Thomas E. Woods, Jr. And the Right to Oppress

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

In the last several posts we have examined an element of the Catholic Right  comprised of neo-Confederate apologists who openly advocate both the state nullification of federal court decisions and statutes as well as secession.  The name that most commonly comes up when conservative Catholics discuss these things is Thomas E. Woods, Jr., who may be the leading modern confederate, intending to win what Jefferson Davis lost.  But a major difference today is that certain Catholic Right players would use the neo-confederate disruption of popular government to impose theocracy-even at the expense of national unity.

Thomas Woods is a well-educated man. He has earned a B.A. in History from Harvard as well as a Ph.D. in the same subject from Columbia from which he also holds a Masters in Philosophy. But Woods’ elite education is not reflected in his writing which is devoted to the agenda of nullification and secession. To that end, he serves as not only as a senior fellow to the über-libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute, but also as an associate scholar with Abbeville Institute, an institution that promotes a revisionist view of the Confederacy.

Wood is no ordinary academic not only because of his agenda but in his method of advancing his views, which often includes tactical omissions, mischaracterizations and even outright mendacity.  He is often quick to resort to hyperbole (describing those who warn of the dangers of secession as engaging in “hysterics” while describing them as “bizarre and creepy”) and name-calling (describing those who believe that the Civil War settled the issues of nullification and secession as having a “moral compass deeply deformed by government propaganda”).

He is prone to misleading statements. For example, in defending his call for the nullification of federal court decisions and legislation, he argues:

Nullification was never used on behalf of slavery.  As I show in Nullification, it was used against slavery, which is why South Carolina’s secession document cites it as a grievance justifying southern secession, and Jefferson Davis denounced it in his farewell address to the Senate.  Thus Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, backed up by the state legislature, declared the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 unconstitutional (the mere existence of the fugitive-slave clause in the Constitution did not, in its view, suffice to make all the odious provisions of that act constitutionally legitimate).  In Ableman v. Booth  (1859), the Supreme Court scolded it for doing so.  In other words, modern anti-nullification jurisprudence has its roots in the Supreme Court’s declarations in support of the Fugitive Slave Act.  Who’s defending slavery here?

This is a straw-man argument that completely sidesteps the main issue. Woods may rhetorically ask, “Who’s defending slavery here?” The obvious reply is, “Who here is approves of nullification under any circumstance?” The Wisconsin Supreme Court was clearly on the moral high ground in voicing its disapproval of the Fugitive Slave Act. But with that said, the proper remedy was still the Thirteenth Amendment. That is immutable. More importantly, Wisconsin ceded to the decision of the Supreme Court, thus honoring the Supremacy Clause.

Likewise, when discussing nullification and the Founders, Woods plays fast and loose with the facts of history. For example, he recently wrote:

“Nullification” dates back to 1798, when James Madison and Thomas Jefferson drafted the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, respectively.  There we read that the states, which created the federal government in the first place, by the very logic of what they had done must possess some kind of defense mechanism should their creation break free of the restraints they had imposed on it.  Jefferson himself introduced the word “nullification” into the American political lexicon, by which he meant the indispensable power of a state to refuse to allow an unconstitutional federal law to be enforced within its borders.

Woods’ omissions are all-too-convenient.  First, in response to the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (declaring the Alien and Sedition Acts unconstitutional) nine other states expressed either disapproval or outright rejection of the Resolutions. Secondly, Jefferson was always an anti-Federalist. Beyond that, Madison would conclude that determining unconstitutionality was to be decided by the federal courts. For Madison, nullification was a means of registering protest, not acting upon it.

Much like his fellow Catholic neo-Confederate, Thomas DiLorenzo, he is obsessed with tearing down President Lincoln’s legacy.  He cites Lincoln’s early views on the issue of slavery — initially supporting the resettlement of former slaves — in order to paint him as a hypocrite. Yet no serious student of Lincoln denies his earlier views on race relations. But most serious pro-Lincoln also understand that his views evolved over time to a higher and better place.  Still, Woods, DiLorenzo and their ilk point to early stations in Lincoln’s life journey as a final judgment.  In fact, Lincoln’s journey was marked by an open mind, unafraid of where the application of core beliefs would lead him.

Why is a discussion of Lincoln’s legacy pertinent to confronting the Religious Right?  Simply because the Sixteenth President’s stand against nullification and secession epitomizes the defeat of those twin concepts of national disunity and selfishness.  Destroy Lincoln’s legacy, and the door is thrown wide open to the view that an individual state is in itself a mini-sovereign, free to adopt one religious view as that state’s established faith. This in turn, opens the door to criminalizing women’s’ reproductive rights, stem cell research, and marriage equality.

