Cross-posted from Bold Faith Type
By John Gehring
Rep. Paul Ryan's
Catholic problem isn't going away.
In a pointed letter today, nearly 90 Georgetown University faculty have called him to task for his continued misuse of Catholic social teaching in defending a GOP budget that is increasingly under fire from Catholic bishops, theologians and social justice leaders.
The letter comes just two days before Ryan visits the Catholic campus in Washington to deliver the Whittington Lecture. The signers -- including over a dozen Georgetown Jesuit priests and professors of theology, history and government -- do not object to Ryan speaking on campus, but offer a stinging critique of his distortion of Catholic values.
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. As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has wisely noted in several letters to Congress -- "a just framework for future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons." Catholic bishops recently wrote that "the House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral criteria." In short, your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Senior Fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University who spearheaded the letter along with other Georgetown faculty, said: "Survival of the fittest may be okay for Social Darwinists but not for followers of the gospel of compassion and love."
The Georgetown scholars will also be mailing Ryan some early summer reading â a copy of the Vatican's Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, commissioned by the late Pope John Paul II, so he can brush up on his Church teaching.
Ryan has frequently defended his budget in explicitly Catholic terms and cites the principle of subsidiarity as justification. The letter challenges that political spin as inconsistent with the Catholic social tradition.
While you often appeal to Catholic teaching on "subsidiarity" as a rationale for gutting government programs, you are profoundly misreading Church teaching. Subsidiarity is not a free pass to dismantle government programs and abandon the poor to their own devices. This often misused Catholic principle cuts both ways. It calls for solutions to be enacted as close to the level of local communities as possible. But it also demands that higher levels of government provide help -- "subsidium"-- when communities and local governments face problems beyond their means to address such as economic crises, high unemployment, endemic poverty and hunger. According to Pope Benedict XVI: "Subsidiarity must remain closely linked to the principle of solidarity and vice versa.â Along with this letter, we have included a copy of the Vatican's Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, commissioned by John Paul II, to help deepen your understanding of Catholic social teaching.
The Georgetown pushback comes on the heels of a recent
letter to Ryan from prominent theologians, priests, nuns and social justice groups. That 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."
Catholic bishops have also sent a flurry of letters to House committee chairman protesting cuts to food stamps and other programs that protect the most vulnerable. Bishops have consistently urged Congress to pass a budget that protects the poor and said the GOP budget proposal "fails to meet these moral criteria."
You have to wonder how long it will take Ryan and other conservative Catholics like House Speaker John Boehner to get the memo. A budget that takes food away from hungry children and asks the most vulnerable to sacrifice even more so that the wealthiest few can have tax breaks they don't need isn't courageous. It's immoral and irresponsible.
The full letter to Rep. Paul Ryan with signatories can be found here.