Editor:
After Catholic bishops denounced his budget as immoral, Rep. Paul Ryan has been making the talk show rounds claiming that his plan actually reflects the Church’s teachings. But the Jesuits at Georgetown have called the congressman out, saying his plan reflects the values of “Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Rep. Ryan says the GOP’s proposals to cut programs for the needy while sparing the Defense Department and not raising taxes on the wealthy are in line with the social justice teaching of his own Catholic Church. The principle of subsidiarity is what they’re talking about.
“The principle of subsidiarity protects people from abuses by higher-level social authority and calls on these same authorities to help individuals and intermediate groups to fulfill their duties,” says the Vatican’s Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.
In other words, the family, individual, community will do the best it can to take care of itself but also that the state and federal governments should provide help (subsidium) to cover things they cannot.
Ryan’s plan, according to the church, “leaves people to fend for themselves, the weak falling prey to the powerful.” Ryan’s plan fails to meet the basic “moral criteria” of Catholic teaching.
Diane Daiute
Sweet Hom