Raise taxes (Archbishop Flynn)

[Philip_P]

Vern,

Thanks for your reply. You’re right, I probably didn’t explain the political right’s position correctly, which is why I posted - I want to hear it explained.

I think you’re right on the money that accountability is more important than creating new programs. A gut reaction to just add more programs is certainly something the left needs to keep in check. By all means track performance, and reform or eliminate programs that don’t perform. On the other hand, the political right suffers from the opposite tendency, to want to cut programs before considering raising funding.

The current social security debate is a good example. Personally, I think there are advantages to personal accounts, and were we to add personal accounts to supplement social security, I would have no problem with that. Republicans would never even consider this, as this would involve an additional tax (the money for personal accounts has to come from somewhere). Why? Rhetoric aside, we know that personal accounts do nothing to alleviate social security’s funding problems. With a modest tax raise and a small cut in benefits, it can remain solvent for well into the future. Yet the very idea of raising taxes has become anathema. What drives this?

 

[jlw]

Philip P:

On the other hand, the political right suffers from the opposite tendency, to want to cut programs before considering raising funding.

Republicans would never even consider this, as this would involve an additional tax (the money for personal accounts has to come from somewhere).

I’m jumpi9ng in here, and might have missed to content or context.

But did you just say “the money has to come from somewhere??” What the heck?? The money comes from YOU and ME!!! Why an additional tax???

 

[vern_humphrey]

Philip P:

Vern,

Thanks for your reply. You’re right, I probably didn’t explain the political right’s position correctly, which is why I posted - I want to hear it explained.

I think you’re right on the money that accountability is more important than creating new programs. A gut reaction to just add more programs is certainly something the left needs to keep in check. By all means track performance, and reform or eliminate programs that don’t perform. On the other hand, the political right suffers from the opposite tendency, to want to cut programs before considering raising funding.

I think you can say that the basic conservative position is moral pragmatism – that is, if you are morally impelled to do something, you are morally impelled to chose a course of action that standas a good chance of WORKING.

When you look at “programs” and you see that they have sunk $100,000 for each citizen in Phillips County and NOT changed anything, I think a moral pragmatist would say, “This isn’t working. We have a moral obligation to change the paradigm.”

Ronald Reagan was wont to point out that if we assumed everyone below the poverty level had NO money at all, and we GAVE them enough to boost them over the poverty level, we’d only be spending about a third as much as we actually spend on “poverty programs” and the poor are STILL poor!
Philip P:

The current social security debate is a good example. Personally, I think there are advantages to personal accounts, and were we to add personal accounts to supplement social security, I would have no problem with that. Republicans would never even consider this, as this would involve an additional tax (the money for personal accounts has to come from somewhere). Why? Rhetoric aside, we know that personal accounts do nothing to alleviate social security’s funding problems. With a modest tax raise and a small cut in benefits, it can remain solvent for well into the future. Yet the very idea of raising taxes has become anathema. What drives this?

It’s simple – you pay 15.3% of your income in FICA tax (that includes the “employer’s contribution” which is YOUR money, you earn it.) If you were making $20,000 a year (about 2/3s of the median income in this country) and saved 15% of that for 40 years at 11% return (one standard deviation below the mean return of all Fidelity funds in existance more than 10 years), you would have in excess of $2 million dollars – and from that you could draw about $100,000 a year, and never touch the pricipal – you’d leave that to your children and grandchildren to help THEM prepare for old age.

But on Social Security after 40 years, you’d be drawing less than $1,000 a month (less than $12,000 a year)!!

Now, do you think it’s right for a person to pay in enough to build an annuity of $100,000 a year, and only get $12,000 a year?

If you raise taxes, all you do is steal MORE from those who are still working, and leave them LESS to put into savings to supplement their Social Security pittance.

Roosevelt himself considered Social Security as only a temporary measure, and thought it would transitioned to self-funded retirement accounts when the Depression and the War were over. The failure to do that is one of the great rip-offs of history.

 

[StJeanneDArc]

vern humphrey:

Roosevelt himself considered Social Security as only a temporary measure, and thought it would transitioned to self-funded retirement accounts when the Depression and the War were over. The failure to do that is one of the great rip-offs of history.

