I am angry and upset

[Reid]

As a convert the our Catholic faith I do not questions its doctrines nor dogmas but over the pass year as we have debated health care in the public square - I am saddened of the position that the Catholic Church and her Bishops have taken in the United States.

It seems to me that the Church has put herself in a position to be for health care reform at all cost - minus the federally funded abortion languages within the various bills - and even the one passed this past sunday.

Yet this past sunday - I feel that my home parish - drew the line in the sand - in the prayer of the faithful it was prayed “may congress Pass needed health reform and respect the sanctity of life”

Now I take issue with the health care bill on many levels - I believe it is designed to make health care insurance fail in this country in which the feds will have to come in and rescue all of us. Many insurance companies have already stated that we will be dead - out of business in 3 years, doctors have suggested that they will leave their practice. In regards to how the bill is written - there is no current mandate on rising cost today - so prices will be on the rise and knock out many employer sponsored programs,

Now the USCCB states they believe health care to be a right - well the law of this land agrees and this is why nobody can be turned away from an emergency room - this is why we have county hospitals…

In my eyes the Catholic Church in america has proven to be one with the democratic party - we have outspoken elected officials that boast that they are catholic yet denounce the church in her views of pro life - time after time. The USCCB of all organizations has actually funded grants that have essentially funded abortions and my list goes on and on.

So I am angry and upset - as a convert to our faith - would I not be better served in the Greek Orthodox faith? It seems to me that have not put themselves in this dirty political game.

 

[tskrobacz]

In the short team health care reform is emotionally charged and many have cited abortion as a key reason to object to the reforms. Still some 31M people without insurance may have a different perspective. As with anything of this magnitude I’m trusting that the Holy Spirit will lead people of faith to shape this reform or from it lead our nation to new thinking that serves the greater good. The democrats are the only party that has successfully passed social security, medicade and now health care reform. I for one am willing to give this time to play out as it has been on the Governments agenda for more than a century…it’s time to fish or cut bait. Not passing this legislation would leave it for more debate, more spending and more controversy…it’s time to move on.

 

[Reid]

In the short team health care reform is emotionally charged and many have cited abortion as a key reason to object to the reforms. Still some 31M people without insurance may have a different perspective. As with anything of this magnitude I’m trusting that the Holy Spirit will lead people of faith to shape this reform or from it lead our nation to new thinking that serves the greater good. The democrats are the only party that has successfully passed social security, medicade and now health care reform. I for one am willing to give this time to play out as it has been on the Governments agenda for more than a century…it’s time to fish or cut bait. Not passing this legislation would leave it for more debate, more spending and more controversy…it’s time to move on.

I am sorry but I disagree on so many levels - but please go back and read my last question?

 

[CPA2]

Welcome home to the Catholic Church! I have similar arguments with many priests. The Catholic Church opposes socialism! However, many priests preach and believe otherwise. You will have to forgive them and pray for them. The following is a letter that I wrote to one priest. I will have to send it to you in two parts since it exceeds 6,000 characters.

March 16, 2006

Dear Father XXX:

I attended mass this morning. I looked up the “Option for the Poor,” as you suggested. The bishops support the minimum wage and many other government programs. The U.S. Catholic bishops and I have major philosophical differences! The minimum wage is bad economics. If you want to help the poor, you do not support the minimum wage. As you will tell from my letter, I do not believe in “salvation by law.” I learned a lot by owning a business and traveling to India on business trips.

I was willing to hire the young and unskilled, but it was illegal to pay them what they were worth in the marketplace. The government makes it illegal to pay wages below the minimum wage. The minimum wage is a floor on wages that causes a surplus of young and unskilled workers. There is 50 years of solid economic research to support this contention. Are the bishops listening? The minimum wage that is above the equilibrium wage hurts the young and unskilled.

I live in XXX, west of New Orleans. If I told you that I would take you to eat at some of the finest restaurants in New Orleans, and then proceeded to drive west on I10, you would know that I was going in the opposite direction.

