between her fingers, she loves to wrestle and she thinks fart noises are the height of comic genius. I would have enjoyed watching my son beat the other boys in sports, but I’m really going to enjoy watching my daughter beat the boys at sports. Even if they were not athletic or high-spirited, however, both my girls (like their beautiful mother) have me charmed me body and soul. 

By the time I got back home, however, I had dissolved into an utter emotional wreck. I had a daughter. A daughter. She was not even born yet, but she was already there enfolded in my wife’s body, and the love I felt like a Leviathan within me was surging out of the depths and it was mysterious and primal and uncontrollable and immense. I have never recovered. After years of scarcely feeling anything, suddenly I found myself broken by grace, shattered with gratitude into a thousand happy pieces. I would dissolve with emotion at random times throughout the day; the mere thought of holding my daughter, protecting and providing for her, making sure she knew that she was loved through and through, left me undone. And every time that gratefulness shatters my heart, it pieces back together into something bigger and better, stronger and yet more tender. Even now I cannot write about this without a lump in my throat and the sting of salt in my eyes... 

Every man should have a daughter, if only for his own sanctification. If a daughter comes your way, know the truth that she will love you with all her heart if you let her. Cherish her, and she will be a daddy’s girl. Love her, and your heart will expand to encompass the immensity of her soul. Sacrifice yourself for her, and soon you will discover that you will do just about anything to make her happy. Even if it requires you to grow up a little.

This is my own experience, in Dalrymple's beautiful words:

I have never recovered. After years of scarcely feeling anything, suddenly I found myself broken by grace...

I was, and remain, broken by grace. I have two astonishing and loving daughters, and two wonderful and loving sons. They are funny and clever and reverent and irreverent and much wiser than I am. They (and their mom) are my treasures. They have been my sanctification, and I have never recovered.

Around the world, and even in our own country, people are aborting their daughters merely because they are not sons. And they are aborting their sons and their daughters merely because they are not wanted.

May God have mercy on us. We are dying for want of humility. We need to welcome God's gifts, and be broken by His grace.

The most frightening movie of the summer

It's like The Matrix, for breasts. Maybe they were just a computer program, after all?

At least he doesn't try to sell chicken sandwiches...

Saudi cleric Salman Al-Ouda, "a well-known scholar revered by millions globally", gave an interview recently in which he spoke of Jews and their "role... to wreak destruction, to wage war, and to practice deception and extortion."

From the Free Beacon:

Al-Odeh ranted about the use of human blood in Jewish religious rituals, a notorious anti-Semitic smear commonly referred to as a “blood libel.” 

“It is well known that the Jews celebrate several holidays, one of which is the Passover, or the matzos holiday,” he said. 

“I read once about a doctor who was working in a laboratory. This doctor lived with a Jewish family. One day, they said to him: ‘We want blood. Get us some human blood,’” Al-Odeh explained. 

“He was confused. He didn’t know what this was all about,” Al-Odeh says as the interviewer nods along. “He found that they were making matzos with human blood. They eat it, believing that this brings them close to their false god, Yahweh.” 

Jewish people “would lure a child in order to sacrifice him in the religious rite that they perform during that holiday,” Al-Odeh adds. 

The prominent Saudi Cleric also believes that the Holocaust “has been turned into a myth of tremendous proportions.”

Al-Ouda is a fringe nut, right? From his Wikipedia page:

Al-Ouda is a member of the International Union for Muslim Scholars and on its Board of Trustees.[1] He is a director of the Arabic edition of the website Islam Today and appears on a number of TV shows and authors newspaper articles.[2]

He received his Masters degree in the Sunnah and its sciences from the faculty of `Usûl al-Dîn (Principles of Religion). HisMasters thesis was entitled “The Strangeness of Islam and its Legal Rulings in the Light of the Prophetic Sunnah.”

He also received his Phd degree in 2003. His Phd was in the Sunnah.

Education: Imam Muhammad bin Sa’ud University, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Islamic jurisprudence

Well, he obviously isn't one of the Muslim scholars who preaches peaceful co-existence among religions. Oh... from his Wikipedia page:

Al-Ouda has stated that he is currently supporting peace and coexistence with other religions. He announced that this was a result of deeper understanding of Islamic teachings.

