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EducateWorthington.org

The 912 Project - Glenn Beck

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[The article below appeared at Townhall.com today, written by Star Parker. It caught my eye because of its focus on the papal encyclical letter "Centesimus Annus". Good article with a few interesting excerpts from the encyclical. I tried to find the thread where I mentioned this before, but was unable to. I would heartily recommend a reading of the encyclical by everyone living in the United States, regardless of their religious affiliation. If you'd care to after reading Ms. Parker's article, you can find it at:]

The article below appeared at Townhall.com today, written by Star Parker.  It caught my eye because of its focus on the papal encyclical letter "Centesimus Annus".  Good article with a few interesting excerpts from the encyclical.  I tried to find the thread where I mentioned this before, but was unable to.  I would heartily recommend a reading of the encyclical by everyone living in the United States, regardless of their religious affiliation.  If you'd care to after reading Ms. Parker's article, you can find it at:

Centesimus Annus
 
A papal message on socialism[/size]

Star Parker
April 12, 2005

In 1991, Pope John Paul II issued an encyclical called "Centesimus Annus." It is a sweeping and fascinating discussion about socialism, capitalism, the welfare state and the nature of free society.  

The encyclical is a deeply thoughtful and courageous document and it is something every American, of every religious persuasion, should consider taking a few hours to read and think about. It touches in the most serious way the major issues about individual freedom and the role of government with which we Americans struggle every day.

It's hard to read this document without concluding that we cannot compartmentalize and separate how we think about government from the way we relate to the rest of our lives. There is a clear message that the abuse and misuse of politics and government is itself a moral problem.

This is relevant to all Americans. But at this moment I'm thinking about African-Americans.

If intensity measures religiosity, then African-Americans are the most religious of all Americans. A survey done by the Pew Center a number of years ago showed blacks responding at higher rates than whites that religion plays a "very important" role in their lives. Yet churchgoing blacks continue to overwhelmingly support welfare-state politics and politicians.

I believe African-Americans mistakenly, and destructively, disconnect the way we express our religious convictions on Sunday and what we do in the voting booth on Tuesday. In church we express our conviction that our lives reflect and are the result of our faith, our choices and our responsibilities. Yet, we then buy a political message that government is the place to turn to solve our problems.

Here is what John Paul II had to say about the welfare state:

"In recent years the range of such interventions has vastly expanded to the point of creating a new type of state, the so-called "welfare state"... Malfunctions and defects in the social-assistance state are the result of an inadequate understanding of the task proper to the state."

He added:

"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."

The welfare state is, of course, our limited version of socialism. Here are John Paul's observations about socialism:

"Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socioeconomic mechanism. Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises in the face of good and evil."

John Paul was a unique combination of personality and experience. This Polish pope lived through the worst abuses of government in the last century - Nazism and communism. He saw firsthand the human suffering that resulted from government and politics becoming religion itself.

This encyclical, however, does not point to excessive government and politics as the exclusive source of evil.

"The individual today is often suffocated between two poles represented by the state and the marketplace. At times it seems as though he exists only as a producer and consumer of goods, or as an object of state administration."

The images of rap music that offend us so are the product of kids digesting a message, delivered by our popular culture, of a materialistic society devoid of meaning. If our ultimate values are acquisition and power, then it doesn't matter how we behave or how we acquire these things. Dealing drugs is as reasonable a means to this end as getting an MBA.

"People lose sight of the fact that life in society has neither the market nor the state as its final purpose, since life itself has a unique value which the state and the market must serve. Man remains above all a being who seeks truth and strives to live in that truth, deepening his understanding of it through a dialogue which involves past and future generations."

Link to full article:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/StarPar...p20050412.shtml



 

An encyclical by Pope Leo XIII (one of my favorite Popes) called “Rerum Novarum” addressing the evils of Socialism.

(Compare this to the crap that passes for religious leadership these days.)

Excerpts: (2 of many; look it up)
4. 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. 

5. It is surely undeniable that, when a man engages in remunerative labor, the impelling reason and motive of his work is to obtain property, and thereafter to hold it as his very own. 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. 