Unfortunately, most people do not know their directions when it comes to government promises. The end does not justify the meams. The “means” is the end. Tell me the means and I will tell you the ending. Such is the beauty of economics. I am not interested in the government’s lofty objectives; I am only interested in the means they use to get there. If you want to help poor workers, abolish the minimum wage. If you want to protect citizens from violent crime, abolish the gun control laws. If you want to increase wealth and employment, abolish taxes.

“An individual who intends only to serve the public interest by fostering government intervention is led by an invisible hand to promote private interest, which was no part of his intention (Friedman).” The “invisible hand” is the reason Milton Friedman says that he is not aware of the government doing much good. The government heads west when it should be heading east.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone always pays for “free lunches.” Economics is interesting because economics reads like a detective novel. “Who done it?” Who benefits and who pays?

Adam Smith’s genius was that he recognized the value of voluntary exchanges. Voluntary exchanges produce a win-win situation. Both buyers and sellers benefit. The price that they agree upon is the market price, or the equilibrium price. Adam Smith said that a seller, seeking only his interests, and through no conscious effort, is led by an invisible hand to seek the public good.

There was a time when the United States was the only game in town. If you wanted freedom, you had to come to the United States. However, the United States is no longer the only game in town.

India, for example, learned some very bad socialist ideas from England and the United States. They had a marginal tax rate of 85% and excise taxes of 100%. Is it any wonder that they never exported any jewelry? Today India is a major exporter of jewelry. I visited some of those factories, and they are more modern that our jewelry factories in the United States! Why? The Indians call it an “economic miracle.” I call it no taxes. There are no corporate taxes on exported jewelry!

Most jewelry manufacturers in the United States are out of business because of more economic freedom in other countries like India. For example, I counted only 7 employees at an old jewelry manufacturing plant in New York. I also visited a new and very modern jewelry manufacturing plant in Seeps, outside of Bombay, India. They had 4,000 employees!

I also visited New Zealand for three weeks. This was a country that was down and out because of socialism. Now the country has embraced political and economic freedom in a big way. Listening to New Zealand’s politicians and its people was like a breath of fresh air compared to what I get from the politicians in the United States.

Perhaps the best example was Hong Kong before it was turned over to Communist China. Maids and plumbers became multi-millionaires. “Hong Kong has no tariffs…no government direction of economic activity, no minimum wage laws, no fixing of prices…Low taxes preserve incentives. Businessmen can reap the benefits of their success but must also bear the costs of their mistakes (Freidman).”

When they left Hong Kong, very few people settled in the United States. Our taxes were too high. When Clinton passed the $500 billion tax bill, I think that we surpassed England as the most heavily taxed industrial nation. Most people from Hong Kong settled in Canada, not exactly a tax haven, but better than the United States.

This is Milton Friedman’s conclusion in his book, Free to Choose: “The two ideas of human freedom and economic freedom working together came to their greatest fruition in the United States…We have been forgetting the basic truth that the greatest threat to human freedom is the concentration of power, whether in the hands of government or anyone else. We have persuaded ourselves that it is safe to grant power, provided it is for good purposes.”

 

[CPA2]

“We are again recognizing the dangers of an over-governed society, coming to understand that good objectives can be perverted by bad means, that reliance on the freedom of people to control their own lives in accordance with their own values is the surest way to achieve the full potential of a great society.”

We have been following the fiscal policy of Keynes, a socialist, for a long time. He proposed stimulating the economy during a recession. One method is to cut interest rates. Cutting interest rates usually leads to an expansion of money and credit through a process known as fractional banking. Alan Greenspan reduced interest rates 11 times to no avail.

I like the Austrian School of Economics. Ludwig von Misses, Murray Rothbard and Freidrich Hayek all warned us about the bad effects of credit expansion. I think that we are just beginning to pay the price for 70 years of credit expansion.

