Pope Veritaspac speaks again! It was not always necessary. See below.
Part 2 of our humble pronouncements on two Papal encyclicals dealing with economic matters has been posted. In Part 1 we set forth important excerpts with some annotations by us regarding the Pope Leo XIII encyclical Rerum Novarum (published in 1891). In Part 2 we have done the same regarding the 1931 Pope Pius XI encyclical Quadragesimo Anno. Our comments are now available here, (from the link, scroll through to find Part 2). Our entire exhortation is also found via the featured Papal Page above.
This effort is intended to help make readers aware of important papal pronouncements in opposition to Marxism and socialism. The strengths of the referenced encyclicals are useful to guard against confusion surrounding pointed, but rather unstudied and out of place comments, regarding economic matters in the recent “exhortation” by Pope Francis, Evangeli Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel. A yet to be prepared Part 3 will set forth critiques of that document, which were invited by Pope Francis.
Another intention is to help those involved in the announced Republican “outreach” to Catholics. There will be resistance to such outreach most acutely relying on a strained and selectively applied resistance to “politics” in the pulpit or the church. Of course poverty programs, matters related to legalities regarding immigration, foreign aid and to war are “exhorted” from the pulpit all the time. Indeed, the Pope’s infamous statement notwithstanding, very little is said about legal abortion, mankind’s utter war on the poorest most helpless members of the human family.
We believe the resistance to the Republican effort will be endemic. Too many Church chanceries and their social justice departments are steeped in sympathy for big government, if not a socialist mindset, and sympathy if not direct support for Saul Alinsky style agitation to achieve it. In short, if not tactically registered as such, in all but name they can be presumed to be Democrats, who maybe demure on abortion and gay marriage. Not that either of those matters, or even the Democrat party’s opposition to school choice, or its assault on religious liberties under Obamacare, is enough to queer the deal for them for the Democrat Party.
As regards the local Diocese of Davenport, how else does one explain that the immediate past director of the Social Action Department ( now deceased) “was the last to leave the dance floor” at the first inauguration festivities for late term abortion champion Barack Obama? Or, that one of the early diocese sponsored, much vaunted, Pacem In Terris awards went to none other than Saul David Alinsky. His book Rules for Radicals was published two years after the award, but the implications of his “style” of advocacy preceded its publication. The book was a consolidation of the themes of his “teachings.”
At the parish level in the diocese, a nun going around essentially promoting the inculcation of Obamacare, was welcomed with open arms, even as she dismissed as smallish matters the Catholic Conference of Bishops complaints about key provisions. The loathsome aspects remain. Catholic organizations’ lawsuits continue.
Its diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Messenger, relishes its favorable reputation in liberal Catholic circles due to a string of liberal editors or editorialists that lasted for decades. It has long aided and comforted liberal critics of the Church as opposed to conservatives, through the usual mechanism of deciding what gets reported, what gets advertised, and historically, the preponderance of featured editorialists.
In general, conservative approaches to a vibrant, full employment economy, a rising tide that raises standards of living for the poor, and which provide opportunities for economic class advancement, are unappreciated at best. The failures of the welfare state, its unsustainable nature, are ignored by many social justice departments because they have been part of the problem, ignoring economics and human nature and a fair reading of biblical precepts.
The liberal social justice department approach is the force of law, promoting Alinskyite tactics to achieve it (or aiding and abetting those with such intent) in the direction of what amounts to forced redistribution and egalitarianism. They have no understanding, much less, appreciation of how free markets, capital formation and risk are crucial to actually raising standards of living in a sustainable way. As we provide evidence in the Papal Pages, forced redistribution, egalitarianism, socialism, are corruptions of Church doctrine, not to mention Biblical precepts.
However, what amounts to a poisoned field for politically conservative outreaches is not a reason not to provide the anecdote. But it is a warning that the existing power structures can be anticipated to be hostile. They will have to be gone around with the anticipation of push back. By the way, that has been the general lot of the right to life movement, but that is for discussion another day.
Of note is that it has not always been this way for those opposed to the inevitable social degeneration resulting from the welfare state. In some dioceses the protectors of Christian truths took the dangers presented by species of government collectivism seriously (while supporting Christian based labor unions). Consider item 23 from this scan of a photostat of my father’s application for a Knights of Columbus life insurance policy in 1934. No answer to the affirmative, no policy. R Mall
