CPAC...Round them up and Send them to Camp Gitmo

[GernBlansten]

Travel is not restricted to the rich or elite. The military frequently are stationed in foriegn lands. My sister, who couldn't rub two nickels together, has travel the world as a Christian missionary.

[TheScout]

I wrote about the President of Brazil in the context that he had the audacity to condemn the actions of the Archbishop. I poor example for a leader of a mostly Catholic country.

 

Of course there is nothing wrong with trying to do your best. But I know many people who are very educated without having traveled widely or been to college.

 

An elitest is one who thinks they are better than others. I do not think that is a good trait.

[Beavah]

Stick to the Church. It makes hard moral decisions a lot easier...Though perhaps you could say socialism was immoral. Income redistribution does not necesarily strike me as moral.

 

 

Yah, it's fun havin' just a surface knowledge and bein' judgmental.

 

TheScout, the ethics of your church embrace the value of personal poverty more than almost any other in the world. "Go, sell all that you have and give it to the poor, then come follow me." That was Christ's admonition to the rich man. Income redistribution as a requirement for being his follower. It is at least taken seriously by many of your Catholic clergy, eh? Catholic religious orders take vows of poverty - holdin' no personal propery whatsoever, eh? Evangelical vows, you call them. Celebrated moral values. Pure, unadulterated COMMUNISM, let alone socialism.

 

If anything, as close as I can tell as an observer, with da exception of a small cadre of corrupt bankin' officials and bishops which is typical of any organization that size, your church is one of da strongest worldwide advocates of socialism on the planet, from a moral perspective. Yah, and one of da strongest critics of the immorality of unregulated capitalism.

 

You one of those "cafeteria Catholics" who just picks and chooses what agrees with you when you want to feel self-righteous?

 

Beavah

 

[BrentAllen]

Beavah,

Voluntarily giving up your wealth and giving it to the poor on your own free will is very different from having the government take it from you and redistribute it. I sure wouldn't call the former socialism. Big difference. When I give to charity, I can decide where it goes. I don't have to give it to programs that are against my beliefs. When the government takes it, I have no say in where it goes.

[TheScout]

Catholic social teaching has always come out strongly against socialism in all its forms. The very recent encyclical Centesimus annus by Pope John Paul II makes this very clear which says in part (Revrum Novarum was Pius XII's 1891 encyclical on social justice:

 

"The commemoration of Rerum novarum would be incomplete unless reference were also made to the situation of the world today. The document lends itself to such a reference, because the historical picture and the prognosis which it suggests have proved to be surprisingly accurate in the light of what has happened since then.

 

This is especially confirmed by the events which took place near the end of 1989 and at the beginning of 1990. These events, and the radical transformations which followed, can only be explained by the preceding situations which, to a certain extent, crystallized or institutionalized Leo XIII's predictions and the increasingly disturbing signs noted by his Successors. Pope Leo foresaw the negative consequences political, social and economic of the social order proposed by "socialism", which at that time was still only a social philosophy and not yet a fully structured movement. It may seem surprising that "socialism" appeared at the beginning of the Pope's critique of solutions to the "question of the working class" at a time when "socialism" was not yet in the form of a strong and powerful State, with all the resources which that implies, as was later to happen. However, he correctly judged the danger posed to the masses by the attractive presentation of this simple and radical solution to the "question of the working class" of the time all the more so when one considers the terrible situation of injustice in which the working classes of the recently industrialized nations found themselves.

 

Two things must be emphasized here: first, the great clarity in perceiving, in all its harshness, the actual condition of the working class men, women and children; secondly, equal clarity in recognizing the evil of a solution which, by appearing to reverse the positions of the poor and the rich, was in reality detrimental to the very people whom it was meant to help. The remedy would prove worse than the sickness. By defining the nature of the socialism of his day as the suppression of private property, Leo XIII arrived at the crux of the problem.

 

His words deserve to be re-read attentively: "To remedy these wrongs (the unjust distribution of wealth and the poverty of the workers), the Socialists encourage the poor man's envy of the rich and strive to do away with private property, contending that individual possessions should become the common property of all...; 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".39 The evils caused by the setting up of this type of socialism as a State system what would later be called "Real Socialism" could not be better expressed.

 

13. Continuing our reflections, and referring also to what has been said in the Encyclicals Laborem exercens and Sollicitudo rei socialis, we have to add that the fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. 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 socio-economic 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 or evil. Man is thus reduced to a series of social relationships, and the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decision disappears, the very subject whose decisions build the social order. From this mistaken conception of the person there arise both a distortion of law, which defines the sphere of the exercise of freedom, and an opposition to private property. A person who is deprived of something he can call "his own", and of the possibility of earning a living through his own initiative, comes to depend on the social machine and on those who control it. This makes it much more difficult for him to recognize his dignity as a person, and hinders progress towards the building up of an authentic human community.

 

In contrast, from the Christian vision of the human person there necessarily follows a correct picture of society. According to Rerum novarum and the whole social doctrine of the Church, the social nature of man is not completely fulfilled in the State, but is realized in various intermediary groups, beginning with the family and including economic, social, political and cultural groups which stem from human nature itself and have their own autonomy, always with a view to the common good. This is what I have called the "subjectivity" of society which, together with the subjectivity of the individual, was cancelled out by "Real Socialism"."

 

It doesn't seem like you understand the Catholic Church very much and at that rate shouldn't call one a cafeteria Catholic. I don't mind what you people say most of the time but I take offense to that.