I am fascinated by the consequences of debt and government funny money (fiat money). Honest money is what I want from the government, but that is not what I get. What are the economic consequences of government credit expansion (inflation)? My personal prediction is that we will see the dollar go bankrupt. When the dollar is no longer the reserve currency of the world, the United States will become a third world country overnight.

Here are my lecture notes from Dr. XXX, a Catholic and economics professor at XXX University: “Authority or command is not the fundamental source of order in an economy, and it in fact may be a source of disorder in economic affairs. In the place usually accorded authority as the source of orderliness in a community, we will place enlightened self-interest, i.e. the freedom to act in accordance with one’s own interests properly bounded by a regard for the welfare of others and the preservation of the institutions of civil society (note that one of those institutions is government). Without the moderating effects of a proper concern for institutions and for interests other than one’s own, social order deteriorates under the weight of appetites. Of particular interest is what Wilhelm Roepke called the “wonder” of market coordinated activity, i.e. the superiority of voluntarism over command as a means for ordering or coordinating human actions which are based on enlightened self-interest.”

“Economics has many definitions. I gave three of the best definitions. All three definitions are useful and represent particular emphases within a broader discipline. The third definition (coordination/information problem) may be understood as an information problem because at the heart of the coordination problem is the problem of dispersed information, i.e. the information is not amenable to the usual kinds of problem solving techniques with which we are most familiar. Economic order is not like solving a jigsaw puzzle because the information (the pieces of the puzzle) are dispersed across millions of people and are forever changing. This information can never be held in the mind of one or a few people. Given the problem of dispersed information, a much more complex kind of problem solving technique is required to continuously “solve” the problem, i.e. to coordinate economic activity.”

 

[andyandely1997]

A lot of people for all of the government social justice programs, I believe, think they are so righteous by supporting these programs. It is always easy to support a program with other people’s money. And even if some of the money is from them in the form of taxes, it is forced charity. Everytime I come across a person who is for all of this government social justice, I ask them how much they contribute towards charity. It is more often than not, none at all or very little. But it makes them feel good to support government social justice. Any taxpayer in the U.S. can send more money to the federal government. We can pay above the taxes we already pay to them. I wonder why no one does this, especially, if they have so much compassion for the poor. If people believe the federal government does such a good job with social justice, they should want to support the cause with some more of their own money.

Lastly, if all of these social justice programs from the federal government are so great, why do we still have poor people within our country? Why has not the Great Society, over the past 40 years, improved the situation? I am sure people will have someone to blame in this country, always making excuses, it is never our fault, no more personal responsibility. Again, these programs might make people feel good, but they are not effective.

 

[Reid]

The Catholic Church opposes socialism!

Can you please show me where you can back this up - I want to footnote this for my notes and current arguments about what is and has happened in my local parish…

 

[tskrobacz]

So I am angry and upset - as a convert to our faith - would I not be better served in the Greek Orthodox faith? It seems to me that have not put themselves in this dirty political game.

For me this question is a misunderstanding of what faith is…faith is a surrendering to the divine nature of all existence prior to breaking it down into any belief system (religion). You can have faith in God under any belief system. I choose the Catholic church not because of its leadership but because from it’s core dogma’s and doctrines great saints have arisen - it is a rock of what Jesus taught often in spite of it’s own controversies and failures. Unless you are able to look past the always imperfect people that comprise church, you will never find comfort in any religious institution. Trust God…Love people.

 

[Reid]

For me this question is a misunderstanding of what faith is…faith is a surrendering to the divine nature of all existence prior to breaking it down into any belief system (religion). You can have faith in God under any belief system. I choose the Catholic church not because of its leadership but because from it’s core dogma’s and doctrines great saints have arisen - it is a rock of what Jesus taught often in spite of it’s own controversies and failures. Unless you are able to look past the always imperfect people that comprise church, you will never find comfort in any religious institution. Trust God…Love people.

The problem is simple - I disagree with the position the Catholic Church has taken in the many social justice stances. That being said the Orthodox faith has the same sacraments and all though we have a few differences in doctrine and dogma - I would essentially not be leaving the sacraments which I have grown to love.

