House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) argued two weeks ago that his right-wing budget agenda was inspired by his Roman Catholic faith. In retrospect, that probably wasn't the best idea he's ever had.
Last week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Ryan's plan fails to meet certain "moral criteria" by disproportionately cutting programs that "serve poor and vulnerable people." They added the cuts are "unjustified and wrong."
This week, faculty members at one of the nation's most notable Catholic colleges entered the fray.
The latest criticism comes in a letter released Tuesday and signed by nearly 90 faculty members and priests at Georgetown, the Jesuit university in Washington, in advance of Mr. Ryan's visit there on Thursday. Mr. Ryan is to deliver the prestigious Whittington Lecture, named for an associate dean who was killed on the airplane that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
The letter says, "We would be remiss in our duty to you and our students if we did not challenge your continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan that decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick, and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest few."
"Your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ," says the letter, which the faculty members sent to Mr. Ryan along with a copy of the Vatican's Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church -- "to help deepen your understanding of Catholic social teaching."
Ouch.
To reiterate a point from last week, there's a compelling case to be made that conflicts between politicians and their church is a private matter, but given the larger context, there's nevertheless some real political salience to these developments.
Just at a surface level, it's politically problematic for Republicans, who generally claim the high ground on matters of religion and righteousness, to have prominent Catholics criticizing Ryan for trying to punish poor families during difficult economic times.
But we can go further. Remember, for example, that Republicans just spent weeks arguing that those who disagree with the bishops and prominent Catholic voices on contraception are guilty of waging a war on faith. It now appears that it's Paul Ryan with a religion "problem."
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Unfortunately Mr. Ryan has a higher power to answer too
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And its last name is KOCH
According to Ryan's bio, he has NEVER held a job outside of government- either working for pols, or being one himself. That government tit fits the lips tightly, eh, Paulie?
Damn... That letter hurt my feelings...
Ryan's idea of tough love is putting his boot on the neck of middle and working class Americans, so we know our place is on the ground before the corporate overlords for which Ryan protitutes himself!
Our Catholic leaders seem to be catching on! -Kevo
Wouldn't it be nice for that small-brained sap to be booed and run off the stage at Georgetown?
-from your lips to God's ears. (Does "Divine Intervention" still work?)
For sure. Come on, Georgetown, we're counting on you to have a demonstration that mirrors OWS... let the games begin!
No kidding, "Ouch"
Wonder what Ryan will do, now.
The Generals don't like him presuming to believe the Generals don't know how to budget the military correctly, and the Catholic Church just stepped on his um... reproductive appendage.
He's been faced with Catholic criticism from the social-justice angle before. He was dismissive then and I don't imagine he will have a different reaction now.
The Monster Paul Ryan will run to his Masters in the Family Rights Movement. They will declare the Catholics are just liberals and will tell their pet Paul Ryan to ignore liberals.
In 2012, Wisconsin, vote the Monster Paul Ryan and Fuhrer Scott Walker out of office!!!
and thats my opinion.
Hey Mr. Ryan, in what book of the Bible does Jesus teach the merits of a corporatocracy?
The GOP has been trying to unravel the New Deal since its inception (actually they tried to strangle it in the cradle) and that is the context for the Ryan budget. Bush exploded spending and cut revenues creating a fiscal "crisis". So, along comes Ryan and the given for him is to cut taxes (revenue) even further to make the gap wider and since the gap is sooo big, now we need big cuts to close it. There's a limit to big things and the most obvious ones are not things the GOP are willing to touch. All that is left is right wing social engineering to kill (reform out of existence) the programs John Galt hated. Ryan, a true believer, never caught on the Rand was novleist and not a philosopher.
So according to Ryan the Pentagon doesn't know what they are talking about when they talk about military budget, and now the Catholic Bishops don't know what they are talking about when they said his "Roman Catholic inspired" budget does not at all reflect the values of the Roman Catholic teaching?
Can we say somebody has God complex?
