Catholics find fault and blessing with Ryan’s politics
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For months, Janesville Congressman and now Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan has spoken passionately about how Catholic social teaching helped shape his budget priorities.
And for months, leaders within his own denomination have ripped him.
A committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops blasted his federal budget approach for “unjustified and wrong” cuts to the poor. A busload of nuns motored through nine states, including Wisconsin, contending his fiscal priorities are “immoral” and would “devastate the soul of our nation.”
But in Ryan’s own Catholic diocese, the reception has been much more nuanced, even flattering at times. Ryan attends St. John Vianney Parish in Janesville, a church of about 1,400 households in the Madison Catholic Diocese.
While never commenting on specific budget proposals, Madison Catholic Bishop Robert Morlino has described Ryan as a Catholic in good standing and vigorously defended Ryan’s right — and the right of any prayerful Catholic layperson — to form conclusions about the best ways to help the poor.
“The fact that we’re friends does not cloud my judgment when I say he is an excellent Catholic layman of the very highest integrity,” Morlino said of Ryan on a Catholic radio show last month.
In a column Aug. 16 in the Catholic Herald, the newspaper of the diocese, Morlino wrote that Ryan “is aware of Catholic social teaching and is very careful to fashion and form his conclusions in accord with (Catholic principles). Of that I have no doubt.” Morlino said he felt compelled to mention the matter “in obedience to church law regarding one’s right to a good reputation.”
In the same column, Morlino said it is not for bishops or priests to endorse particular candidates or political parties. [More]
SOURCE
Wisconsin State Journal/La Crosse Tribune
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9 Comments
Ryan is a close follower of Ayn Rand’s works – the ones that preach a morality of selfishness and caring only for oneself. Now, whatever you believe about politics, I think it is fairly obvious to anybody familiar with the Bible or the Cathechism that the message of the Catholic church is against selfishness and greed. How people justify his Catholic beliefs with his political proposals is beyond me.
I should also point out that Ayn Rand was an ardent atheist, which is just another point that Ryan (and any religious Ayn Rand follower) tends to sweep under the rug, in my experience with them.
People who are familiar with the four Gospels and Jesus’ parables on wealth might consider them to be an extremely harsh criticism of Mr Ryan and his budget.
As of course they would be.
What I find completely puzzling is Ryan’s claim to want to help the poor when his own life stands as a contrast. Until recently he was a member of the Atlas Society. He credited Ayn Rand with being the greatest influence in his life for wanting to be in politics. The Atlas Society is a radical group which supports and encourages the message of Ayn Rand. The message is simple: look after yourself and forget everyone else. This is in stark contrast to wanting to do anything to help the poor. While he is running as VP, let’s not forget that should Romney be elected, Ryan takes over. I don’t see the possibility of authentic Church teaching about social justice having any place in his agenda.
Concerned.
Don’t forget:
“Paul can still quote every verse out of Ayn Rand,” his brother Tobin said in a 2009 interview.
I wonder how many Bible verses Ayn Ryan can quote.
oh she may have been able to quote them but only to say that they are not true.
Politics is the art of the possible.A budgetis a purely political documemnt which outlines the cost of what the Congress beleved possible. While Congress was “fiddling while Washington burned”, Ryan outlind a political budget which reflectd the goals that Congress could achieve ,and not go bankrupt.Do any of thse University eggheads who criticise Ryan , have the skill and courage to lay on the table a set of new social goals and a budget t achieve them , that will not bankrupt America(Remember also that many of the goals of “Catholic Social Teaching” are already in place.)
The oddity is that no Catholic source is showing us what Ryan would do for the poor unless cutting the Fed’s part of mediCAID $800 billion dollars in the next ten years is that thing he will do for the poor. And the poor at the end of life is anyone who enters a nursing home for years. TV showed one lady who spent down her $300,000 in five years in a nursing home and then was covered as indigent by Medicaid which covers 60% of those in nursing homes. Ryan would cut back on that. Perhaps he sees non millionaires as needing more exercise as they get evicted in old age from nursing homes with great cuts in medicaid…now that he married someone who inherited millions. I may still vote for him because Obama effectively will force Catholic institutions to close if the court goes his way on the insurance mandate. But I will be voting for an evil albeit lesser.
As a prayerful Catholic layperson, I have formed the conclusion, that Bishop Morlino said I have the right to do, that the Ryan Budget is the wrong way to go in helping the poor. Even Candidate Romney stated he is not entirely accepting of Ryan’s proposed budget, and, lest we forget, it is Romney who is running for president, not Ryan.