That’s the other objection I have to taxation programs–once they’re instituted, they never go away. We’re still paying an excise tax on the “luxury” of telephone service to pay for the Spanish-American War!

 

[vern_humphrey]

StJeanneDArc:

That’s the other objection I have to taxation programs–once they’re instituted, they never go away. We’re still paying an excise tax on the “luxury” of telephone service to pay for the Spanish-American War!

People here in Arkansas were mostly driving horse and wagons when Social Security passed. In the interm, there have been many changes – cars, paved roads, city water, electricity, cable television.

But Social Security is SACRED! It can’t be <gasp!> modernized!

Wake up! It’s the 21st Century! It’s time to create the retirement program for THIS century, not watch the old one fall apart.

 

[theMutant]

katherine2:

Can you name even a few bishops at any time over the last 60 years who opposed a social welfare initiative based on an excessive governmental role?

Pope John XXIII, Mater et Magistra

1. And in this work of directing, stimulating, co-ordinating, supplying and integrating, its guiding principle must be the “principle of subsidiary function” formulated by Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno, “This is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, unshaken and unchangeable. . . Just as it is wrong to withdraw from the individual and commit to a community what private enterprise and industry can accomplish, so too it is an injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance of right order, for a larger and higher association to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower societies. Of its very nature the true aim of all social activity should be to help members of the social body, but never to destroy or absorb them.”

It has been shown over and over again that Church and private charities are much more efficient and effective at providing charitible services than is the government. Therefore, according to the long standing Church teaching known as subsidiarity, the government’s insistence in assigning this role to itself is “an injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance of right order.”

 

[theMutant]

Philip P:

Perhaps one of the strict anti-tax members on these forums would like to explain the opposing view? Britain (and Europe in general) seems far more comfortable with taxation and government involvement than the US. In the American context, what is the moral argument for a tax policy that is increasingly regressive, guts social programs, and hampers government’s ability to maintain a healthy budget?

Philip, I try to address some of these questions in this thread.

forum.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=18822

In this thread, I make the argument that, according to the Constitution of the United States, the functions of government are expressly limited to specific roles and powers and that providing these types of social programs is not among them. Additionally, it is the inclusion of these social programs which constitutes the greatest expense of the government (possibly outside times of war) and, consequently, removing these programs is the answer to maintaining a healthy government budget.

The only sense in which this view “guts” social programs is that it transfers the money from those run by the government (taken by force) to those run by religious and other private organizations. In this way, each person can provide support to those organizations which best address the needs of society according to their beliefs. The problem I have with the political left is that they act as if all charitible action will suddenly stop or be insufficient if the government doesn’t force contributions to it. This is patently absurd.

Please note, also, that I am not a Republican.
Philip P:

The Republicans seem to have a sort of mania for tax cuts (especially for cuts aimed at the upper tiers of income)

This is a typical misrepresentation of the effects of tax cuts. Yes, the upper tiers of income get tax cuts but the benefit of these cuts for the middle and lower income classes is, effectively, greater because for them it can represent a greater impact on their overall ability to be self-sufficient.
Philip P:

I understand the economic and self-interest arguments for and against, but would someone like to articulate a moral argument for it

I address the moral issue in this thread, to which I have already linked above.

forum.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=18858

In this thread, I point out that there is absolutly no justification that can be supported by Scripture or the teaching of the Church for taking from others in order to provide for the poor. All of the admonitions to provide for the needs of the poor are directed at individuals. There is no example where a rich person failed to give (or even to give sufficiently) where the response was an instruction for others to take from that rich person to provide for those in need.
Philip P:

Yes, sometimed tax cuts can encourage growth, but what I’m trying to understand is the ideologoical embrace of all tax cuts all the time, which has more to do with politics than economics).

I don’t know of anyone on the political right who advocats tax cuts “all the time.” We generally acknowledge that the government needs to tax and has the right to do so. However, it has EVERYTHING to do with economics because when the government takes our money away, it is removed from the general economy and we can’t use it to better ourselves or others. Even though the government tries to use some of this money for the betterment of society (which I have already pointed out is contrary to the Constitution and subsidiarity) it is the least efficient and effective agent for doing this.

