Socialism

[Montalban]

The problem was that Jesus did not command us to give to the poor because He thought the poor should be in possession of the world’s wealth. The end Christ sought was not possessions or wealth, it was love. God couldn’t care less what “class” of society you are in. *In fact, *Christ says that it is *better *to be poor than wealthy. That idea alone is enough to refute the claims that Socialism is compatible with Christianity.

We express our love for God by loving our neighbours as we love ourselves.

Tá Críosd ar éirigh!
Christ is risen!

 

[mike182d]

We express our love for God by loving our neighbours as we love ourselves.

Tá Críosd ar éirigh!
Christ is risen!

Yes, but this expression of love cannot be mandated by a Government body. To do so misses the point of the command entirely. Its like the Government mandating daily prayer.

 

[mike182d]

Indeed, we’re told what to love! (and what not to)

1 Tim 6:10 For the **love **of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

If love of money is the root of all evil, why should the Government work so hard to give money to the poor? Doesn’t Christ say its better to be poor in the first place?

That’s a strange logic. We shouldn’t legislate in favour of a policy of love?

We’re told not to kill. Should governments not have a policy preventing this too, because it misses the point of the 10 Commandments?

You’re confusing two different principles here.

The role of Government is to maintain order by punishing those who exercise their free will in contradiction to natural and Divine law. It is *not *the role of Government to command peope to love.

Think of love within the context of marriage.

The Government has every right to punish an individual who acts in contradiction to their marital vows - such as having an affair or spousal abuse - but the Government cannot write into law that “all men must give their wives flowers.”

Yes, giving your wife flowers is an act of love but it is not the role of Government to legislate that act of love. Furthermore, to do so misses the point of giving flowers in the first place (“Hey, hunny. Here are the flowers the Government made me buy you. I love you!”)

 

[DL82]

Absolutely:

Canada and the European nations have killed their privately-funded drug Research and Development programs with their price controls. In 2003, John E. Calfee in “The High Price of Cheap Drugs” pointed out;

" American manufacturers now account for 7 of the top 10 worldwide best-selling medicines, and 15 of the top 20. This reflects a large and growing disparity in research and development expenditures. In 1990, European pharmaceutical firms outspent American firms on R&D by approximately 8 billion euros to 5 billion euros ($7 billion to $4.3 billion). In 2000, U.S. firms outspent European firms by 24 billion euros to 17 billion euros ($20.9 billion to $14.8 billion)."

In other words, in just a decade, the European nations (and Canada) succeeded in throwing away their lead in drug R&D.

We do NOT want to choke off R&D in the US. Every one of us will need drugs at some time, and we want the latest developments.

Those nations with price controls are getting a free ride on the back of the US consumer. We pay the majority of R&D costs and they get the benefits of our developments. They are able to use our patent laws to get copies of US drug companies’ patents and they simply threaten the US companies with producing the drugs in their countries, and merely paying a small royalty.

Price controls, aside from killing drug R&D in those countries also killed competition in drugs. As a result, generic drugs cost MORE in those countries than in the United States. A study by D’Angelo Consulting of Ottawa (cited in Forbes Magazine, February 2003), found that 21 of the top 27 best selling generic drugs cost more in Canada than in the US. And the combined price for all 27 was 37% higher in Canada than in the US!

Price controls make drug companies less likely to gear up to produce a new drug when the original patents expire. In the US when the patent expires on a new drug, the price drops an average of 74% – but in Canada, the drop is only 38%.

Vern, your underlying assumption here needs to be questioned.

You assume that the most important thing for society is the ACCUMULATION of wealth (in this case, of new drugs) rather than its’ DISTRIBUTION.

Let me ask, if you have a society where drugs are available to cure 90% of conditions, but only 10% of people can afford them, and another where drugs are only available to cure 40% of conditions but 100% of people can afford them, who is better off?

In the first situation, 91% of people who get ill cannot get drugs, in the second, the figure is only 60%. You do the math.

Faith has always been less about what we have and more about what we do with it.

If the Catholic Church had concentrated on the 5% of the wisest and most spiritual people in the world, it could probably have advanced massively in its’ theological purity. The problem is, nobody else would be able to understand it, it would be a closed book for everybody else.

