I think it no longer wise to identify with any political party. As a Catholic, I am duty-bound--and joyfully hold to--the teachings of the Catholic Church. In regard to, "You shall not commit adultery," and the teachings of our Catechism, it had never been difficult to identify as a Republican, because at least regarding public policy on these questions, progressive ideology has almost nothing to offer. Abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, divorce, contraception, and a host of other evils are actively promoted.
We also know that vicious totalitarianism of a socialist nature gripped large portions of the world in the twentieth century, and the United States spent much of its time and treasure combating both the ideology, and the nations promoting it, for good and ill. Socialism that manifests especially in atheistic materialism has been roundly condemned as contrary to the dignity of the human person by the Church since the late 19th century. I think the postwar ascendance of the United States, and the consensus of the Greatest Generation that occasioned a brief time of good feelings in domestic politics--that happens to coincide with most Americans getting very rich, especially relative to the rest of the world--has blinded us to the ways that capitalism--not distortions or misuses, mind you--degrades the human person: personally, in the family, in community, and in regard to other nations. I have only scratched the surface of the encyclicals that comprise our social teaching, but the longstanding Catholic suspicion of market ideology and the individual accumulation of great wealth only intensified when the implications of classical liberalism came into view.
To be crude about it, if all you're worried about is not being "those commies," you're going to miss a lot of instruction from holy mother Church.
Wasn't the main problem of European Christian social democracy that it failed to be Christian?
Americans and Catholics typically uncritically accept libertarian critiques of government excess as though there is no distinction between an imprudent decision by government at any level, and one motivated by malice, incompetence, and the usurpation of individual rights. Yet an ideology that makes the existence of government as such contingent upon individual whim cannot be Catholic. The individual is not the focal point of a Christian account of human purpose and destiny. There is no real subsidiarity, if the common good--and social groups dedicated to it, including government--is denied. Needless to say, solidarity is also a fiction, if so.
I think I personally have spent most of my life playing at politics, as if it were a sport, instead of the serious matter it is. There was "them" and "us", and the ends of theories and particular policies--as well as real conversations about what we're supposed to be doing--never really took place. Maybe it's too late for that, but I hope not.
We also know that vicious totalitarianism of a socialist nature gripped large portions of the world in the twentieth century, and the United States spent much of its time and treasure combating both the ideology, and the nations promoting it, for good and ill. Socialism that manifests especially in atheistic materialism has been roundly condemned as contrary to the dignity of the human person by the Church since the late 19th century. I think the postwar ascendance of the United States, and the consensus of the Greatest Generation that occasioned a brief time of good feelings in domestic politics--that happens to coincide with most Americans getting very rich, especially relative to the rest of the world--has blinded us to the ways that capitalism--not distortions or misuses, mind you--degrades the human person: personally, in the family, in community, and in regard to other nations. I have only scratched the surface of the encyclicals that comprise our social teaching, but the longstanding Catholic suspicion of market ideology and the individual accumulation of great wealth only intensified when the implications of classical liberalism came into view.
To be crude about it, if all you're worried about is not being "those commies," you're going to miss a lot of instruction from holy mother Church.
Wasn't the main problem of European Christian social democracy that it failed to be Christian?
Americans and Catholics typically uncritically accept libertarian critiques of government excess as though there is no distinction between an imprudent decision by government at any level, and one motivated by malice, incompetence, and the usurpation of individual rights. Yet an ideology that makes the existence of government as such contingent upon individual whim cannot be Catholic. The individual is not the focal point of a Christian account of human purpose and destiny. There is no real subsidiarity, if the common good--and social groups dedicated to it, including government--is denied. Needless to say, solidarity is also a fiction, if so.
I think I personally have spent most of my life playing at politics, as if it were a sport, instead of the serious matter it is. There was "them" and "us", and the ends of theories and particular policies--as well as real conversations about what we're supposed to be doing--never really took place. Maybe it's too late for that, but I hope not.
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