1) a reminder that the window of political discourse in the West has shifted so far left that even moderate positions are considered right-wing now. Center-left policies in the mid-60s would get a party lumped in with Right-Wingers today.
2) Catholic Social Teaching™️ (in the post-mid-century package that it’s often present…
1) a reminder that the window of political discourse in the West has shifted so far left that even moderate positions are considered right-wing now. Center-left policies in the mid-60s would get a party lumped in with Right-Wingers today.
2) Catholic Social Teaching™️ (in the post-mid-century package that it’s often presented as) is generally hogwash. It’s entirely impractical and irrelevant. It’s often in contradiction to the actual traditional guidance that the Church gives on matters of state/politics/finances/business/social issues/etc. It appears by all accounts to be a total novelty, a nifty framework developed in the 60s/70s when there was this pervasive idea that liberal secular modernity could be reconciled with Christendom. It has entrenched a large number of completely novel foreign ideas. The Church abandoned her teaching on the intrinsic grave moral evil of usury long before Pope Francis and Death Penalty.
3) I find it interesting that the EU holds its elections on a Sunday. In the US, we hold all elections on Tuesdays because back in the day it often took a full day’s travel to reach your polling location. Thus, you rest on Sunday, set out on your journey to the polls on Monday, then vote and make your way home on Tuesday. The EU post-2000s wants to create a neo-Christendom united Europe, but the religion is secular modernity, the church is the überstaten, and the New Rome is Brussels. Of course elections are on the Sabbath Day of Rest.
I don’t know what’s more shocking: reading a Catholic describe Catholic social teaching as “generally hogwash” and “entirely impractical and irrelevant” or that comment getting 6 “likes.”
I would like to know exactly what part of Catholic social teaching is “generally hogwash” and “entirely impractical and irrelevant.”
In the US, at least, there are specific policies and platforms that are presented as "Catholic Social Teaching" that are arguably not. There are a lot of opinions about immigration reform/border control, education, care for the poor, prison reform, health care, and perhaps most of all what exactly the appropriate role of government is for any of those (and at what level). It gets tiresome to be told "this political party's position, wholesale, is *the* Catholic position and you're a bad Catholic if you don't vote for these candidates or this policy" when there are valid questions about whether the policies actually work, elements that might or definitely do contradict the faith, etc. I think that's the point of the "TM" after "Catholic Social Teaching." Some people in authority want to label things as Catholic social teaching that are not. It's a cheap and manipulative ploy and we should do better than that.
Re: Election Day, it annoys me to no end that in the US it isn't a civic holiday, but yes, Sunday is worse.
Okay, maybe “Catholic Social Teaching (TM)” differs somehow from “Catholic Social Teaching.” But my question remains: what exactly are we talking about being “generally hogwash,” “impractical,” “irrelevant,” or a “cheap and manipulative ploy”?
Please go and read The Compendium of the Social Doctrine (published finally in 2005 after the Cardinal tasked to oversee it went to his eternal reward before its completion). It’s free on the Vatican Website like the catechism. (The printed copy spares the soul from the parchment tho). It was a project of John Paul II and is absolutely intentionally written to complement the Catechism.
It’s also about as ‘practical’ as the catechism is for living the faith because it’s about principles that should deeply inform and assess economic, social and political policies of all stripes, not proscriptions about ‘what is the Catholic Position’ on X problem in y country. The Magesterium rightly points out that do so would be counter productive and to inhibit the Holy Spirit’s real working in the people who form and lead our societies across space and time.
Seriously. Go and read it. Don’t be like the too online trads and blue rinse boomers banging on about Vatican II who haven’t actually read the documents.
Also, in Australia, our voting day is always a sensible Saturday, and voting is... compulsory. You get a (token) fine if you don’t vote.
A few thoughts:
1) a reminder that the window of political discourse in the West has shifted so far left that even moderate positions are considered right-wing now. Center-left policies in the mid-60s would get a party lumped in with Right-Wingers today.
2) Catholic Social Teaching™️ (in the post-mid-century package that it’s often presented as) is generally hogwash. It’s entirely impractical and irrelevant. It’s often in contradiction to the actual traditional guidance that the Church gives on matters of state/politics/finances/business/social issues/etc. It appears by all accounts to be a total novelty, a nifty framework developed in the 60s/70s when there was this pervasive idea that liberal secular modernity could be reconciled with Christendom. It has entrenched a large number of completely novel foreign ideas. The Church abandoned her teaching on the intrinsic grave moral evil of usury long before Pope Francis and Death Penalty.
3) I find it interesting that the EU holds its elections on a Sunday. In the US, we hold all elections on Tuesdays because back in the day it often took a full day’s travel to reach your polling location. Thus, you rest on Sunday, set out on your journey to the polls on Monday, then vote and make your way home on Tuesday. The EU post-2000s wants to create a neo-Christendom united Europe, but the religion is secular modernity, the church is the überstaten, and the New Rome is Brussels. Of course elections are on the Sabbath Day of Rest.
I don’t know what’s more shocking: reading a Catholic describe Catholic social teaching as “generally hogwash” and “entirely impractical and irrelevant” or that comment getting 6 “likes.”
I would like to know exactly what part of Catholic social teaching is “generally hogwash” and “entirely impractical and irrelevant.”
In the US, at least, there are specific policies and platforms that are presented as "Catholic Social Teaching" that are arguably not. There are a lot of opinions about immigration reform/border control, education, care for the poor, prison reform, health care, and perhaps most of all what exactly the appropriate role of government is for any of those (and at what level). It gets tiresome to be told "this political party's position, wholesale, is *the* Catholic position and you're a bad Catholic if you don't vote for these candidates or this policy" when there are valid questions about whether the policies actually work, elements that might or definitely do contradict the faith, etc. I think that's the point of the "TM" after "Catholic Social Teaching." Some people in authority want to label things as Catholic social teaching that are not. It's a cheap and manipulative ploy and we should do better than that.
Re: Election Day, it annoys me to no end that in the US it isn't a civic holiday, but yes, Sunday is worse.
Okay, maybe “Catholic Social Teaching (TM)” differs somehow from “Catholic Social Teaching.” But my question remains: what exactly are we talking about being “generally hogwash,” “impractical,” “irrelevant,” or a “cheap and manipulative ploy”?
Please go and read The Compendium of the Social Doctrine (published finally in 2005 after the Cardinal tasked to oversee it went to his eternal reward before its completion). It’s free on the Vatican Website like the catechism. (The printed copy spares the soul from the parchment tho). It was a project of John Paul II and is absolutely intentionally written to complement the Catechism.
It’s also about as ‘practical’ as the catechism is for living the faith because it’s about principles that should deeply inform and assess economic, social and political policies of all stripes, not proscriptions about ‘what is the Catholic Position’ on X problem in y country. The Magesterium rightly points out that do so would be counter productive and to inhibit the Holy Spirit’s real working in the people who form and lead our societies across space and time.
Seriously. Go and read it. Don’t be like the too online trads and blue rinse boomers banging on about Vatican II who haven’t actually read the documents.
Also, in Australia, our voting day is always a sensible Saturday, and voting is... compulsory. You get a (token) fine if you don’t vote.