If schools concentrated on teaching the 5% of the smartest kids, we could produce hundreds of geniuses, but leave behind millions of idiots in the process.

What we need is to have ambitions and keep making progress, but for the right reasons, not to accumulate things for selfish gain but to spread the benefit as widely as possible.

Have you ever heard of John Rawls’ difference principle, it’s a middle way between capitalism and socialism that says that inequalities can be justified only when they are to the benefit of the least well-off. So if allowing a pharmaceutical researcher to earn millions of dollars helps him to create a product that gives everybody cheap access to drugs, that’s fine, but just the fact that he can make more drugs for the exclusive few does not in itself justify that inequality if it makes medical care for the poor an impossibility.

 

[Jerry_Mitchner]

This is entirely untrue. Class struggle is the single most important aspect of human history. There has never been a society (apart from primitive communal societies) that has ever maintained order without the oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie.The Church has never denied this fact

In referring broadly to historic events, it is difficult to prove an “absolute negative” like “… There has never been a society…that…” or “…The Church has never denied this fact…”.

We would have to have perfect & complete knowledge of all past societies (an omniscience no historian would dare claim to possess) and thorough knowledge of all Church documents at every level of authority.

I have read at least one quote from a pope condemning “socialism”, but he may have had a specific kind of socialism in mind. Context is very important in reading church documents ( a not too dissimilar concern in understanding scripture passages – “text without context leads to pretext”)

Isn’t the Catholic Church’s view more like this:
All that is natural and human, good & bad, plays a role in the drama of human history; but Divine Providence and the covenantal relationship between God & his people are pivotal and overriding.
It can be dangerous to seek salvation in any of the various possible forms of economic or governmental systems, since there is no perfect human society outside of the imperfectly realized eschatological fulfillment of history which will be a supernatural event beyond anything we are capable of understanding or accomplishing.
None of the possible forms of socialist or capitalist economic systems allied in any combination with governmental systems (democracy, monarchy, republic, whatever), can of themselves compensate for the effects of original sin. You cannot build a perfect building with imperfect bricks and mortar.

 

[levi86]

In referring broadly to historic events, it is difficult to prove an “absolute negative” like “… There has never been a society…that…” or “…The Church has never denied this fact…”.

We would have to have perfect & complete knowledge of all past societies (an omniscience no historian would dare claim to possess)

Very true. Perhaps I should have said “for all intent and purposes”. There is always the possibility such societies have existed (however small it may be). But with reference to modern societies, of which Marx and most of sociology is concerned, I feel I can safely say that all modern states were or are built upon a conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeois

and thorough knowledge of all Church documents at every level of authority.

Yes, perhaps I was being somewhat presumptuous. However I have not yet found an official Church document in which conflict theory has been condemned.

Isn’t the Catholic Church’s view more like this:
All that is natural and human, good & bad, plays a role in the drama of human history; but Divine Providence and the covenantal relationship between God & his people are pivotal and overriding.
It can be dangerous to seek salvation in any of the various possible forms of economic or governmental systems, since there is no perfect human society outside of the imperfectly realized eschatological fulfillment of history which will be a supernatural event beyond anything we are capable of understanding or accomplishing.
None of the possible forms of socialist or capitalist economic systems allied in any combination with governmental systems (democracy, monarchy, republic, whatever), can of themselves compensate for the effects of original sin. You cannot build a perfect building with imperfect bricks and mortar

Well said. I believe this is the primary concern Cardinal Ratzinger had with Liberation Theology. Perhaps he could see a tendency among its devotees to over emphasise the political and material freedoms of Catholics at the expense of freedom from sin.

 

[vern_humphrey]

If only I’d restricted my evidence solely to that. So thanks for the straw-man! That they were following Matthew 25:34-43 is to be applauded.

Passing over your misuse of the term “strawman,” I again point out that citing a small Protestant sect does not prove the Catholic Church supports socialism.

Looking after the poor by giving them the resources that they require is part of economics, for someone with money gives it to someone who has need of it.

Charity is not socialism.

So you’re saying the Apostles were failures! Another novel take on the early church!

Now there’s an example of a strawman!

I said the experiment with socialism failed. Do you have proof that all the Christian communities of the First Century were socialist? Where does Paul (whose epistles are the earliest Catholic writings we have) tell his converts they must give all they have to the Church?