 

[OldGreyEagle]

Beavah is correct in his statements on the Catholic Church, especially the very early church. The behavior of the early Christians (thery were all one church, no reformation as yet) truly lived a Socialistic Communistic life style. All would pool their wealth and each woudl get what they needed.

 

There was a slight difference, from what I can tell. Those who received most, put out all their efforts to become a supplier, to become one of those who could be counted on to have a surplus to add to the community. Children who grew up as the dependents of the society yearned for the day that they would become contributing members of the church, to help others as they had been helped. Perhaps it is with a jaundiced view of the world I hold, but I do not see the same general spirit now. It is what can I get and get and get, not now that you helped me, let me help someone else. It was the model of the latter that we need to emulate, if this is the path we take

[TheScout]

Except the Popes have consistently condemned socialism for over 100 years. Ever since the Church began talking about the doctrine.

[GernBlansten]

Seems like they are revisionists.

[TheScout]

Since the modern ideas of Catholic social teaching were collected in the late 19th Century the Church has had a similar position on socialism.

 

I do not like to call the Successor to St. Peter as the head of Christ's Church on Earth a revisionist.

[GernBlansten]

But nonetheless, they have revised their position recently, hence the term revisionist.

[TheScout]

Ever since modern socialism has existed it was been criticized by the Church.

[BadenP]

Scout

 

As one who has studied the encyclicals of the popes going all the way back to the middle ages I can tell you that what the Church teaches about sharing your wealth with the less fortunate is more than cursory donations to a charity, rather it was to embrace your fellow man as your equal and share ALL that you have so you are all one and equal strong community of faith.

 

That idea started with Jesus and has carried down through the centuries by the popes, in our capitalistic system this idea would be considered socialism, and some would even say communistic in nature. Pope JPII also believed strongly that well to do nations and individuals had a moral obligation to share much more of their wealth with those less fortunate since we are all considered "one body in Christ". What the popes criticized through history were those countries who considered themselves to be socialistic or capitialistic and yet still allowed many of their own people and those in third world countries to starve and live in poverty.

 

The Church has a long record of actively admonishing our own country as well as those of Europe and Asia who have not lived up to the ideal set by Jesus, rightly or wrongly.

[TheScout]

Then how do you explain John Paul II's Centesimus annus?

 

The Church has always stood against modern socialism.

[Beavah]

Yah, I reckon if yeh read a little further you'll discover that John Paul II, while a critic of da Marxist communism he grew up in was an equally vociferous critic of laissez-faire capitalism.

 

The Church's social doctrine adopts a critical attitude towards both liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism. - Sollicitudo Rei Socialis

 

Yeh left that part out, eh? In fact, yeh mis-translated as "socialism" when the original documents were referrin' more to the state-run communists of Stalin and such, eh?

 

Yeh also left out da rest of Leo XIII's words:

 

The dignity of workers also requires adequate health care, security for old age or disability, unemployment compensation, healthful working conditions, weekly rest, periodic holidays for recreation and leisure, and reasonable security against arbitrary dismissal.

 

Now go back and read those same documents yeh mention and look for what John Paul II calls a "preferential love and option for the poor" a phrase coined by Latin American liberation theologians, eh? And of course later refined and adopted by Vatican II. My once-a-month Jesuit attorney lunch colleague says it appears in almost every one of his encyclicals.

 

The preferential option for the poor is, the Pope said in Sollicitudo , a special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity, to which the whole tradition of the church bears witness. It affects the life of each Christian inasmuch as he or she seeks to imitate the life of Christ, but it applies equally to our social responsibilities and hence to our manner of living, and to the logical decisions to be made concerning the ownership and use of goods .

 

Private property, in fact, is under a "social mortgage," which means that it has an intrinsically social function, based upon and justified precisely by the principle of the universal destination of goods .

 

Yah, and then we have your American bishops, who I think wrote one of da most interestin' pastoral letters on da role of Christians in economic life I've ever read:

 

These duties call not only for individual charitable giving but also for a more systematic approach by businesses, labor unions and the many other groups that shape economic life - as well as government... Government should assume a positive role in generating employment and establishing fair labor practices, in guaranteeing the provision and maintenance of the economy's infrastructure. It should regulate trade and commerce in the interest of fairness. Government may levy the taxes necessary to meet these responsibilities, and citizens have a moral obligation to pay those taxes. A system of taxation based on assessment according to ability to pay is a prime necessity for the fulfillment of these social obligations.

 

You're part of a very rich, very thoughtful Christian tradition on economic equality and social justice, eh? While I don't share your beliefs and disagree with their perspective in a number of ways (I'm more fond of BrentAllen's notion myself), I think yeh should honor your own tradition enough to understand it more deeply and prayerfully. In many ways I think that's our role in Scouting, eh? Not to tell the lads what they should believe, but to push 'em to explore and test and learn more deeply about their own belief and understanding of God.

 

I do however withdraw my jibe about bein' a cafeteria Catholic, with my apologies. It was meant in cajoling humor. Never explain as willfulness that which can be explained by lack of understandin'.

 

Beavah

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[TheScout]

You correctly point out that the Church has not been a big fan of capitalism either.

 

They have preached a 3rd way - distributism which to me is like capitalism light. Simply put it wants private property to be more widely owned than our system so everyone could work for themselves.

 

To me the Church has been more against socialism than capitalism though. Just looking at works through history there have been more vicious condemnations of it. Just look at the letter by John Paul II I cited. I have never seen such a condemnation of capitalism. Perhaps just an exhortation for it to do better.

 

I think you overstress the Marxist communist element of the condemnation. Especially in the late 19th century the Church came very much against socialism itself.