Dr. al-Ouda is in charge of the popular website Islam Today, which offers a wide variety of subject matter and material. He gives classes and lectures over the Internet and by phone to a wide range of listeners.[6]

He works daily in answering the questions that people send to him in addition to compiling and preparing a number of his writings for publication. He used to have a show on MBC TV.[7]

His fame had become sufficiently widespread by 2006 to draw a crowd of around 20,000 young British Muslims in London's East End whom he addressed in a speech. "Dr. al-Ouda is well known by all the youth. It's almost a celebrity culture out there," according to one British Imam. Sheikh Salman has over 4,000 Facebook friends and over One million fans through the site.[8]

So he 'supports peace and coexistence with other religions' and is a celebrity among Muslim youth in London.

And he believes that Jews use the blood of children to make matzo.

*sigh*


These guys can build mosques in lefty cities like Boston and Chicago, and the lefty mayors chip in a few million bucks of public money to help them out.

But a Christian who believes that marriage is between a man and a woman tries to open a chicken restaurant and he is threatened by public officials with banishment and with immolation of his Constitutional right to freedom of speech.

The left is an odd crew. They group-hug 21st century Nazis, and strain at Christian gnats.

When folks do inconsistent things like this, it's because they have an unspoken agenda.

In this case, the agenda is obvious. The left hates Christianity, no less than Muslim cleric Salman Al-Ouda hates Jews. 

Why I haven't posted on the Family Research Council shooting

Some of my astute readers (you're all astute!) may have wondered why I haven't posted incessantly about the Family Research Council shooting a week ago in Washington. The shooter expressed clear political motives for the attack. He supports the gay rights agenda, and he had a bag full of Chick-Fil-A sandwiches when he walked into the building.

Many commentators have questioned whether the Southern Poverty Law Center's bizarre designation of the FRC as a "hate group" may have inspired the shooter. In addition, many commentators have noted the mainstream media's kid-gloves handling of the shooting and reticence to report the motives of the gunman.

All of which are fair points, but it's a circus in which I prefer not to participate.

Crazy people hurt other people for all sorts of reasons. But it is execrable to try to silence debate because of what crazy people do. The SPLC's designation of the FRC as a "hate group" is obnoxious, but to link it to attempted murder is a bit much. Attempts to use government pressure to silence the owner of Chick-Fil-A are execrable and illegal, but the attempt to link criticism of Chick-Fil-A to attempted murder is too much as well.

Classifying the FRC as a hate group and despising the opinions of the owner of Chick-Fil-A are legitimate opinions, however much I may disagree. They are not incitements to violence. The goal of allegations that they are incitements to violence is to silence debate.

While criticism of the media for their egregious double standard in assigning political motives to violence acts is certainly justified, we conservatives should have no part in attempts to link the expression of legitimate political opinions of our opponents to violence by lone nuts.

The attempt to link the acts of crazy people (on the left or right) to legitimate expressions of opinion is a smarmy form of censorship.

Goodbye Mr. Akin

Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin from Missouri is a pro-life stalwart. But he said this incredibly dumb thing while discussing the morality of abortion. Of conception as a result of rape, he said:

“It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”

Huh? I think that Akin was trying to make some batshit claim that the woman's cooperation with her assailant alters the likelihood of conception, and that women who are violently raped are less likely to conceive than women who have consensual intercourse.

I'm unaware of any medical basis for this bizarre assertion, and it's a really offensive, stupid thing to say, not in the least because it implies that if a rape victim did become pregnant (many do), then she must have been cooperating in some way.

Akin is a jerk, on that matter.

Akin is not a jerk on pro-life issues and on the issue of abortion after rape. He defends innocent life with vigor, and is to be lauded for it. I oppose abortion on all grounds, including after rape. Killing the child exacerbates, rather than mitigates, the crime. I understand the horror that the mother must endure, but committing another evil-- abortion-- doesn't lessen the horror. It magnifies it. It's not the child's fault, and all human beings, even kids conceived by rape, have a right to life.