I did this by showing that the removal of possessions was practiced amongst Christian communities. Monks, etc.

You did no such thing – monasticism arose long after the First Century, and applies to special cases.

Just repeating what I’ve already shown… Charity to widows was also known to the early Christian community.
“Christians brought their funds to those in need, mean and women, citizen and non-citizen”
Fox, R. L. (1986), “Pagans and Christians”, (Penguin), p323.

He did not say “Christians brought their funds to the Church”

“The Roman empire was no welfare state” writes John McManners, “and before Christian times in the West… care for the poor was rare” Carroll, V., & Shiflett, D., (2002) “Christianity on Trial”, (Encounter Books; San Francisco), p142.

Charity is not socialism.

That’s what socialism (in theory) is supposed to be, the redistribution of resources on a needs basis. We call it when it doesn’t involve a government and when it goes direct to set causes, thus you give money to the AIDS charities and it (should) go to AIDS related causes.

You have confounded charity – where people give voluntarily – with Socialism, where the money is taken by force majure.

The difference with a socialistic government is you give your money and they decide who should get it.

The difference with a socialistic government is they take your money and they decide who should get it.

And this is what the Apostles were doing, unless your aware of particular charity funds that they set up such as “Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Camels” etc.

And if failed. The experiemnt with communism was not repeated elsewhere by the Apostles nor the Apostolic fathers.

Doesn’t matter. She gave her own. It was given to the Apostles. They doled it out as they saw fit. That’s what happens with my taxes today, if we have a democratically elected socialist government.

It **does **matter – socialism is the antithesis of true charity.

And interestingly enough the Parable of the Good Samaritan was used to extend the law of tort to cover protection from faulty goods. Obviously Lord Atkin saw in the “Who is my neighbour?” question a reason to extend ‘charity’ (or in this case ‘protection’ (i.e. Duty of Care) ) through to a wider community.
“Lord Atkin himself apparently agonised over the decision, and I recall that his daughter wrote that he discussed the decision with his family, and told them that he was intending to apply the Parable of the Good Samaritan to the facts of the case.”
Margaret A McGregor Vennel, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Auckland
[1990] New Zealand Law Journal 383-384
reprinted in Latimer, P (Ed.), (1997), “Commercial Law Workbook” (2nd ed), p477

And Lord Atkin was an Apostle?

He saw that the ‘love thy neighbour’ concept of Jesus’ was not restrictive as you might have wished.

And Lord Atkin makes Catholic dogma these days?

 

[bilop]

What about married priests? Can they bequeath their wealth to theif kids?

I know of no reason why not, at least in the Catholic church.
Diocesan priests take no vow of poverty, and are not guraranteed support from their diocese. They are free to own legitimately acquired property.

I believe you are Eastern Orthodox. What is the situation with married priests and property in Orthodoxy?

 

[vern_humphrey]

Vern, your underlying assumption here needs to be questioned.

You assume that the most important thing for society is the ACCUMULATION of wealth (in this case, of new drugs) rather than its’ DISTRIBUTION.

First of all, that is not my “underlying assumption.”

Secondly, you’re taking a very simplistic outlook.

In a world with an increasing population, you must have accumulation of wealth – how else to both feed the population and provide for the next generation?

And where will the money come from to develop the next generation of wonder drugs?

Let me ask, if you have a society where drugs are available to cure 90% of conditions, but only 10% of people can afford them, and another where drugs are only available to cure 40% of conditions but 100% of people can afford them, who is better off?

And where does this society exist – other than in your imagination?

Faith has always been less about what we have and more about what we do with it.

Which is neither here nor there – new drugs are developed by science, not by faith.

If the Catholic Church had concentrated on the 5% of the wisest and most spiritual people in the world, it could probably have advanced massively in its’ theological purity. The problem is, nobody else would be able to understand it, it would be a closed book for everybody else.

If schools concentrated on teaching the 5% of the smartest kids, we could produce hundreds of geniuses, but leave behind millions of idiots in the process.

And none of this is relevant to the issue – unless you consider that somehow we can tax smart people of their bra(name removed by moderator)ower and distribute it to those who are below normal in intelligence.

What we need is to have ambitions and keep making progress, but for the right reasons, not to accumulate things for selfish gain but to spread the benefit as widely as possible.