Counter,
The moral argument behind the Church's brief against Socialism is that ultimately the Governemt replaces God as the center of devotion.  Instead of "My God will supply all my needs according to His riches and Glory.." becomes "FDR, LBJ, Obama will supply.."

On the Protestant side, there is a chain from Luther and Calvin through Adam Smith for the moral imperative of the Free Market.  What or Who is Smith's "Invisible Hand?"  Just some random thoughts on this.

I'm not sure if it is as much about idolatry of government as it is enslavement. 

I watched a good segment last night on EWTN regarding Pope Benedict's encyclical "Charity and Truth".  The Church recognizes Socialism and an evil (see below) as government is misused.  In doing so, rather than the government working for us on a limited level where prudent, Socialism grows the government and we must work to sustain the beast. (enslavement).

The same applies to unbridled Capitalism.  We can't expect the market to solve every problem in society.  The Church's view on Subsidiarity is rooted in the actions and talents of every individual, not a public or private system.  The Church recognizes the evils of both Socialism and unbridled Capitalism and places the responsibility on the individual to solve problems for themselves.  If this is not possible, you look to the family, then community all the way up, dependent upon the issue at hand.  If we abdicate our individual responsibilities and look to central government to solve all problems, we are only breeding tyranny.

Cathechism of the Catholic Church

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. 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." 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.

The Shadow finds the "selective" readings of Centesimus Annus and "Caritates in Veritate" most interesting and in character. It is tempting to buttress one's arguments by selecting "evidence" that justifies one's opinions neglecting that which either denies or simply muddies the certainty one would wish be true.

 Here is an excerpt omitted in previous postings: (Section 15 of "Centesimus Annus") Emphasis added

"Finally, "humane" working hours and adequate free-time need to be guaranteed, as well as the right to express one's own personality at the work-place without suffering any affront to one's conscience or personal dignity. This is the place to mention once more the role of trade unions, not only in negotiating contracts, but also as "places" where workers can express themselves. They serve the development of an authentic culture of work and help workers to share in a fully human way in the life of their place of employment"

"The State must contribute to the achievement of these goals both directly and indirectly. Indirectly and according to the principle of subsidiarity, by creating favourable conditions for the free exercise of economic activity, which will lead to abundant opportunities for employment and sources of wealth. Directly and according to the principle of solidarity, by defending the weakest, by placing certain limits on the autonomy of the parties who determine working conditions, and by ensuring in every case the necessary minimum support for the unemployed worker.45"

Finally "Charity and Truth" has been mentioned.  Section 7 of that encyclical is in the opinion of The Shadow very pertinent to the current situation.  The current discussion on health care falls within this section.  (Emphasis has been added to a a particular comment)

"7. Another important consideration is the common good. To love someone is to desire that person's good and to take effective steps to secure it. Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good. It is the good of “all of us”, made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society[4]. It is a good that is sought not for its own sake, but for the people who belong to the social community and who can only really and effectively pursue their good within it. To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity. To take a stand for the common good is on the one hand to be solicitous for, and on the other hand to avail oneself of, that complex of institutions that give structure to the life of society, juridically, civilly, politically and culturally, making it the pólis, or “city”. The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbours, the more effectively we love them. Every Christian is called to practise this charity, in a manner corresponding to his vocation and according to the degree of influence he wields in the pólis. This is the institutional path — we might also call it the political path — of charity, no less excellent and effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbour directly, outside the institutional mediation of the pólis. When animated by charity, commitment to the common good has greater worth than a merely secular and political stand would have. Like all commitment to justice, it has a place within the testimony of divine charity that paves the way for eternity through temporal action. Man's earthly activity, when inspired and sustained by charity, contributes to the building of the universal city of God, which is the goal of the history of the human family. In an increasingly globalized society, the common good and the effort to obtain it cannot fail to assume the dimensions of the whole human family, that is to say, the community of peoples and nations[5], in such a way as to shape the earthly city in unity and peace, rendering it to some degree an anticipation and a prefiguration of the undivided city of God."

The Shadow