Tim Huelskamp, the Republican Representative from Fowler, KS is once again in the news. This time, Tim Huelskamp would like to remind the Catholic Church what the Catholic Church is supposed to be about.
http://www.hutchnews.com/...
Huelskamp, a Catholic and former seminarian, said he hoped the pontiff “’focuses on issues [where] he can make a difference – the non-negotiables,’” Huelskamp said, such as abortion and same-sex marriage.
“‘How do you deal with a poverty problem? There’s not a Catholic [fix], contrary to the arguments of certain economists that work at the Vatican,” Huelskamp said, referring to the pope’s views on economics. “But there’s a Catholic view on life, on marriage, on the rights of parents and education. So I hope he sticks to this,’” Huelskamp was quoted in the story.
Huelskamp's doctrinal advice to the church - that they stay solely focused on abortion and same-sex marriage as opposed to talking about Climate and Economics comes as news to many who went through Catechism as a children, who were often taught that care and feeding of the needy were, in fact, significant Catholic issues.
Thomas Aquinas, who is quoted in the Catholic Encyclopedia as the reference point for all young learners in the faith, makes this point clear:
..a capital vice is that which has an exceedingly desirable end so that in his desire for it a man goes on to the commission of many sins all of which are said to originate in that vice as their chief source.
Vice, or greed, as Aquinas would frequently note is a root of many sins, and because of it the Church has a fundamental duty to help take care of the poor.
Whether you agree or disagree with the Catholic handling of the matter, numerous Catholic figures of the last few hundred years have put as their first work to treat issues of poverty - whether it be Mother Theresa or the current Pontiff.
Tim Huelskamp, who dropped out of seminary at one point in his life, seems to know something all of them don't know - that the Catholic plan for poverty is apparently not real and should be forgotten.
Pope Francis, however, seemed to have forseen Huelskamp's attack more than a year in advance:
http://www.theguardian.com/...
Pope Francis has hit out at the "excessive centralisation" of the Catholic church and railed against what he described as a murderous "economy of exclusion and inequality" in a wide-ranging document likened by one Vatican observer to a "Magna Carta for church reform".
Criticising everything from defeatist Christian "sourpusses" to believers with "an ostentatious preoccupation" for doctrine and the church's prestige, the Argentinian pontiff presented a sweeping vision of the change he wants to introduce.
please note: the above is a direct quote and I believe spellings are in tune with UK, not US
It is uncertain if Rep. Huelskamp's plea for the church to change their doctrinal strategy will be listened to at all in Vatican City. I asked a Catholic Priest this question, and received only this reply:
Matthew 35-40
35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
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