Great to see the Georgetown faculty join the Catholic bishops in confronting Ryan. The only thing missing from their comments was: "favorite (ATHEIST) philosopher." How many conservatives would still support his budget?
"that probably wasn't the best idea he's ever had."
Given some of his ideas, I wonder if maybe it isn't one of his better ideas. He certainly has had a bunch of worse ones, much worse.
So does the Ryan/Republican war on God trump the purported Dem war on religion? Is there any Dem smart enough to glom on to this idea? Inquiring minds want to know.
Gee, when even the priests and bishops are giving you a smack down you'd think he'd re-think that whole "informed by my faith" reasoning. Then again he's a GOP'er and they don't think farther than their bank accounts!
Na, na, na, na, na - the Catholic Church 1, Paul Ryan still zero!
Hey Paulie, you remember that story about a rich man and a camel passing through the eye of a needle - guess which one you are?
A "Mainstream Christian" is the person defining it and those who think like him or her. A "non-mainstream Christian" is everyone else.
The faculty at Georgetown best be careful...they'll be getting a smackdown from the Pope, too.
Comment With-drawn serves no purpose
As most people who are actively religious believe, I believe that my duty to God is a personal affair. It does me no good from an eternal perspective to live in a country that takes resources by force from one group and redistributes them to another group that doesn't necessarily need them. Government programs are fraught with waste and fraud. They are inefficient. They incentivize people to make up claims to be disabled and stay on the program rather than get a real job and work for themselves. Whatever good intentions they might have had at start, they don't fulfill them well.
Private charity is much more effective. Some people need help, some need a kick in the backside to get back to work and stop slacking off. You do the latter no favors at all, either in the temporal or eternal scheme of things, by just giving them money to further sink themselves with. Charity is a private issue, as well it should be. Government charity is not effective and is more of a curse than a blessing on most of the recipients.
As a side note, I find it hilarious how many people here would normally say "Keep religion out of politics" suddenly finding themselves supporting religion in politics. I wonder to what degree that will carry over to other issues. It's also interesting to note that people who believe in private charity are more generous in giving their own resources to help others than people who believe the state should run that.
Cons Prin, since it is your duty to have your relationship to your diety remain personal why do you inject your hate-filled and simply untrue comments here? Maybe you should tell god about those worthless poor people who have not the resources to properly feed themselves and their families. The ones in the US Military who need food stamps to help with basic nutritional needs, you know? Or maybe you mean the ones getting unemployment because one of your dreamboat corporate thugs moved the only jobs in their community to South or Southeast Asia leaving them with no hope but to get reeducated by the government you so hate? Sickness like yours pervades our society, making a complete mockery of the concept of social justice.
If only the poor and downtrodden were gay, then Paul and the church can be in lock step again
Wouldn't that be a kick in the teeth? The Catholic Church is so reactionary on matters relating to gender and sexuality, but so progressive on economic matters, it's hard not to get whiplash trying to keep it all in view. I don't wonder that reactionaries like Paul Ryan try to smooth out the discrepancies and try to make Catholic teachings consistently reactionary (and, conversely, that progressive Catholics try to make it all go the other way).
On the Protestant side, there's a movement among United Methodists to formally modify their denomination's prayer book to embrace LGBT equality. It's not out of the question. Other mainline denominations such as the United Church of Christ (to which Obama's Chicago church belongs), Evangelical Lutherans (don't let the e-word throw you), and Episcopalians. There are others, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I suspect it'll be a long, long time before the Roman Catholic church gets in sync.
Here's some good news:
http://www.gaychurch.org/find_a_church/find_a_church.htm
I wasn't aware of that site. Thanks. I wish I had it before now when dealing with idiots who think the best way to advance the cause of equal rights is to ban all religion. Even some professed leftists aren't able to cope with a diverse world.
If we really want to reign in government spending, which is what the Ryan budget attempts to do, then removing special interest tax breaks is an important first step.
As Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center points out, tax breaks fail the duck test, “If it looks like spending and quacks like spending, it is spending– even it resides in the Internal Revenue Code.” http://bit.ly/GVrWuY