The two of us will disagree on the politics of today and that is fine but when I believe the Catholic Church has drawn political lines in the sand and I disagree with that and their position - would I not be better served in the Greek Orthodox Church?

 

[aspawloski4th]

The problem is simple - I disagree with the position the Catholic Church has taken in the many social justice stances. That being said the Orthodox faith has the same sacraments and all though we have a few differences in doctrine and dogma - I would essentially not be leaving the sacraments which I have grown to love.

The two of us will disagree on the politics of today and that is fine but when I believe the Catholic Church has drawn political lines in the sand and I disagree with that and their position - would I not be better served in the Greek Orthodox Church?

So people loosing their homes on account of getting sick is ok with you? Remeber this is deciding in your mind between the Catholic and Greek Orthodox church. The office of Patriarch of Constaninople was started by the the Roman emporer Canstantine, the office of Pope was Started by Jesus Christ when he gave Peter the keys to Heaven.

 

[tskrobacz]

The problem is simple - I disagree with the position the Catholic Church has taken in the many social justice stances. That being said the Orthodox faith has the same sacraments and all though we have a few differences in doctrine and dogma - I would essentially not be leaving the sacraments which I have grown to love.

The two of us will disagree on the politics of today and that is fine but when I believe the Catholic Church has drawn political lines in the sand and I disagree with that and their position - would I not be better served in the Greek Orthodox Church?

Probably not if you take the position that the current actions and behaviors of the leadership are more important than the preservation of the deepest meanings behind the teachings of Jesus guarded by dogma and doctrine. If you think the leadership in the Greek Orthodox Church is somehow immune to controversy I expect you will eventually be equally unhappy there.

 

[Reid]

So people loosing their homes on account of getting sick is ok with you?

Not at all - I believe there are three vocations

1. Vocation of marriage life
2. Vocation of single life
3. Vocation of religious life

Within our society each of these plays a significant role.

I also believe in the three pillars of society

1. The pillar of individual/family
2. The pillar of community/church
3. The pillar of Government

When we do what we are supposed to do - things work out

I do not want the federal or state government and or local government in my life in which they are today and I do not want any form of socialism.

Its true that it is sad that some individuals are wiped out financially from anything - including health care cost - yet this is where the pillar of community/church should play their role - do their part. Too often I hear that health care cost in not affordable yet too many of live lifestyles in which we cannot afford and we should take a serious look at our vocation in life and do our part - in the case of raising a family perhaps we should make our own sacrifices to pay that health care cost.

I personally take offense to your comment above.

Remeber this is deciding in your mind between the Catholic and Greek Orthodox church. The office of Patriarch of Constaninople was started by the the Roman emporer Canstantine, the office of Pope was Started by Jesus Christ when he gave Peter the keys to Heaven.

And I think you do not understand my question above

 

[Reid]

Probably not if you take the position that the current actions and behaviors of the leadership are more important than the preservation of the deepest meanings behind the teachings of Jesus guarded by dogma and doctrine. If you think the leadership in the Greek Orthodox Church is somehow immune to controversy I expect you will eventually be equally unhappy there.

Again you simply do not understand my question

 

[Edwardjohn]

The problem is simple - I disagree with the position the Catholic Church has taken in the many social justice stances. That being said the Orthodox faith has the same sacraments and all though we have a few differences in doctrine and dogma - I would essentially not be leaving the sacraments which I have grown to love.

The two of us will disagree on the politics of today and that is fine but when I believe the Catholic Church has drawn political lines in the sand and I disagree with that and their position - would I not be better served in the Greek Orthodox Church?

You might be, but I need to tell you that I also have considered the Orthodox Church because of issues in the Catholic Church, and when I do consider the move, there is always a conviction with a resolution to stay and stand on the truth that has been revealed to me. In my humble opinion, there has been enough self-serving behavior in the Catholic Church throughout her history. I believe that Luther’s behavior was self-serving. What I’m saying is this; stay, pray, and stand. Defend your position in the body of Christ. The Church needs backbone.

