Good on you, Catholics!
Speaking truth--and fairness and sheer decency--to power!
Great news out today from the Think Progress blog:
Catholic Scholars To Boehner: Your Agenda Defies ‘Church’s Most Ancient Moral Teachings’ On Helping Poor
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will give the commencement address at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. this weekend. Ahead of the visit, dozens of faculty members from the school and other other Catholic universities are writing to Boehner — who is himself an observant Catholic — challenging his willingness to “gut” social programs while protecting “new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.” “Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the Church’s most ancient moral teachings” of caring for the poor, they write:
Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it.
The 2012 budget you shepherded to passage in the House of Representatives guts long-established protections for the most vulnerable members of society. It is particularly cruel to pregnant women and children, gutting Maternal and Child Health grants and slashing $500 million from the highly successful Women Infants and Children nutrition program. When they graduate from WIC at age 5, these children will face a 20% cut in food stamps. The House budget radically cuts Medicaid and effectively ends Medicare. It invokes the deficit to justify visiting such hardship upon the vulnerable, while it carves out $3 trillion in new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.
The letter goes on to cite a separate letter from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, written last month, which also raised moral issues with the GOP budget. “A just framework for future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons,” the bishops wrote, adding:
Converting Medicare into a voucher program could shift rising health care costs to vulnerable seniors and those who are poor without controlling these costs. We also fear the human and social costs of substantial cuts to programs that serve families working to escape poverty, especially food and nutrition, child development and education, and affordable housing.
Indeed, according to official Vatican doctrine, “The responsibility for attaining the common good, besides falling to individual persons, belongs also to the State.” “Tax revenues and public spending take on crucial economic importance,” the Vatican guidance continues, because “[j]ust, efficient and effective public financing will havevery positive effects.”
“Speaker Boehner’s budget eviscerates vital programs that protect the poor, the elderly, the homeless and at-risk pregnant women and children. This is not pro-life,” Stephen Schneck, Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at Catholic and a signatory of the letter, said in press release.
And here might be my favorite part of this of all:
In January, the Pope personally wrote to Boehner regarding the new Speaker’s opposition to health care reform, saying, “I have been scandalized that a great and religious country like yours has taken so long to guarantee health care as a right.” The Church has also voiced support for labor unions.
It seems there may be some shame left in the world after all.
How does that saying go from their Bible about "the wealthy man" and that "eye of the needle", anyway?
Everyone seems to have totally forgotten that one, haven't they? Hell, we don't just envy the rich, we worship them now.
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2 comments:
How nice the Conference of Catholic Bishops could take a moment from defending our nation against The Homosexual Menace.
Seriously, Mo — when the Catholic Bishops stop spending millions to oppress gay Americans, and start spending that money to aid the oppressed, I'll join you in your cheerleading.
Until then, this is nothing more than evidence that even a blind pig can find a truffle.
well, you have a point, of course, and if you've read what I have to say about them here--or elsewhere--on that subject, you know I agree but the fact is, in this one isolated instance, they're doing the right thing and speaking truth to Washington political power and that's darned rare and very welcome. They have their issues and problems, for sure, and I'm not letting them off any hook, so to speak (not that it may matter) but I'll take this truffle. There needs to be more of them.
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