What makes you think everyone **else **is selfish?

Have you ever heard of John Rawls’ difference principle, it’s a middle way between capitalism and socialism that says that inequalities can be justified only when they are to the benefit of the least well-off. So if allowing a pharmaceutical researcher to earn millions of dollars helps him to create a product that gives everybody cheap access to drugs, that’s fine, but just the fact that he can make more drugs for the exclusive few does not in itself justify that inequality if it makes medical care for the poor an impossibility.

Tell me where this happens. Not in the United States – look at AIDS patients. They get drugs every year that are worth more than most of them could make in a lifetime – but they get them!

 

[Jerry_Mitchner]

Very true. Perhaps I should have said “for all intent and purposes”. There is always the possibility such societies have existed (however small it may be). But with reference to modern societies, of which Marx and most of sociology is concerned, I feel I can safely say that all modern states were or are built upon a conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeois

Granted, there are frequent tensions between any groups of people, as there are between individuals and within individuals.

While these tensions are not completely unavoidable, they can be had without bitterness. One staunchly capitalist, politically very (with emphasis) conservative side of my family is full of businessmen/women who have genial, sportsmanlike relationships (even friendships) with competitors and privately give much to charities that help poor people (publically conservative, privately liberal in generosity).

I hope I reflect the church’s attitude in viewing the family as the fundamental social unit which any economic/governmental system should learn from. Is the healthy family socialist or capitalist, totalitarian or democratic in its observable dynamic? The healthy family defies categorization, yes?

A type of socialism does seem to work well in small religious communities wherein all members have direct personal knowledge of all the others, and flaws in application of the rule of life of that community can be compensated for by acts of fraternal charity. But adults must make a conscious choice to belong to these communities, whereas we are born into nations.

 

[mike182d]

Let me ask, if you have a society where drugs are available to cure 90% of conditions, but only 10% of people can afford them, and another where drugs are only available to cure 40% of conditions but 100% of people can afford them, who is better off?

The question of “who is better off” really would depend on the state of their souls. If the 90% of people who can’t afford medications are devoted to God, then they are far better off than the 10% who can afford medications.

Or at least that’s the message of Christ.

 

[Montalban]

Yes, but this expression of love cannot be mandated by a Government body.

SO when the Commandment says “Thou shalt not steal” the government should not ‘mandate’ it?

Tá Críosd ar éirigh! To do so misses the point of the command entirely. Its like the Government mandating daily prayer.

That misses the point of much of the law. Laws are supposed to represent community values and the protection of people as according to those.

So we have laws against murder, theft, abuse, slander etc all because people think that these are unacceptable.

But for some reason you believe that governments should draw a line on matters of economic justice… for reasons that the just should

Tá Críosd ar éirigh!
Christ is risen.

 

[Montalban]

If love of money is the root of all evil, why should the Government work so hard to give money to the poor? Doesn’t Christ say its better to be poor in the first place?

Giving money to the poor is not about making them rich. It’s about giving them access to basics such as good health care, education etc.

I don’t know about your nation but if you see your government taking money off you and making poor people into millionaires, I would be surprised. But anyway your argument is too cute, by far. That’s like saying that we’re all supposed to suffer in Christ therefore why not let people die of disease - because it’s up to God to intervene if he wants them to get better.

And I’m sure you’re more than happy about welfare for the rich - tax cuts, tariffs, other incentives.

You’re confusing two different principles here.

The role of Government is to maintain order by punishing those who exercise their free will in contradiction to natural and Divine law. It is *not *the role of Government to command people to love.

Not at all. The very reason we have laws is to maintain standards as set down by the community. Even in the US they wanted a system for the protection of life, liberty and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

Think of love within the context of marriage.

The Government has every right to punish an individual who acts in contradiction to their marital vows - such as having an affair or spousal abuse - but the Government cannot write into law that “all men must give their wives flowers.”

Of course they could. Whether they could enforce it or not’s another matter. But the law could be made.

Yes, giving your wife flowers is an act of love but it is not the role of Government to legislate that act of love. Furthermore, to do so misses the point of giving flowers in the first place (“Hey, honey. Here are the flowers the Government made me buy you. I love you!”)