 

[tskrobacz]

Again you simply do not understand my question

I’m sorry, I really don’t understand your question. You seem to want someone to make it ok for you to be angry at the church and to choose the Greek Orthodox Church. For me that is a personal choice and the only person that can answer that question is you.

 

[Moscati]

CPA2;6437896:

The Catholic Church opposes socialism!

Can you please show me where you can back this up - I want to footnote this for my notes and current arguments about what is and has happened in my local parish…

This was debated on another thread a few weeks ago. What the Catechism says about socialism is:

2425 The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with “communism” or “socialism.” She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of “capitalism,” individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor.207 Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for "there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market."208 Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended.
__

I’m not sure it’s quite right to say that the Church condemns socialism unilaterally. What it says is She condemns the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated with it. It’s a subtle distinction, but a necessary one. There are those who might say the way consecrated religious live in community is “socialist”, and we’d have to have a debate on what socialism actually means.

Anyway, I hope the reference is helpful.

 

[Edwardjohn]

Probably not if you take the position that the current actions and behaviors of the leadership are more important than the preservation of the deepest meanings behind the teachings of Jesus guarded by dogma and doctrine. If you think the leadership in the Greek Orthodox Church is somehow immune to controversy I expect you will eventually be equally unhappy there.

True, true, true!

 

[CPA2]

CPA2;6437896:

The Catholic Church opposes socialism!

Can you please show me where you can back this up - I want to footnote this for my notes and current arguments about what is and has happened in my local parish…

I was on vacation in Florida last summer and when I went to Sunday mass, **the pastor preached against socialism! ** Additionally, The Sunday bulletin had an article in it that explained why the Catholic Church opposed socialism. I talked to the priest after mass and I got a copy of all of the articles in the Sunday bulletins. We talked at some length about priests who voted for Obama and who support socialism. I and that priest are kindered spirits. You would have felt right at home in his parish.

You caught me flat footed. I am in the process of cleaning my desk and I came across copies of a series of articles in the church bulletin explaining why the Catholic Church opposed socialism. I misplaced that information again! However, this is some information from someone else on this forum:

The Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry on socialism is very interesting in this regard. Of course, the historical parts of the entry are incomplete, because it was written before WWI. But the discussion of the ways in which socialism is inconsistent with Catholicism remains applicable.

In sum, the Encyclopedia identifies the following respects in which socialism conflicts with Catholic teaching:

1. Socialism is materialistic. “Socialism appropriates all human desires and centres them on the here-and-now, on material benefit and prosperity. But material goods are so limited in quality, in quantity, and in duration that they are incapable of satisfying human desires, which will ever covet more and more and never feel satisfaction.”
2. Socialism is deterministic. “Holding that society makes the individuals of which it is composed, and not vice versa, it has quite lost touch with the invigorating Christian doctrine of free will. … Any power which claims to appropriate and discipline [the individual’s] interior life, and which affords him sanctions that transcend all evolutionary and scientific determinism, must necessarily incur Socialist opposition.”
3. Because of 2, socialism is hostile to the Church and the family. “Socialism, with its essentially materialistic nature, can admit no raison d’etre for a spiritual power, as complementary and superior to the secular power of the State. … The State was never meant to appropriate to itself the main parental duties, it was rather meant to provide the parents, especially poor parents, with a wider, freer, healthier family sphere in which to be properly parental.”
4. Socialism conflicts with the natural law regarding private property. “If man, [according to Aquinas], has the right to own, control, and use private property, the State cannot give him this right or take it away; it can only protect it.”

In other words: “It is true that the institutions of religion, of the family, and of private ownership are liable to great abuses, but the perfection of human effort and character demands a freedom of choice between good and evil as their first necessary condition. This area of free choice is provided, on the material side, by private ownership; on the spiritual and material, by the Christian Family; and on the purely spiritual by religion. The State, then, instead of depriving men of these opportunities of free and fine production, not only of material but also of intellectual values, should rather constitute itself as their defender.”

