Rerum Nauseum

I noted with interest last week Paul Ryan's insistence that his proposed federal budget, which cuts funding for the poor down to near zero, is  actually is a testament to his Catholic faith.  The Wisconsin Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee says that his budget reflects his values as a Catholic because it frees the  lower classes from the dependency of government and incentivized them to work hard and do good.  "We put our faith in people, not government," he said.

This has to be the most Orwellian statement ever made about the position of the Roman Catholic Church.  The Church has never been against slighting the poor or the working classes.  For the past century and change, the Vatican has consistently re-affirmed Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which calls for the recognition of the dignity of workers and an obligation for governments to lend comfort to the poor.  "As for those who possess not the gifts of fortune, they are taught by the Church that in God's sight poverty is no disgrace, and that there is nothing to be ashamed of in earning their bread by labor," Leo wrote.  "The richer class have many ways of shielding themselves, and stand less in need of help from the State; whereas the mass of the poor have no resources of their own to fall back upon, and must chiefly depend upon the assistance of the State. And it is for this reason that wage-earners, since they mostly belong in the mass of the needy, should be specially cared for and protected by the government."

Small wonder, then, that when Ryan gave this speech at Georgetown University, a distinguished Catholic institution, last week, several students and faculty protested it and complained that it contradicted church teachings.  The U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops has also come out against the Ryan plan.

But wait! Just last week, the Vatican complained that nuns are spending way too much time on helping the poor and not enough time teaching that homosexuality is evil.  For their horrible deed of looking after the less fortunate, the nuns are to receive oversight from a bishop who will crack the whip to make sure those pesky sisters stay in line and do what the church was meant to do - spread homophobia.

Muhammad Ali once acidly pointed out that the Gospels have too many inconsistencies to be taken seriously.  So, it would appear, both the Vatican and Paul Ryan are following a time-honored tradition.