There’s a military law that makes a soldier salute his superiors. It’s a mark of respect. Obviously there should be no legal incentive to do so because respect isn’t something the law should get involved in. Do you call your judges “Your honour”?

Tá Críosd ar éirigh!
Christ is risen.

 

[Montalban]

vern humphrey:

Passing over your misuse of the term “strawman,” I again point out that citing a small Protestant sect does not prove the Catholic Church supports socialism.

That IS a straw-man. It’s to re-work my argument and argue against that. You’ve ignored all other evidence as if this Protestant example is my sole evidence. I’ve stated the limit of the context.
vern humphrey:

Charity is not socialism.

Christian charity is. The distribution of wealth to those in need is the form of Christian charity as practiced in Acts, which you’ve still not shown how you know it was restricted to the urban community.
vern humphrey:

Now there’s an example of a strawman!

Actually that’s what you said. You said they tried this experiment and failed. You really need to look up the concept.
vern humphrey:

I said the experiment with socialism failed.

Which makes them failures. People who fail are failures. You need a dictionary too.
vern humphrey:

Do you have proof that all the Christian communities of the First Century were socialist?

I just showed evidence from Fox, et al that they practiced Christian charity.
vern humphrey:

Where does Paul (whose epistles are the earliest Catholic writings we have) tell his converts they must give all they have to the Church?

I cited his Letter to Timothy already! Sheesh!
1 Timothy 6:10
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

It’s in Acts that shows people actually doing this.

1 Corinthians 16:2
On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.

Montalban:

I did this by showing that the removal of possessions was practiced amongst Christian communities. Monks, etc.

vern humphrey:

You did no such thing – monasticism arose long after the First Century, and applies to special cases.

This is again you wishing to isolate evidence. In context of what I’ve written I’ve shown
a) biblical evidence
b) evidence from historians showing the Christian community AS A WHOLE practiced this
and
c) specific instances of Christian groups dedicated to removing themselves from materialism… e.g. monks.
vern humphrey:

He did not say “Christians brought their funds to the Church”

So what? It shows Christians providing Christian charity. Are you aware of groups at the time like St.Vincent’s de Paul doing this instead? How does that negate that the community by and large are still giving their money to those who are in need?
vern humphrey:

Charity is not socialism.

Say it three times, and it comes true!
vern humphrey:

You have confounded charity – where people give voluntarily – with Socialism, where the money is taken by force majure.

No, you’ve confused one form of socialism. As I’ve shown there were collective farms by Christians in the 1600s who were working by Christian principles and outside government. The form of administration in Acts was also non-governmental.
vern humphrey:

The difference with a socialistic government is they take your money and they decide who should get it.

There you have it. A gleaning of the understanding between socialism, as practiced by the church and socialism as practiced by governments!
vern humphrey:

And if failed. The experiment with communism was not repeated elsewhere by the Apostles nor the Apostolic fathers.

That’s ignoring evidence I cited by my two books.
vern humphrey:

And Lord Atkin was an Apostle?

And that’s a straw-man again. No where did I say that he was. Re-construct this to a rhetorical question suggesting that’s what I’m trying to say, and then argue against it.
vern humphrey:

And Lord Atkin makes Catholic dogma these days?

More straw-man, and a goal-shifting too. Catholicism is not the be-all and end-all of Christianity.
However his ruling is still influential on the common law legal system.

In short your argument is one of ignoring the evidence at large, attempting to isolate a few points in an attempt to re-work my argument and thus create a straw-man. You both want to say that they failed, but they’re not failures - having mutually exclusive claims at the same time. And you want to goal-shift continually to the modern Catholic Church - which in the long run is not representative to me of ‘the Church’ of the Apostles, anyway.

Tá Críosd ar éirigh!
Christ is risen.

 

[Montalban]

And where does this society exist – other than in your imagination?

It happens all the time. South Africa had to fight the multi-nationals so that they could make the cheaper forms of anti-ADIS drugs.

They couldn’t afford them and saught a cheaper alternative, or a cheaper drug
This was their situation for many years.
actupny.org/treatment/dashed.html

multinationalmonitor.org/mm1999/99sept/aids.html

There was simply the situation of drugs being available (per se) but not so because of restrictive pricing.