 

[Bluegoat]

The problem is simple - I disagree with the position the Catholic Church has taken in the many social justice stances. That being said the Orthodox faith has the same sacraments and all though we have a few differences in doctrine and dogma - I would essentially not be leaving the sacraments which I have grown to love.

The two of us will disagree on the politics of today and that is fine but when I believe the Catholic Church has drawn political lines in the sand and I disagree with that and their position - would I not be better served in the Greek Orthodox Church?

You might find that Orthodoxy supports universal health care as well. They are a much smaller group in North America, even when you include all the Orthodox Churches, of which the Greek Orthodox is one. So people don’t always hear as much about what they are saying. Maybe go to an Orthodox forum and suss out what the opinions on this are.

But on another note, the real questions are bigger. First - do you think Orthodoxy is true? Keep in mind that what the Catholic Church says about Orthodoxy is not what the Orthodox say themselves. They generally do not subscribe to the “two-lung theory” that most Catholics do. You would, I think, have a lot of research to do.

Second, do you really think the Church should stay out of politics, or only when you disagree with what they seem to be saying? Should they stop making statements about bills regarding same-sex marriage, or abortion, or anything at all? That is what staying out of politics altogether would mean.

And third - maybe you really have the wrong end of the stick. Are you letting your political beliefs decide your religion, rather than your religion inform your political beliefs? Maybe there is a good reason those priests seem to support the passing of this bill. You aren’t bound as a Catholic to support it to, but you are bound to be humble, and these are the people who have been trained in Catholic theology, formed in Catholic seminaries, and entrusted with the leadership of your parish. And you are a Catholic before you are an American - it is entirely possible that any “American” or other national value could be an un-Catholic value. Nations are temporary, fallible, and man-made, unlike the Church.

Saying you would leave your religion because it doesn’t support your political views is not always wrong, but it can indicate that you are making a god of something besides God.

 

[CPA2]

CPA2;6437896:

The Catholic Church opposes socialism!

Can you please show me where you can back this up - I want to footnote this for my notes and current arguments about what is and has happened in my local parish…

This came from someone else on the forum:

RERUM NOVARUM , On Capital and Labor; Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII [Emphasis added]

…In any case we clearly see, and on this there is general agreement, that some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class … To remedy these wrongs, the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy. But their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.

When a man engages in remunerative labor, the impelling reason and motive of his work is to obtain property … If one man hires out to another his strength or skill, he does so for the purpose of receiving in return what is necessary for the satisfaction of his needs; he therefore expressly intends to acquire a right full and real, not only to the remuneration, but also to the disposal of such remuneration, just as he pleases. Thus, if he lives sparingly, saves money, and, for greater security, invests his savings in land, the land, in such case, is only his wages under another form; and, consequently, a working man’s little estate thus purchased should be as completely at his full disposal as are the wages he receives for his labor. But it is precisely in such power of disposal that ownership obtains, whether the property consist of land or chattels. Socialists, therefore, by endeavoring to transfer the possessions of individuals to the community at large, strike at the interests of every wage-earner, since they would deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages, and thereby of all hope and possibility of increasing his resources and of bettering his condition in life.

The remedy they [socialists] propose is manifestly against justice. For, every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own.

Hence, it is clear that the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonweal. The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property.

… There naturally exist among mankind manifold differences of the most important kind; people differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition. Such inequality is far from being disadvantageous either to individuals or to the community. Social and public life can be maintained only by means of various kinds of capacity for business and the playing of many parts; and each man, as a rule, chooses the part which suits his own peculiar domestic condition. … no strength and no artifice will ever succeed in banishing from human life the ills and troubles which beset it. If any there are who pretend differently – who hold out to a hard-pressed people the boon of freedom from pain and trouble, an undisturbed repose, and constant enjoyment – they delude the people and impose upon them, and their lying promises will only one day bring forth evils worse than the present. …

– RERUM NOVARUM , On Capital and Labor; Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII [Emphasis added]