A reader writes…

Last updated on: December 31, 2014 at 1:35 pm by Mark Shea

A reader writes… 2014-12-31T13:35:28-07:00 Mark Shea

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Here is a poorly formed thought:

We are a religion demanding that the now-pregnant mother of three others must be willing to risk her life during her pregnancy, or to carry to term the product of a rape.

But the 8 digit earning executive gets a pass in his responsibility to continue to create jobs because his taxes are nudged up a wee bit since that’s the way the market works. This wealthy man could not possibly be expected to do such oddly heroic things as hire workers when his jets are getting extra taxes. His enormous excess personal wealth must remain intact and this is held as morally acceptable and in some quarters morally commendable.

If a minor increase in taxes plagues those with excess luxury so much that they do not do what is right and just with their means, they are not living Christian lives.

Benedict’s most recent encyclical, Love in Truth demands something extra from these giants of wealth. As a consequence, this encyclical joins God is Love as one of the least quoted encyclicals in blogdom.

Warren Buffet gets it. Grover Norquist, not so much. Caritas in Veritate is to Grover Norquist what Humanae Vitae is to Margaret Sanger.

He’s got a point. We do hear an awful lot about gigantic demands for heroic self-sacrifice for poor unwed mothers, but not very much about demand for heroic self-sacrifice for people living in extreme luxury. And such demands are, in fact, close to the heart of the Tradition (as the Rich Young Man will tell you). Here, for instance, is Benedict saying things that would get him labeled a “Marxist” or a “socialist” by people who get all their Catholic teaching from Talk Radio:

The dignity of the individual and the demands of justice require, particularly today, that economic choices do not cause disparities in wealth to increase in an excessive and morally unacceptable manner[83], and that we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone. All things considered, this is also required by “economic logic”. Through the systemic increase of social inequality, both within a single country and between the populations of different countries (i.e. the massive increase in relative poverty), not only does social cohesion suffer, thereby placing democracy at risk, but so too does the economy, through the progressive erosion of “social capital”: the network of relationships of trust, dependability, and respect for rules, all of which are indispensable for any form of civil coexistence.

Economic science tells us that structural insecurity generates anti-productive attitudes wasteful of human resources, inasmuch as workers tend to adapt passively to automatic mechanisms, rather than to release creativity. On this point too, there is a convergence between economic science and moral evaluation. Human costs always include economic costs, and economic dysfunctions always involve human costs.

It should be remembered that the reduction of cultures to the technological dimension, even if it favours short-term profits, in the long term impedes reciprocal enrichment and the dynamics of cooperation. It is important to distinguish between short- and long-term economic or sociological considerations. Lowering the level of protection accorded to the rights of workers, or abandoning mechanisms of wealth redistribution in order to increase the country’s international competitiveness, hinder the achievement of lasting development. Moreover, the human consequences of current tendencies towards a short-term economy — sometimes very short-term — need to be carefully evaluated. This requires further and deeper reflection on the meaning of the economy and its goals[84], as well as a profound and far-sighted revision of the current model of development, so as to correct its dysfunctions and deviations. This is demanded, in any case, by the earth’s state of ecological health; above all it is required by the cultural and moral crisis of man, the symptoms of which have been evident for some time all over the world.

Go and read the whole thing. The man even favorably quotes evil evil peace and justicey Populorum Progessio by evil evil Paul VI, author of the evil evil Novus Ordo. No wonder George Weigel flipped out and tried to perform surgery on Benedict’s encyclical like a German scholar dividing the Old Testament into Yahwist, Elohist, Priestly and Deuteronomic sources. He urged us, in essence, to pay attention to the bits he liked and to dismiss the bits he didn’t. It was a staggeringly unconvincing performance.

But what Weigel could not pull off with bogus exegesis, we ourselves pull off by simply clinging to the inertia of received opinion from our Tribe of Conservatives. Things that don’t fit our worldview tend to be things that just quietly vanish from our minds. We can’t yell “socialist!” when Benedict talks about the rights of workers and gross economic disparities and accumulation of excessive wealth with no regard for the common good cuz he’s, you know, the Pope. But we can and do just quietly ignore him and never mention or think about what he says while screaming these catch phrases at anybody who echoes him.

And so we arrive at a “conservative” subculture in the American Church where, as one Vox Nova reader put it:

We have here a curious melding of American protestant distrust of ecclesial structures (the USCCB is the bete noir) combined with an oddly deferential regard for the Pope, a generally right-liberal “Americanist” outlook on economics and social problems, all put in the service of what claims to be “orthodox” catechesis. It is really a strange bird, one that could only fly in America.

What cracks me up is that this subculture’s Protestant-flavored and libertarian disregard for the Magisterium and the bishops partly appeals to this Vox Nova reader, for reasons that would horrify self-proclaimed “Faithful Conservative Catholics” who don’t want guys like him standing so close to them. After all, the fact is the same people who howl with fury over phrases like “Spirit of Vatican” and who adore vigilante Catholics like Michael Voris as he presents the parts of the gospel that appeal to Talk Radio listeners are also likely to yell “socialism” or “closet Obama supporter!” every time anybody who is not Benedict says something like “It is important to distinguish between short- and long-term economic or sociological considerations. Lowering the level of protection accorded to the rights of workers, or abandoning mechanisms of wealth redistribution in order to increase the country’s international competitiveness, hinder the achievement of lasting development”.

So it has to be discomfiting when guys like the Vox Nova comboxer say:

This is an interesting dust-up. I have mixed views about Voris. On the one hand, he (and RealCatholicTV) are right to insist that the Church is more and deeper than the hierarchical offices. I have had enough experience with clericalism and diocesan administrative bureaucratese to make me appreciate any successful effort on the part of the laity to act for the Church without going through the burdensome process of working with diocesan staffs and (often) incompetent bishops. This all seems very “Spirit of Vatican II” to me, and I think it’s good and necessary.

I have little use for the spirit of Vatican II myself, preferring the teaching of Vatican II. But I do agree that there is a curious spiritual affinity between those who ignore Humanae Vitae out of commitment to a particular sexual ideology and those who ignore the Church’s teaching on economics and the common good out of a commitment to their particular economic ideology. And, on the whole, I think that yes, of those to whom much is given, much will be required. So if a poor women is expected to lay down her life for her child, I think a rich man is at least required to lay down his cigar and Lamborghini for the poor.

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