 

[vern_humphrey]

As I recall, there is a block on your tax return where you can send the government additional money.

Those who feel we should be more heavily taxed are free to use that block and send in as much of their own money as they like.

 

[Matt25]

StJeanneDArc:

Welcome, Philip! I’m a conservative, and I don’t oppose *taxes *as a matter of principle. I oppose *redistribution *as a matter of principle…

catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?art_id=25694

In 1991, upon the 100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Centesimus Annus, summarized the Church’s position on the need for the state to intervene on behalf of the poor and the disadvantaged. He spoke of the danger of labor becoming “a commodity to be freely bought and sold on the market, its price determined by the law of supply and demand without taking into account the bare minimum required for the support of the individual and his family.”

When that happens, he called upon the state to intervene in the name of a “preferential option for the poor,” because “the richer class has many ways of shielding itself and stands less in need of help from the state, whereas the mass of the poor have no resources of their own to fall back on and must chiefly depend on the assistance of the state.”

The pope went further. He praised the social programs that free-market theorists frequently condemn as wealth redistribution: “unemployment insurance and retraining programs, social security, pensions, health insurance and compensation in the case of accidents.” He warned of “making market mechanisms the only point of reference for social life” and of the need to “subject” the market “to public control, which upholds the principle of the common destination of material goods.”

Let’s illustrate in human terms, in economic language, through unaided human reason, why the Church has it right; why there is nothing immoral about using the state’s power to tax to redistribute wealth. Let’s cut to the chase: when a society redistributes wealth, all it is doing is redistributing wealth it has previously redistributed. Bear with me.

First of all, please don’t misread me. I am not saying that every redistribution of wealth through a government program is wise or just. Quite the contrary: It is best for the government to encourage those facing economic duress to retrain and take care of themselves. Each government social and poverty program should be debated on its merits. Some are unnecessary. Some are wasteful. Some grant the central government too much power. But they are not inherently immoral.

Here’s why: Those of us who possess wealth do not posses it solely because of our individual merit or some “natural aristocracy.” Our place in the economic pecking order — salaries, possessions, status — is the result of decisions made by our society, usually by the government, as much as the result of our individual initiative. Some of the wealthiest people in modern America would not be wealthy if they had been born in Colonial America. Or in a village in Gaul in the days just before Caesar’s invasion. Or as a Comanche. We could go on.

Try to picture, say, Bill Gates or Rush Limbaugh as a settler with Daniel Boone. Gates and Limbaugh are admirable men, who have given much to modern America, but they are not very imposing physical specimens. Families prospered in Boonesborough if the man of the family was a skilled warrior and hunter and capable of chopping, hewing and hauling the logs to build his own home, as well as maintaining his crops.

Can you picture Rush and Gates doing well in those roles? Isn’t it more likely that these modern movers and shakers would be school teachers or shopkeepers of some sort, living modestly from the fees they could charge the men of the village, the hunters and warriors who created and protected their society’s wealth? What other role could Rush and Gates have played back then? Seriously. In our time, Rush’s and Gates’s great wealth is linked to their membership in a society where modern communication systems and wire transfers of resources through stock exchanges and money markets have become routine. They became wealthy by creating a niche for themselves in that system. Perhaps they would have been able to earn a decent living in Colonial America. They are men with talent and drive. But they would not be multimillionaires with incomes far above their neighbors’.

 

[theMutant]

Matt25:

In 1991, upon the 100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Centesimus Annus, summarized the Church’s position on the need for the state to intervene on behalf of the poor and the disadvantaged. He spoke of the danger of labor becoming “a commodity to be freely bought and sold on the market, its price determined by the law of supply and demand without taking into account the bare minimum required for the support of the individual and his family.”

When that happens, he called upon the state to intervene in the name of a “preferential option for the poor,” because “the richer class has many ways of shielding itself and stands less in need of help from the state, whereas the mass of the poor have no resources of their own to fall back on and must chiefly depend on the assistance of the state.”

I’m afraid you are taking the Pope’s words a bit out of context.

ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/JP2HUNDR.HTM

John Paul II in Centesimus Annus
10. Another important aspect, which has many applications to our own day, is the concept of the relationship between the State and its citizens. Rerum Novarum criticizes two social and economic systems: socialism and liberalism. The opening section, in which the right to private property is reaffirmed, is devoted to socialism. Liberalism is not the subject of a special section, but it is worth noting that criticisms of it are raised in the treatment of the duties of the State. The State cannot limit itself to “favoring one portion of the citizens,” namely the rich and prosperous, nor can it “neglect the other,” which clearly represents the majority of society. Otherwise, there would be a violation of that law of justice which ordains that every person should receive his due. “When there is question of defending the rights of individuals, the defenseless and the poor have a claim to special consideration. The richer class has many ways of shielding itself, and stands less in need of help from the State; whereas the mass of the poor have no resources of their own to fall back on, and must chiefly depend on the assistance of the State. It is for this reason that wage-earners, since they mostly belong to the latter class, should be specially cared for and protected by the government.”

1. Rereading the encyclical in the light of contemporary realities enables us to appreciate the Church’s constant concern for and dedication to categories of people who are especially beloved to the Lord Jesus. The contents of the text is an excellent testimony to the continuity within the Church of the so-called “preferential option for the poor,” an option which I defined as a “special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity.” Pope Leo’s encyclical on the “condition of the workers” is thus an encyclical on the poor and on the terrible conditions to which the new and often violent process of industrialization had reduced great multitudes of people. Today, in many parts of the world, similar processes of economic, social and political transformation are creating the same evils.

If Pope Leo XIII calls upon the State to remedy the condition of the poor in accordance with justice, he does so because of his timely awareness that the State has the duty of watching over the common good and of ensuring that every sector of social life, not excluding the economic one, contributes to achieving that good, while respecting the rightful autonomy of each sector. This should not however lead us to think that Pope Leo expected the State to solve every social problem. On the contrary, he frequently insists on necessary limits to the State’s intervention and on its instrumental character, inasmuch as the individual, the family and society are prior to the State, and inasmuch as the State exists in order to protect their rights and not stifle them.

Clearly, John Paul II points out here that he is reaffirming Leo XIII’s position that the government’s primary means of intervention is in passing laws to prohibit the exploitation of workers and ensure a just wage. However, to suggest that this authorizes the government to relugate to itself the function of a direct charity goes far beyond what the document states.

 

[theMutant]

Yes, the Church does have it right. It is primarily the responsibility and role of individuals, working through religious and private groups with which they can freely form associations, to conduct charitible work.

John Paul II in Centesimus Annus

1. These general observations also apply to the role of the State in the economic sector. Economic activity, especially the activity of a market economy, cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical or political vacuum. On the contrary, it presupposes sure guarantees of individual freedom and private property, as well as a stable currency and efficient public services. Hence the principal task of the State is to guarantee this security, so that those who work and produce can enjoy the fruits of their labors and thus feel encouraged to work efficiently and honestly. The absence of stability, together with the corruption of public officials and the spread of improper sources of growing rich and of easy profits deriving from illegal or purely speculative activities, constitutes one of the chief obstacles to development and to the economic order.

Another task of the State is that of overseeing and directing the exercise of human rights in the economic sector. However, primary responsibility in this area belongs not to the State but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society. The State could not directly ensure the right to work for all its citizens unless it controlled every aspect of economic life and restricted the free initiative of individuals. This does not mean, however, that the State has no competence in this domain, as was claimed by those who argued against any rules in the economic sphere. Rather, the State has a duty to sustain business activities by creating conditions which will ensure job opportunities, by stimulating those activities where they are lacking or by supporting them in moments of crisis.

The State has the further right to intervene when particular monopolies create delays or obstacles to development. In addition to the tasks of harmonizing and guiding development, in exceptional circumstances the State can also exercise a substitute function, when social sectors or business systems are too weak or are just getting under way, and are not equal to the task at hand. Such supplementary interventions, which are justified by urgent reasons touching the common good, must be as brief as possible, so as to avoid removing permanently from society and business systems the functions which are properly theirs, and so as to avoid enlarging excessively the sphere of state intervention to the detriment of both economic and civil freedom.

