Dissent From Catholic Social Teaching: A Study In Irony - Inside The Vatican

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Ok, sorry for my use of the phrase ‘inherently evil.’
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‘Equal opportunity’ are laws to ‘bridal’ a free enterprise system.
Another ‘bridal’ would be pollution laws, or child labor laws.
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The case that this form of bartering, free enterprise giving means of families to work, in and of itself breeds secularism doesn’t make any sense to me, it is an assertion of the writer you cite.
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Aiding by giving consent for power to those, even some, using Jesus Christ’s Name, or claiming to be Catholic who assert grave moral evils and policies, and forced teaching of children against objective moral evil; confuses many who need to be evangelized. And it naturally aids and abets, over time the growth of moral relativism.
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Peace.
this is my last reply. As I will stick to the clarity of those that warned of our ambiguous times getting worse and worse and it came true. Yes this statement is a ‘generalization’ but what I already conveyed contained some very clear things, I only hope my phraseology gave justice to the sources by so much paraphrasing and own semantic constructs from those teachings, and exhortations. They were humble giants, with blood, sweat, and tears witness in word and deed for Love and God, and ministering to neighbor, to write so well. God only knows what we will reap if the tide is not stemmed to overcome these days. Salvation history shows clear effects of general climates against God objective morality.
 
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Peace to you.
My willingness to identify the good, the bad, and the ugly about Capitalism does not translate to an ideology of let’s say, socialism. That type of either/ or thinking sometime is assumed. People are rarely willing to identify blemishes it seem once they settle in on an idea. And there are blemishes.
For example you identified Capitalism as a ," merit based system." That is puffery, not factual under any definition of merit based system people normally think of. It is infinitely easier to defend that it is NOT a merit based system.
We American Catholics might never honestly address the conflicts of Capitalism with Catholic social justice doctrine fully and honestly. Catholics have addressed it? I would say few. Which is my point.
" Love your enemy" is an absolute core teaching of Jesus. I can honestly say Catholics don’t exercise this radical love. They are more prone to cast a stone still than turn the other cheek. NOT ALL! But not all doesn’t really change my point.
Instead we seem to focus away on EASIER things. My favorite is fish on Friday. A practice that people often identified with " real Catholics". My life is long enough to see the transition in attitude from," going to hell for biting that hamburger," to, " well, it was an old effort of a former Pope to assist fish sales in a long ago fishing port.
Fish on Friday was an easy substitute in reality. As opposed to a practice of loving ones enemies. Easier and still claim righteous.
Abortion I think is more controversial but includes the same formula in many regards. Big piety points and moral high ground with little or no actual investment of self. The seriousness of mass abortion has zero relationship to the personal investment I speak of)
The piety comes via a declaration. I am against abortion.
There is zero commitment of resources. You need not get personal( actually perform as the SAMARITAN did). You can vote to " save" taxes. You have no skin I the game as someone who will be affected by decisions( for the most part we are weighing in on other people’s potential hardships and sacrifices from the cheap seats).
And I dare say being Pro life to many is the litmus test for " real" Catholic.
But it isn’t LOVE YOUR ENEMY, which Jesus actually said. IT ENTAILS ROUGHLY THE. Personal INCONVENIENCE OF EATING FISH INSTEAD OF A BURGER.
So what’s the difference? Transformation. We practice to transform into what God seeks for us to be. To eventually experience Divine Union. Love your enemies is transformative. Oh, and by the way, I am pro life. I have a son and daughters and it is virtually zero chance I will confront abortion. I described myself! And the majority like me. And that point ties directly into Catholic Social Justice and it’s conflicts with Capitalism. Catholic social doctrine can be transformative in the salvation sense. It requires " skin in the game." It requires the ethic of reaching out to neighbor.
And it also conflicts with prosperity for some.
 
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Peace to you too.
Come back whenever you want, Isaiah.
 
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Much appreciation. A huge list of Church Teaching, a treasure trove accessed from one place.
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It would be great, since the influence of the philosophies coming out of ‘The Enlightenment’
and the ideologies coming about by so much growth from the mid to late 1800s; used in various
ways in application today, an Authoritative Writing connecting all the dots could help very much.
It could be simple, short, and effective with Scripture citations to help consciences.
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If we look at the lessons of Salvation History in Israel, like Scott Hahn does for theology,
we can see, the result of ignoring, mocking, torturing, and killing the prophets of Godliness,
who said there will be a reaping. This is an excellent reason to learn from the virtuous
prophets of the last 170 years to discern the signs of our times. Building Godliness,
and acceptance of Godliness reaps good results, and the contrary is true.
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Cause and effect, while abstract in strict day by day analysis in history,
it’s easier to see with a ‘trends’ overview. Limited use of terminology which
may illicit too many subjective assertations as some kind of ‘truth’ and/or emotionally
charged non objective responses would help in our polarized society birthed by previous decades.
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The Treasury of The Kingdom of God has Eternal endlessness, it certainly does
not go beyond faith and reason, that the more aspects of The Kingdom of God,
reside in culture the more objective moral virtue is accepted.
Jesus gave an excellent example after The Miracle of The Loaves. He admonished
them for focusing on the bread, rather than Treasure from The Kingdom of God.
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Peace.
 