Finally they got a break…
“First, the U.S. should announce that it will terminate all bilateral pressure on South Africa, Thailand, Brazil, Argentina, India, and other countries for pursuing compulsory licensing policies, parallel imports, or any other WTO-legal policy. Instead, Washington should formally declare that it accepts the legitimacy of compulsory licensing and should immediately lift all sanctions currently in place against countries in retaliation for pursuing any intellectual property policies designed to make vital medicines more available to those in need.”
africaaction.org/docs99/aids9908.htm

 

[St_Benedict]

1. What would be opposed to the social doctrine of the Church?
   vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html

2424-2425

Opposed to the social doctrine of the Church are economic and social systems that sacrifice the basic rights of persons or that make profit their exclusive norm or ultimate end. For this reason the Church rejects the ideologies associated in modern times with Communism or with atheistic and totalitarian forms of socialism. But in the practice of capitalism the Church also rejects self centered individualism and an absolute primacy of the laws of the marketplace over human labor.

(My Bold) - i.e all forms of socialism are not rejected, totalitarian or atheistic forms are.

It’s worth noting that the form of capitalism noted with self centered individualism often is guilty of two of the four sins that cry out to heaven -
Oppression of the poor
Defrauding laborers of their wages

It’s not entirely the systems themselves as such that cause problems, you could be a capitalist factory owner who pays good wages with good conditions creating good employment, generous to charities, buying your materials from fair trade suppliers on good terms. Or you could exploit your workforce, hire and fire onshort contracts moving your way around the world to exploit taxation putting money before people at all times.

 

[levi86]

1. What would be opposed to the social doctrine of the Church?
   vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html

2424-2425

Opposed to the social doctrine of the Church are economic and social systems that sacrifice the basic rights of persons or that make profit their exclusive norm or ultimate end. For this reason the Church rejects the ideologies associated in modern times with Communism or with atheistic and totalitarian forms of socialism. But in the practice of capitalism the Church also rejects self centered individualism and an absolute primacy of the laws of the marketplace over human labor.

(My Bold) - i.e all forms of socialism are not rejected, totalitarian or atheistic forms are.

It’s worth noting that the form of capitalism noted with self centered individualism often is guilty of two of the four sins that cry out to heaven -
Oppression of the poor
Defrauding laborers of their wages

It’s not entirely the systems themselves as such that cause problems, you could be a capitalist factory owner who pays good wages with good conditions creating good employment, generous to charities, buying your materials from fair trade suppliers on good terms. Or you could exploit your workforce, hire and fire onshort contracts moving your way around the world to exploit taxation putting money before people at all times.

Well said.

 

[levi86]

1. What would be opposed to the social doctrine of the Church?
   vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html

2424-2425

Opposed to the social doctrine of the Church are economic and social systems that sacrifice the basic rights of persons or that make profit their exclusive norm or ultimate end. For this reason the Church rejects the ideologies associated in modern times with Communism or with atheistic and totalitarian forms of socialism. But in the practice of capitalism the Church also rejects self centered individualism and an absolute primacy of the laws of the marketplace over human labor.

(My Bold) - i.e all forms of socialism are not rejected, totalitarian or atheistic forms are.
.

Why didn’t anyone think to consult the Catechism before now?

This is the only section within the CCC that deals with socialism, and it certainly does not state that socialism is contrary to the faith. The wording of these paragraphs clearly allows the faithful to accept socialism as a legitimate economic model.

 

[vern_humphrey]

That misses the point of much of the law. Laws are supposed to represent community values and the protection of people as according to those.

So if the community values say Blacks are inferior to whites, it would be just to have restrooms, schools, drinking fountains, and so on reserved to whites, only?

Saint Paul said caring for the poor is our responsibility, and who fails in that responsibility is worse than an unbeliever. It is the Church, and us as individual Catholics upon whom that responsibility falls, not the government.

 

[vern_humphrey]

That misses the point of much of the law. Laws are supposed to represent community values and the protection of people as according to those.

So if the community values say Blacks are inferior to whites, it would be okay just to have restrooms, schools, drinking fountains, and so on reserved to whites, only?

Saint Paul said caring for the poor is our responsibility, and who fails in that responsibility is worse than an unbeliever. It is the Church, and us as individual Catholics upon whom that responsibility falls, not the government.