VP Role for Paul Ryan Has His Former Parish Priest Worried
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The entrance to St. Mary Elementary School in Janesville, Wisconsin has two identical archways with contrasting inscriptions. One entrance says, “For God.” The other says, “For Country.”
That is where Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, first merged his studies of government and religion as a young student.
And the priest who presides over the archways and the towering steeple of the Nativity of Mary says that Ryan’s interpretation of Catholic teaching in national budgetary matters and his prospective vice presidential role have him “worried.” Father Stephen Umhoefer told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that he supports a role for religion in the public square, but that Ryan‘s austerity budget and proposed steep cuts in social programs are inconsistent with the Catholic teachings that Ryan cites to justify the policies. “If he is following his conscience, he is doing the morally correct thing. But he shouldn’t wrap himself in Catholic teaching because he is not using that [teaching] in what I would say is a balanced way,” said Umhoefer.
Umhoefer, 72, has led the church since 2002 and was the Ryan family pastor until the family left for another Janesville parish a few years ago. Ryan’s current parish is led by a priest who teaches on the diocese faculty under the deeply conservative Madison Bishop Robert Morlino, who characterizes Ryan’s judgment as “in accord with all the teachings of the Church.” [more]
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Center for Media and Democracy
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34 Comments
Hey Jim, Might I throw in here “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”? You are right about this love analysis……what is love supposed to mean? The ultimate example is that Jesus gave His life for us and everyone knows how He was treated. You know? I have lived a long life…more to come, I hope, but I am truly dismayed by the lack of understanding of the faith simply because there has been little education. You are right. Loving your neighbor has been manipulated into many interpretations. I don’t blame people for being misguided but I have little patience for those who have purportedly abdicated their responsibility in their positions to inform. Ordination is no guarantee.
Thanks, Elinor. To quote Benedict XVI, he said, “Love is NOT greeting card sentimentality.” Wow — perfect characterization of this issue.
Elinor: The dictionary’s definition of subsidiarity is to give aid and service. My question to you is what kind of aid and service would VP Paul Ryan give? Put medicare in the hands of private companies,let states decide how
much medicaid they will spend,make the poor more self-reliant. How? Support a bill that would let hospitals that get Federal money deny women abortions even in life-threatening situations? These are not just one party questions. They are questions that should be on the minds of every thinking christian and
particularly Catholics who hopefully believe in the Social Doctrine of the Church, which it seems your Mr. Ryan has not even considered.
Hi Sarah.
Be careful what you say or they will start selectively blocking your posts.
I only lasted a day – but who cares.
What are you talking about, Dennis? You’ve made multiple posts here — including this one!
Hi Jim.
Maybe it was a computer glitch but if you look at my posts on “Paul Ryan, Joe Biden: A tale of two Catholics”
Every post that contained substance didn’t show up. But posts asking is this is working got through.
This same thing happened on another subject.
So you tell me what is going on.
Dennis — what I have discovered is that this blog rejects several non-swear words; e.g., the founding document of this country that begins with the letter “C”; another word for sexual purity that also begins with the letter “C”; and several others. I pointed this out to the editors yesterday and they told me that they thought it was something from my end, as they tried those words and were able to post them. So, what I do is I always copy everyone of my posts (especially lengthy ones) before I click on the “add comment” button, in case the blog rejects my post. I then try to figure out what word it is rejecting by, e.g., re-posting the comment sentence-by-sentence until I discover the problematic word.
Thanks Jim. You are probably right. Now to find that word.
Could it be Objectivism?
Are you being serious, or are you just taunting me to investigate this matter of objectivism further? I don’t read non-verbals well on blogs, you know.
I am not like Tony although I like his style and might adopt it.
I really thought it might be the word that was the problem.
The post that just can’t get through for this article is:
Hi Tony.
Looks like the word Objectivism is spreading faster than I expected.
PART 1
PART 2
Soon you will know what it means and we can move on to the word .
PART 3
anti thet ical.
WOW!!
This site does not allow the word:
anti-thet-ical.
Remove the dashes.
Thanks for the help.
Dennis — what the editors pointed out yesterday is that the site is rejecting the T-I-T in the words that won’t post. There is a T-I-T in the word you are referencing, so that apparently is the problem.
OMG!!!
I am in
ST-I-TCHES!!!
testing: stitches
Dennis — as you can see from my above post, the problem actually ISN’T the T+I+T. Also, as I’ve thought about it more, I just don’t see how the problem can be from my end — I never have this problem anywhere else using my computer or posting on any other blog. So, the editors may not have purposefully excluded these very good words, but someone is — and I’m not convinced that I am just being paranoid. Someone had to make the choice to exclude these words. Dennis, you might want to contact the editors and advise them of this — I already have talked with them about it.
testing: constitution; chastity
Dennis — ignore my prior post — I didn’t see the editors post until now. Apparently, the problem has been fixed.
addendum to Dennis: once you discover the problematic word, you can then post it as follows, e.g.: constxtxtion and chastxty.