For holding to the view that even children of rape have a right to life, Akin is to be applauded. For asserting that the likelihood of conception in rape is related to the woman's cooperation with the rape, Akin is to be excoriated.

We need intelligent eloquent defenders of innocent life in our legislatures. Akin will face Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill in the November election. The pro-life movement would be badly harmed by the re-election of Senator McCaskill. Although McCaskill is a Catholic, she ignores her Church's teachings on life issues and has shown substantial support for anti-life agendas, including votes to fund population control schemes and votes to facilitate abortions and the availability of contraceptives. It is very important that she be defeated in November. Akin is not the man to do it.

Akin should quit the Senate race, and make room for a candidate who defends innocent life with intelligent arguments. 

Richard Epstein on gun control

Richard Epstein of the Hoover Institute has a thoughtful essay on gun control.

Excerpt:

Today, upwards of 200 million firearms of all descriptions are available for general use in the United States. Amnesty programs have made only a tiny dent in that number. The imposition of a tough registration program will lead to a substantial reduction in the number of guns in circulation. But even tough gun laws may have had little impact on people like James Holmes. Holmes showed no danger signs, except perhaps that he was a bit of a loner, not an uncommon trait. He had cleared all background checks when he purchased his weapon. If Colorado banned guns, would he have acquired the same weapons out of state or in the illegal market? No one knows.

The situation is even more complex when the focus shifts to the impact of gun laws more generally. Here, the key insight is that reducing the total number of guns is not the only likely effect of the law. The prohibitions in question will also shift the ratio of guns held in lawful and unlawful hands to favor the latter. To take the extreme case, suppose that a gun control law can eliminate 99.9 percent of the guns now in circulation and that all of the remaining 200,000 guns are in the hands of hardened criminals. We can confidently predict that crime will go up unless and until there is a vast expansion of the public police force.

Less dramatic shifts in that critical ratio should produce less dramatic results, but ones that cut in the same direction. Potential criminals, knowing that they are less likely to meet armed resistance will, on average, be more likely to commit various kinds offenses. The empirical data suggests that this grim logic might even apply to mass killers intent on suicide, who do not like the prospect of being gunned down by strangers before they can kill their desired targets.

Indeed, at least one serious academic paper by the economists John Lott and William Landes finds a positive connection between tough gun laws and an increase in mass killings. That data could easily be disputed. But what cannot be denied is the intelligible economic theory that undergirds its conclusions. The basic point here is that in any gun-free environment (such as that of Virginia Tech), the assailant knows that he will not meet with any immediate armed resistance, and this puts innocent people at risk.

So what then to do? It may well be that the best strategy is a combination of both carrots and sticks. A ban on the sale and possession of assault weapons makes sense on the ground if it is true that there are few lawful uses of guns and many dangerous ones. One does not have to lurch to Mayor Bloomberg’s intemperate Wild-West scenario to think that it may well be wise to increase the use of concealed firearms by off-duty police officers, military people, and private security guards who normally carry these weapons as part of their jobs. The task of preventing violence requires a difficult balancing act that is inconsistent with both a fierce defense and a fierce denunciation of all gun control measures.

I agree with Epstein that it is not at all clear that stricter gun control would reduce massacres and gun crime in general,  and in fact it might make things worse. Strict control would primarily have the effect of disarming the citizenry, leaving criminals with more gun-free zones in which to use their illegally-obtained guns with impunity.

Crime control is always a balance. We can reduce crime via totalitarian measures, of course, but then the criminals are the government, and crime is not really reduced at all. Freedom always means the freedom to do evil, and there may not be anything decisive we can do about it.

That said, I do believe that the violence in our media is bad. It is wrong to blame the producers of the Batman movie for the massacre, but it is not entirely a surprise that one deranged man might act out violently in response to a wildly popular and seductively violent film. The only way I see to help reduce the likelihood of such real violence is to bring more civility and simple decency to our public square. Why not make more movies that portray a humane way of life?

Not likely to happen anytime soon. We are addicted to vicarious violence, and we may just have to accept that once in a while some madman will make real the violent fantasies we crave and pay so much to enjoy.