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IsaiahSpirit said:
Much appreciation. A huge list of Church Teaching, a treasure trove accessed from one place.
~
It would be great, since the influence of the philosophies coming out of ‘The Enlightenment’
and the ideologies coming about by so much growth from the mid to late 1800s; used in various
ways in application today, an Authoritative Writing connecting all the dots could help very much.
It could be simple, short, and effective with Scripture citations to help consciences.
~
If we look at the lessons of Salvation History in Israel, like Scott Hahn does for theology,
we can see, the result of ignoring, mocking, torturing, and killing the prophets of Godliness,
who said there will be a reaping. This is an excellent reason to learn from the virtuous
prophets of the last 170 years to discern the signs of our times. Building Godliness,
and acceptance of Godliness reaps good results, and the contrary is true.
~
Cause and effect, while abstract in strict day by day analysis in history,
it’s easier to see with a ‘trends’ overview. Limited use of terminology which
may illicit too many subjective assertations as some kind of ‘truth’ and/or emotionally
charged non objective responses would help in our polarized society birthed by previous decades.
~
The Treasury of The Kingdom of God has Eternal endlessness, it certainly does
not go beyond faith and reason, that the more aspects of The Kingdom of God,
reside in culture the more objective moral virtue is accepted.
Jesus gave an excellent example after The Miracle of The Loaves. He admonished
them for focusing on the bread, rather than Treasure from The Kingdom of God.
~
Peace.
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🤟 😎
 
Seen recently on a conservative (not Republican) blog: Much of what passes for social justice and political correctness is really just a way of weaponizing principles of tolerance and equality for partisan or cultural advantage.
 
otjm said:
Seen recently on a conservative (not Republican) blog: Much of what passes for social justice and political correctness is really just a way of weaponizing principles of tolerance and equality for partisan or cultural advantage.
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Not sure how that relates to Church teaching, maybe you could explain?

Maybe you are referring to something other than what is in the encyclicals, that your blogger thinks “passes” for social justice, in which case it is off topic, no?
 
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Sounds that we need another encyclical then now: Fides et Ratio ( JPII)
… in the quest for meaning …

Beautiful one too.

“ 1. In both East and West, we may trace a journey which has led humanity down the centuries to meet and engage truth more and more deeply. It is a journey which has unfolded—as it must—within the horizon of personal self-consciousness: the more human beings know reality and the world, the more they know themselves in their uniqueness, with the question of the meaning of things and of their very existence becoming ever more pressing. This is why all that is the object of our knowledge becomes a part of our life. The admonition Know yourself was carved on the temple portal at Delphi, as testimony to a basic truth to be adopted as a minimal norm by those who seek to set themselves apart from the rest of creation as “human beings”, that is as those who “know themselves”.

Moreover, a cursory glance at ancient history shows clearly how in different parts of the world, with their different cultures, there arise at the same time the fundamental questions which pervade human life: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life? These are the questions which we find in the sacred writings of Israel, as also in the Veda and the Avesta; we find them in the writings of Confucius and Lao-Tze, and in the preaching of Tirthankara and Buddha; they appear in the poetry of Homer and in the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles, as they do in the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle. They are questions which have their common source in the quest for meaning which has always compelled the human heart. In fact, the answer given to these questions decides the direction which people seek to give to their lives.
  1. The Church is no stranger to this journey of discovery, nor could she ever be. From the moment when,through the Paschal Mystery, she received the gift of the ultimate truth about human life, the Church has made her pilgrim way along the paths of the world to proclaim that Jesus Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life” ( Jn 14:6).It is her duty to serve humanity in different ways, but one way in particular imposes a responsibility of a quite special kind: the diakonia of the truth .
http://www.vatican.va/content/john-...nts/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html
 
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Crocus said:
Maybe you are referring to something other than what is in the encyclicals, that your blogger thinks “passes” for social justice, in which case it is off topic, no?
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There is nothing in any encyclical that commands the implementation of the Left’s proposals or condemns those from the Right. The issue has never been about what the church teaches about social justice; it has always been about how one side interprets those generic goals and responsibilities to claim its positions are morally obligatory, and to dissent from their political perspectives is to dissent from church teaching.
 
You are making me read and re read good stuff. I love that.
I got back to Max Scheler yesterday , those connections we make…
 
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I haven’t gone much into philosophy. Came across “phenomenology” (looked up Max Scheller, he’s famous for that right?) didn’t quite grasp and don’t remember who I was reading so as to connect the concept. Maybe Newman? Edith Stein?