In recent years the range of such intervention has vastly expanded, to the point of creating a new type of state, the so-called “Welfare State.” This has happened in some countries in order to respond better to many needs and demands, by remedying forms of poverty and deprivation unworthy of the human person. However, excesses and abuses, especially in recent years, have provoked very harsh criticisms of the Welfare State, dubbed the “Social Assistance State.” Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State. Here again the principle of subsidiarity must be respected: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.

By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbors to those in need. …

1. Faithful to the mission received from Christ her Founder, the Church has always been present and active among the needy, offering them material assistance in ways that neither humiliate nor reduce them to mere objects of assistance, but which help them to escape their precarious situation by promoting their dignity as persons. With heartfelt gratitude to God it must be pointed out that active charity has never ceased to be practiced in the Church; indeed, today it is showing a manifold and gratifying increase. In this regard, special mention must be made of volunteer work, which the Church favors and promotes by urging everyone to cooperate in supporting and encouraging its undertakings.

 

[HagiaSophia]

vern humphrey:

As I recall, there is a block on your tax return where you can send the government additional money.

Those who feel we should be more heavily taxed are free to use that block and send in as much of their own money as they like.

But that takes all the fun out of it in two ways: they can’t control YOUR money and YOU can - they are pro choice but not when it comes to the property or money of others. And I love the euphemism “redistributiion” - uh huh.

 

[theMutant]

katherine2:

Can you name even a few bishops at any time over the last 60 years who opposed a social welfare initiative based on an excessive governmental role?

Katherine,

I have cited two bishops (Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II) who have opposed the idea of expanding social welfare programs based on an excessive governmental role.

Can you name even one social welfare initiative that expanded government’s role that has been unanimously supported by all of the bishops?

 

[katherine2]

theMutant:

It has been shown over and over again that Church and private charities are much more efficient and effective at providing charitible services than is the government. Therefore, according to the long standing Church teaching known as subsidiarity, the government’s insistence in assigning this role to itself is “an injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance of right order.”

The Church and private charities that are so effective in providing charitable services get about half of their funding from the government. I am quite content with a system where the government funds and the church and private charities administer these programs.

 

[katherine2]

theMutant:

Katherine,

I have cited two bishops (Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II) who have opposed the idea of expanding social welfare programs based on an excessive governmental role.

You and I disagree as to what these popes are saying. Knowning that is a dead end discussion, my question is can you point to a particular application of that teaching in American society – such as a piece of legislation — where some bishops opposed this legislation?

Can you name even one social welfare initiative that expanded government’s role that has been unanimously supported by all of the bishops?

Unemployment Insurance.

 

[vern_humphrey]

HagiaSophia:

But that takes all the fun out of it in two ways: they can’t control YOUR money and YOU can - they are pro choice but not when it comes to the property or money of others. And I love the euphemism “redistributiion” - uh huh.

You may have noticed that on more than one occasion here, I’ve explained to those who want to raise taxes that they can easily raise THEIR taxes – by giving more to the government.

You’d think they’d jump right on that, and give enough extra to solve all the problems, wouldn’t you?http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon12.gif

 

[Philip_P]

I did vote for more taxes. I moved to New York.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

 

[Catholic2003]

Brad:

Per Catholic2003’s request, I’m responding to our discussion from this thread:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=35254&page=2 post 121.

Thanks. The discussion there was diverging a bit from the topic of Hillary Clinton.

Brad:

I assume you have read the pastoral letter. You are correct. It does mention the “moral dimension” of public policy. The document uses the term “moral” on frequent occasions. I believe it is an irresponsible use of the term. Not one specific moral wrong is identified. To be honest, this document reads more like it was written by the DNC than by a group of Bishops, I’m sorry to say.

Just FYI, statements like this last one are what give the impression of being a Republican first and a Catholic second. It makes it sound as though you expect the bishops to parrot the Republican party platform, and when they fail to do so, then they couldn’t possibly be representing Church teaching and should be ignored.

Here is but one example of a moral wrong identified in the bishops’ statement: “the needs of many of our children, our poor, our vulnerable, our elderly, our sick and our disabled brothers and sisters went unmet (please see endnote).” The endnote refers to several more detailed reports on the specific impacts.

