Catholic Voters: The Moral Basis of Our Vote - PART ONE

The 2008 Presidential Election is fast upon us and I am choosing to take some time to address a very contentious topic that has been circulating, that of supposed single-issue politics on the part of pro-lifers, particularly many of my Catholic pro-life friends (which is a redundancy; all real Catholics are pro-life). We can take as axiomatic that nobody should vote for a pro-abortion/”right-to-choose”/pro-choice politician at all, least of all a CATHOLIC. I am actually not arguing for that point- it is crystal clear already. I am going to argue that there are many other issues, not as grave as the abortion one, that nonetheless must command a Catholic’s attention. While issues pertinent to life must be the primary reason motivating our vote, our moral framework does not exclude other important areas. I’ll address them by the catchwords by which we often hear about them in the news.

I’ll be referring heavily to Canon Francis Ripley’s definitive book, This is the Faith. This will be written in installments.

1) PRIVATE PROPERTY AND SOCIALISM

The Church has held, since time immemorial, the right to private property as essential for the good-functioning of society. As Moses states in Deuteronomy 19:14:

Thou shalt not take nor remove thy neighbour's landmark, which thy predecessors have set in thy possession, which the Lord thy God will give thee in the land that thou shalt receive to possess.

Because we are endowed with an intellect and free will, by our nature we must have private property by which to manifest these capacities and to achieve the work for which God has created us. We cannot work land unless we have a plot that is ours. And if it is not ours and we work on it, we are expected to receive a wage which is in itself a form of private property which can be converted into other things like food, land, an investment, etc. This too is a natural right, viz., to be able to convert our labor for a wage and vice versa.

So, enter socialism, which by its pure definition denies the right to private ownership of productive goods. Socialism to some minor degree exists everywhere. It could be argued that the tax system in its most fundamental form is a form of socialism in that the resources of the many (taxes) are pooled into a common, social depository which is the federal government. It then uses that money as it sees fit for the social good, as outlined in the US Constitution, primarily through national defense and the regulation of commerce. We must agree that, fundamentally, the system of taxation is a form of theft from the populace, but that a majority of people would agree that it is morally imperative for all to see after the means of their defense and the safeguarding of the conditions necessary for the economic welfare, i.e., unfettered commerce. These are necessities which we most certainly agree upon as vital and common to all.

And so arrive at our contemporary period where we often hear about such ideas as socialized medicine, welfare, affirmative action, government bailouts, and the like. Of recent interest is the government bailout of Wall Street which, perhaps surprisingly, warranted the ire of the American people. What was this bailout? Once we lift the political baggage, it is clear that the government took money that was given to it by the people for their good and given to corporations the owners of which abused their rights to private property with excessive risk-taking and ultimately menaced the whole economy. So who is to pay? By the simple premise of personal accountability they, along with their companies, must bear the responsibility for their actions. However, the government saw it more fit to take taxpayer money entrusted to it and to give it over to save these private property-owners. This is, by definition, socialism- more specifically, the privatization of profit and the socialization of losses. This goes against the personal accountability which forms the entire backbone for our moral fabric as Catholics. We must account for our own sins and nothing that anyone else save the Lord does can absolve us of this culpability.

Do you therefore take courage, and let not your hands be weakened: for there shall be a reward for your work. (2 Chronicles 15:7)

Logically, if we do not work, we will not be rewarded. Now, even if we work hard and reap fewer benefits than may be desired due to the misfortunes that are inevitably a part of life, the government can not be called upon to alleviate the difficult conditions which are a natural part of life. Firstly, these can be minimized to a degree but to eliminate them altogether is impossible. Such attempts have led to the utopian social projects which have been historically to blame for great suffering. Secondly, the belief that government can alleviate the difficult conditions of life imbues government with those qualities which can only be ascribed to God and to our Faith, and thus lead to the sort of atheistic and socialist ideologies which have so ravaged Europe’s moral fabric along with more extreme cases like North Korea, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states in paragraph 2425: “The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modern times with ‘communism’ or ‘socialism’”.

History, particularly the history of the 20^th century, has shown that government promises to alleviate those vicissitudes which have always been a natural part of our existence have always transpired as: 1) a bold promise for change, 2) an attempt at a sweeping change with occasional success virtually always ending in, 3) great expectations (often met with disappointment) among the people vis-a-vis the government due to their desire for further change. The government may either be toppled, capitulate, or blame their failures or inadequacies on certain elements of the population or even other political parties as a pretext to continue its social projects. Often we hear of the "need" to press on towards the future. A fitting example from recent history is the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union. In its attempt to unify the nations of Europe economically, the EU has sought to focus its energy on agricultural policy through a system of intensive subsidization. While ambitious and promising in the beginning, this socialist system has led to an exacerbation of the inequalities which were the original target. While the wealthier countries of the EU such as France, Germany, and Belgium enjoy considerable prosperity and cheaper food prices, less well-off countries like Italy and Greece suffer from stagnated development, artificially high food prices, and even major environmental problems. Subsidization has killed production.

Thus, as Catholics determined to work for a greater justice in the world, we must ask if it is better to allow our resources to be taken from us for the “common good” or if perhaps we ourselves are better stewards of these resources. As rightly-guided faithful, we would know better where our resources will be deposited in a moral sense than the government, which most often does not share our cherished beliefs. It is upon private property in the expanded sense of our controlling these resources personally that the Church has always placed its moral weight and confident approbation.

Pope Leo XIII's Encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris: On Socialism