The American left is so predictable. Whatever ignominy is visited upon one of their heroes, they will be sure to do the same to someone on the right, justified or not. The right tried to delegitimize Bill Clinton, so the left delegitimized Bush. The right talked about “cleaning up the mess” left by Clinton, so Obama parrots the line to hooting crowds of hopium smokers.
The latest tit-for-tat is an attack on John Boehner by Catholic university professors. It is a return volley against those who protested Notre Dame conferring an honorary degree on pro-abortion Barack Obama.
The false equivalency cooked up by these snooty statists is to attack Boehner for voting against an ever burgeoning welfare state. The academic left has always been in open contempt of conservatism, but the latest strategy is to cloak their attacks in religious terms. Unfortunately for these aggressors, Christ left no instructions to governments.
There is no moral equivalency between supporting abortion and cutting government spending
The Catholic Church teaches as dogma that abortion and homosexual acts are evil. It has no similar iron laws concerning how to run a national government. Father Sirico, a Catholic priest, explains is better than I can…
To jump so seamlessly from the Magisterium’s insistence on the fundamental and non-negotiable moral obligation to the poor to the specifics of contingent, prudential, and political legislation is wholly unjustified in Catholic social teaching. (Fr Sirico – NRO)He goes on to give a detailed Catholic rebuttal to this uninformed criticism. This is one of my favorite quotes:
And then there is that passage in Pope Benedict’s most recent social encyclical Caritas in Veritate: “The Church does not have technical solutions to offer.”He also cites the role of Subsidiarity in Catholic social teaching, which these progressive professors must not be aware of:
The social teaching of the Church is based on the human person as the principle, subject and object of every social organization. Subsidiarity is one of the core principles of this teaching. This principle holds that human affairs are best handled at the lowest possible level, closest to the affected persons. (Catholic Culture – Subsidiarity)
This passage from the Catholic Catechism sounds dangerously libertarian...
Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative. (Catholic Catechism)What escapes these statist professors is the notion that perhaps, just maybe, Speaker Boehner and other like-minded legislators hope to break the government shackles that have enslaved successive generations. Perhaps small government advocates hope to diminish the clanking, soulless bureaucratic beast and return the usurped power to individuals. Which is more empowering to the impoverished, a food stamp or a job and a bank account?
These pontificating professors need to go back and do their homework. Short of that, reading this George Will column will put it all in historical context: History Lessons for Obama and Other Liberals