Brad:

Abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, embryonic stem-cell research, and homosexual unions are identifiable moral wrongs that we are called to oppose as Catholics - the Magisterium of the Church has written several documents that mandate this. This has nothing to do with the Republican party. This is just the teaching of the Church.

There are also identifiable moral wrongs in the arena of social justice that we as Catholics are called to oppose, which have nothing to do with the Democrat party. The Magisterium of the Church has written several documents that mandate this, not coincidentally including the Minnesota bishops’ statement presently under discussion.

There are those people out there who don’t understand how what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedroom can have a moral dimension. It seems many posters here have a problem understanding how what happens to little green pieces of paper can have a moral dimension. But the Bible is clear on both counts that they do.

For example, in Luke 18:22, Jesus told the rich man, “There is still one thing left for you: sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” I honestly get the impression that a few posters here would advise the rich man to ignore Jesus, as He was not teaching on a matter of faith or morals. (And that if Jesus were to claim otherwise, that would be an irresponsible use of the term “moral”.)

Brad:

As I said in my previous posts, both the Code of Canon Law and the Catechism of the Catholic Church require that the Bishops be in communion with the College of Bishops and the Church Magisterium AND be teaching on faith or morals in order for their teaching to be held to with religous assent by the Catholic faithful.

I believe the document does not fall into this category on either account.

The first and most important thing to note about the canon law concerning this is that the laity are not called upon to make these determinations themselves. It is the job of the Pope (and by extension, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) to make these determinations.

To be continued…

 

[vern_humphrey]

Philip P:

I did vote for more taxes. I moved to New York.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

Well, for heaven’s sake, don’t move to Arkansas and vote to raise OUR taxes. http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

 

[Catholic2003]

Brad:

A) In order to be in communion with the Magisterium, there must be a teaching by the Magisterium to be in communion with. The pastoral letter makes no references to any magisterial documents or any Church documents at all, aside from a few verses of Sacred Scripture. My guess is that there is no document they could site that would support their teaching. I don’t know of any that would.

The Magisterium is the living teaching authority of the Church, and it resides in the Pope and those bishops in communion with the Pope. It is not a particular set of Church documents which the laity are free to interpret on their own, much as Protestants interpret the Bible on their own. Thus it is a contradiction in terms to say that the Minnesota bishops are not in communion with the Magisterium, as they are themselves a constituent part of that Magisterium.

Eastern Orthodox bishops, not being in communion with the Pope, are not a part of the Magisterium. And although it seems to be considered fashionable in this forum to disrespect the U.S. bishops by claiming they are in schism with Rome, until the CDF officially declares such a schism and/or excommunicates one or more of them, we are not free to disregard the authentic teachings of our bishops.

Brad:

B) I believe parts of the pastoral letter are contrary to Magisterial teaching.

Many in this forum claimed to know more about economics than the Minnesota bishops, although only one poster (StJeanneDArc) put forth any credentials to justify such a claim. Much as I can understand someone doubting the economic credentials of the bishops, it is important to realize that this is not the basis of the bishops’ authority.

However, my mind simply boggles at the thought of someone (himself not a member of the Magisterium) claiming to know more about Catholic moral theology than the Minnesota bishops. Bp. Nienstedt holds a Doctorate in Sacred Theology, Bp. Pates holds a Licentiate (Masters) degree in Sacred Theology, and both Bp. Kinney and Bp. Schnurr hold Doctorates in Canon Law. Frankly, anyone who actually had enough expertise to correct the moral theology of these bishops would also know more than enough not to do so.

Brad:

1. Teaching on Faith or Morals

There is not one specific mention of a moral wrong that is to be corrected. There is mention of many generalities but nothing you can point to and say “that is wrong because it does harm to a specific person”. It simply doesn’t give enough information to show harm is being done to a specific person due to an action taken by another/same person. That is what is required to show to judge morality.

I’ve already addressed the specific moral wrongs identified by the Minnesota bishops. However, I also want to point out that even if their statement had not gone into specifics, that would still not be no justification for dismissing its authority. For example, Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae did not address the specific techniques of the various methods of Natural Family Planning; nonetheless, it is still a binding teaching as to their morality.