Definition phenomenology:
“appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things, thus the meanings things have in our experience”

I saw a skinny little girl, poker straight blond hair that looked as if it had been chopped at all angles with a kitchen scissors, poor teeth, clothes too short and too wide. She wasn’t hungry as she’d just eaten a hot dog, but she had the look of hunger, emphasized by the hollow under her eyes. She and her family are who I think of, when I see stingy proposals that will further marginalize them.

My experience tells me something is wrong, very wrong.
 
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It was Scheler’s book “The place of man in the Cosmos” that came to mind thinking of worldviews . And the fact that the Pope had written a dissertation about him when young . That was the connection.

So as to answer you question, in John Paul II’s words: “ Phenomenology is primarily a style of thought, a relationship of the mind with reality whose essential and constitutive features it aims to grasp, avoiding prejudice and schematisms. I mean that it is, as it were, an attitude of intellectual charity to the human being and the world, and for the believer, to God, the beginning and end of all things. To overcome the crisis of meaning which is characteristic of some sectors of modern thought, I insisted, in the Encyclical Fides et Ratio (cf. n. 83), on an openness to metaphysics, and phenomenology can make a significant contribution to this openness. ( Pope John Paul II to the World Institute of Phenomenology of Hanover).
 
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What’s so extreme about setting up a system to afford people their basic needs like a minimum standard of living if I may ask (I wanna side with you but it seems hard) like the Netherlands, not informed but they seem to care for their people, why not us, why can’t er be like them in that way may I ask?
 
I agree with a minimum wage. But terms like ‘standard of living’ and ‘quality of life,’ present difficulties.
In our area The Vincent de Paul society has a ministry of food baskets.
Food is a basic need. One of the drawbacks to distributing means of bartering, is that those means can be used for basic needs for children and adults or other things.
I’ve been among the poor all of my life. Take Foodstamps or Foodstamp cards. There is widespread exchanging them for money or drugs. The very purpose is to provide a basic, need, namely food.
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Taken as a whole, is like someone in business embezzling. Families are harmed because ‘the bartering power’ is embezzled that was for basic needs, food, drink, shelter along side harming the business reputation, good will, and amount of goods, service, research & development to improve those goods and service.
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Do you remember the outcry when a reform was introduce for a work requirement for men receiving food stamps? Instead of the conversation to form policies to safeguard making sure their was opportunity to work, for men qualified in particular jobs, and whether or not the man actually could work - a group nay sayers clamored emotionally charged inciting regarding a particular person’s situation - saying the idea was heartless.
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I’m not opposed to a basic needs idea, but their must be means to ensure it is for actually basic needs like food, water, clothing, and shelter. And, of course, ‘Charity Care,’ with discerning authentic qualifications should stay with us. Improving Charity Care available across the land, does help with medical need for the poor. Any healthcare law that mandates against conscience rights in objective virtue and right to life is oppression.
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We will never have all of the answers. The systems we have in place, the way they are implemented - oppressing conscientious objection on objective virtue and right to life; along side a tax burden whereby we barely pay the interest on the debt (a time bomb for disaster for everyone), similarly overburdening business with taxes which provide jobs in the end harms the business’s ability to provide job.
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Pursuing social justice, objectively speaking, should never be at the expense of legalized oppression of conscience or right to life; nor being complicit in helping an atmosphere whereby these oppression stays a status quo or more legal and mandated outcome happen.
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Being disciples of Jesus Christ, we must weigh, are we producing a atmosphere yearning to be fed from the inexhaustible Treasury of Heaven, which provides virtues from that treasury or an atmosphere that humankind is a collective provider, whereby virtue is secondary.
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Food for thought.
 
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Crocus said:
I would not characterize as accumulation of “vast amounts of capital.” Numbers seem well within measures of good business management.
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Remember the claim being made is the that the church underpays a “just wage” to its staff employees. If true then your citation showing the average surplus in the largest parishes of over 7% indicates not a contribution from the pew problem but an administration problem.
 
o_mlly said:
Remember the claim being made is the that the church underpays a “just wage” to its staff employees. If true then your citation showing the average surplus in the largest parishes of over 7% indicates not a contribution from the pew problem but an administration problem.
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Yours was the claim that vast amounts of capital were being collected. I do not think the source you cited supported that.

It is the parishes, not the Church, that pays the wages. Instances were mentioned. It was also stated that the parishes should be paying a decent wage and that is their responsibility to look at, if they are not. I don’t see any disagreement there.

Is it your claim that low to poverty wages is widespread amongst all parishes, or just the most affluent parishes (that average statistically 7% surplus)? Is this a concern you wish to explore?
 
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