Thanks again Jim.
All…we believe we’ve updated our preferences correctly to allow those words. Please keep us posted if it doesn’t work. thx
it appears as though the problem has been fixed then? Thanks for your patience.
Indeed it appears to be fixed, dear editor.
Jim, where have you been? I missed you on here. Wecome back and make sure you stay with us.
Hey Tony — nice to be welcomed back by you, even though you and I most times are on opposite sides of the fence. I’ve been quite busy today, and didn’t really have any time to post. Once you get out of the stream of posting, it’s easy to stay out, as no one is aggravating me by responding to one of my posts!
In replying to Sarah, I was not referring to Ryan but to the question of the Church’s lack of focus on subsidiarity. Have we gone so far down the road that we no longer consider ourselves responsible to be our brother’s keeper? Sure, let the government do it. Your question/examples are too involved to have any detailed response and as usual the extremes are always used as an example. When I learned my ethics way back I was taught what was called the “two fold effect” I do resent the assumption by anyone about persons that they haven’t given any consideration to matters that are important to the accuser. Can we get inside his head? His conscience? Might I refer you to Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison’s letter on the subject of Paul Ryan’s viewpoint. http://cvote.me/morlino. I do remember the days when just to have a Catholic nominated was such an accomplishment and delight for the faithful. Now we spend an inordinate amount of time tearing Catholic candidates to shreds.
Hi Elinor.
As you know subsidiarity has its origins in Catholic social teaching.
Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority.
It does not mean that every problem should be handled by the smallest ent-i-ty. It means that a problem should be handled by the smallest organization capable of handling the problem.
For example you certainly don’t expect your local church to build an army.
The “two fold effect” also called the double effect says it is morally allowable to perform an act that has at least two effects, one good and one bad. I don’t see how this is relevant to your argument.
Ryan moved a couple years ago to a much more conservative area where Bishop Robert Morlino preaches/rules (can’t find the right word but you get the idea). Father Umhoefer (Ryan’s family pastor until the family left) said:
“If he is following his conscience, he is doing the morally correct thing. But he shouldn’t wrap himself in Catholic teaching because he is not using that [teaching] in what I would say is a balanced way,” Could not have said it better myself.
He is not a Catholic.
Elinor — rest assured, Paul Ryan is very much a Catholic. Just because his priest doesn’t agree with him is not the final word — heck, I heard of a priest who actually promoted Obama in the 2008 election from the pulpit! There is another priest from Notre Dame who recently said that Eucharistic Adoration is not helpful and a retrogression. I 100% agree with you: if all these liberal Catholics feel so strongly, why don’t THEY do something about whatever they perceive the problem to be. No, what they do is they insist SOMEONE ELSE do something about the problem. Some research has shown this exact thing: conservatives actually are more generous than liberals with their own money when the cause is judged worthy. Our Church has inerrant dogma, but when the bishops and priests venture into politics and economics, they are out of their league.
That you would attempt to connect communist ideology to a churches (any church will do) teachings in a country that has been waging doctrinal war on religion and faith is hilarious.
Right on Elinor!
Much observation tells me that many Catholics cannot see beyond their history to survive in this country when the Democratic party championed their situations. Some say that they could never vote other than Democrat for their grandfathers would come back and haunt them. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has changed markedly….probably grandpa wouldn’t recognize it. It is time to be objective about the issues and think rationally and dare, if I might say, to vote them instead of party. I cannot comprehend how individuals in the Church can embrace the Party simply because that’s how it has always been. Peace and justice issues have been kidnapped. The Church needs to focus on subsidiarity. Paul Ryan is NOT about throwing grandma under the bus and as a “grandma” I feel quite comfortable with his intentions.
Elinor — I think some responsibility for Catholics being so liberal has to rest with Catholic priests and bishops. They are forever promoting love, pointing out (correctly) that God is love (per the gospel of John). However, the better question is, what is love? Love has been so feminized (no offense intended) and thus distorted — we have forgotten the masculine elements of love, such as correcting those who need to be corrected (cf. Hebrews 12). Priests are too afraid to preach anything controversial, so they stick with safe homilies like, “Love your mother.” There is no challenge coming from the pulpit (or too rarely if not never). The words “Hell” and “Purgatory” are mentioned once every ten years, if that often. I once was told by my pastor (this is not second-hand infomration) that another visiting priest who I had arranged to come to our parish was NOT allowed to mention Hell in his homily. I WAS TOLD THAT DIRECTLY IN AN E-MAIL; I HAVE THE SMOKING-GUN EVIDENCE. Another priest told me, when I confronted him about why he did not even mention Hell in his homily when the Gospel had been about the narrow path to Heaven (Matthew 7:13-14), that he had preached about hell earlier in his ministry, but he stopped doing so because people complained. To stop preaching about hell becuase of complaints is, in my opinion, a grave sin of omission. So, now we have Catholics being more pro-Obama than the population in general. These fools are in for a rude awakening when things hit the fan, which they inevitably will — and, the day of reckoning is not far away.