Catholic Leaders to Rep. Paul Ryan: Stop Distorting Church Teaching to Justify Immoral Budget

[pinto]

Saw this posted in GD. Tip o'the hat to babylonsister. ~ pinto

Catholic Leaders to Rep. Paul Ryan: Stop Distorting Church Teaching to Justify Immoral Budget

April 13, 2012, 10:20 am | Posted by Casey Schoeneberger

Nearly 60 prominent theologians, priests, nuns and national Catholic social justice leaders released a statement today refuting Rep. Paul Ryan’s claim that his GOP budget proposal reflects Catholic teaching on care for the poor, which he made in an interview earlier this week with the Christian Broadcasting Network. The group of Catholic leaders — including a former high-ranking U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops official, a priest in Rep. Ryan’s district and the leadership team of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas — called on Ryan to “reconsider his radical budget proposal and refrain from distorting Church teaching.”

“If Rep. Ryan thinks a budget that takes food and healthcare away from millions of vulnerable people upholds Catholic values, then he also probably believes Jesus was a Tea Partier who lectured the poor to stop being so lazy and work harder,” said John Gehring, Catholic Outreach Coordinator at Faith in Public Life. “This budget turns centuries of Catholic social teaching on its head. These Catholic leaders and many Catholics in the pews are tired of faith being misused to bless an immoral agenda.”

The leaders wrote: “Simply put, this budget is morally indefensible and betrays Catholic principles of solidarity, just taxation and a commitment to the common good. A budget that turns its back on the hungry, the elderly and the sick while giving more tax breaks to the wealthiest few can’t be justified in Christian terms.”

Robert Greenstein, President of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, released an analysis last month that found the Ryan budget would “likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history and likely increase poverty and inequality more than any other budget in recent times (and possibly in the nation’s history).” Mr. Greenstein described the budget proposal as making “extraordinary cuts in programs that serve as a lifeline for our nation’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens.”

http://www.faithinpubliclife.org/newsroom/press/catholic-leaders-to-rep-paul-ryan-stop-distorting-church-teaching-to-justify-immoral-budget/

(ed to include GD thread link)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002563519

[cbayer]

1. Good for them

[skepticscott]

2. Nice, except that the headline is bogus

These are not "leaders" of the Catholic church in any way that really matters. The pope, cardinals and bishops are the leaders. What priests, theologians and nuns say has nothing whatsoever to do with church doctrine or policy. When these people can get Ratzi and some of the big city US cardinals to proclaim this message as vociferously as they condemn contraception, abortion, homosexuality and gay marriage, then we might be getting somewhere.

[pinto]

4. Yep, see your point. Yet these 60 took a lead on this one. Sometimes, church hierarchy and local

church activism are different entities, in effect.

[longship]

3. This is what religion, at its best, can do

Don't we all wish this was the way all Christians saw it.

Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.

Steven Weinberg, 1999

[pinto]

5. Human dignity -

[skepticscott]

6. Sorry, but Mother Teresa is not the poster child

for human dignity. You can do better.

[pinto]

7. She was the first image of human dignity in a religious context that came to mind.

So I contributed the pic.

I'd think of Gandhi as one. What are other examples ?

[ashling]

8. The Moral Measure of the Economy

The Moral Measure of the Economy

Orbis Books, May 30, 2007 - 222 pages
In this clear and penetrating book, Chuck Collins and Mary Wright draw on principles of Catholic Social Teaching to evaluate our economy and lay out practical steps toward establishing an economy "as if people mattered."