Does this sound far-fetched? As it bears repeating over and over again, not to the likes of Woods ally and Opus Dei firebrand Rev. C. John McCloskey, who idealizes a future marked by secession and civil war:

The tens of thousands of martyrs and confessors for the Faith in North America were indeed the “seed of the Church” as they were in pre-Edict of Milan Christianity. The final short and relatively bloodless conflict produced our Regional States of North America. The outcome was by no means an ideal solution but it does allow Christians to live in states that recognize the natural law and divine Revelation, the right of free practice of religion, and laws on marriage, family, and life that reflect the primacy of our Faith. italics added

Is such an outcome an exaggerated fear? Hardly. Nullification is spreading like an out of control fire through the national edifice. A bill designed to nullify the Affordable Care Act is on the South Carolina Senate’s current agenda. Earlier this year Mississippi Tea Party legislators unsuccessfully attempted to set up a nullification panel to review which federal laws to ignore (in typical Woods fashion, he described those who disapproved as “thought controllers”). And in North Carolina a group of Republican legislators recently attempted to nullify The Establishment Clause by declaring Christianity the Tar Heel State’s official religion. Woods’ Brigade is on the march.

Historian Barbara Fields warned in 1990, that the Civil War can still be lost:

I think what we need to remember, most of all, is that the Civil War is not over until, we today, have done our part in fighting as well as understanding what happened when the Civil War generation fought it.

William Faulkner said once that “history is not was, it’s is.” And what we need to remember about the Civil War it is that the Civil War is in the present as well as in the past. The generation that fought the war, of the generation that argued over the definition of the war, the generation that had to pay the price in blood and had to pay the price in blasted hopes and a lost future also established a standard that will not mean anything until we can finish the work.

You can say there’s no such thing as slavery anymore, we are all citizens; but if we are all citizens then we have a task to do, to make sure that too that is not a joke; that if some citizens live in houses and others live on the street, the Civil War is still going on; it’s still to be fought; and regrettably can still be lost.

Let us imagine for a moment that Woods and his ilk  can succeed where other states’ rights advocates have failed.  One of the obvious consequences would be that tyranny would not be abolished but locally established in the form of laissez-faire economics and theocracy. Indeed, the only “freedom” that would be expanded would be the freedom to oppress – the concept that is at the very heart of many Catholic neo-Confederates and economic libertarians alike. This underlying notion of the right to oppress others is the common thread that runs through both slavery and contemporary theocratic visions.

Woods is correct on one point: Nobody is talking about slavery. But with that said, some of us are still talking about the right to oppress others and one of those doing so is Woods.

Refuting Nullification, Part Two

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

In this series we have been discussing the emerging influence of Thomas J. Woods and other Catholic Right neo-Confederates, who are advocating that states nullify federal statutes and court rulings with which they disagree. Some are calling for outright secession.  The next installment explained why nullification matters and how it can lead to localized tyranny and theocracy. Then we discussed the historical argument against nullification and by extension, secession.

Now we are taking the obvious next step:  The Constitutional arguments against nullification.

At the forefront of the Catholic Right’s nullification/secessionist movement is Thomas J. Woods.  His writings and speeches are frequently cited by a budding alliance of Catholic social conservatives and secessionists that extends to the likes of Opus Dei evangelist C. John McCloskey and politico Alan Keyes.  They claim that their ideas are constitutionally viable — but they are not, and here is why.

Woods justifies nullification via “the compact theory” of government – that the United States of America government was formed by a compact agreed upon by all the states, whereby making the federal government a creation of the states. In Woods’ view this give individual states the power to “nullify” laws or federal court rulings they see as unconstitutional.

But as we explored in the very last post, it is a theory with little or no basis in historical fact. If states did indeed precede the federal government, then what of states such as Alaska, California, Hawaii and Louisiana that were carved out of federal procurements of war seizure or purchase by treaty?  Both of these powers are specifically reserved to the federal government in the Constitution. Beyond that, it is a theory that ignores our nation’s founding as a people.

The Foundational Argument

Inspired by Daniel Webster, Abraham Lincoln understood the inherent weakness of the compact theory upon which Woods rests his theory. Lincoln also understood that there is no legal justification for either nullification or secession. Consider this passage from his First Inaugural Address:

Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it–break it, so to speak–but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?

Putting aside the fact that even among the original framers there was a divergence of opinion over its intent, Woods and other advocates of nullification punt on the obvious conclusion; that if it were the intent of the Founders to allow for secession of a given state of mechanism, would have been inserted into the constitution. Woods’ weak response is “The mere fact that a state’s reserved right to obstruct the enforcement of an unconstitutional law is not expressly stated in the Constitution does not mean the right does not exist.” Directly preceding this comment, he argues, “This is an odd complaint, coming as it usually does from those who in any other circumstance do not seem especially concerned to find express constitutional sanction for particular government policies.”

Woods seems to be alluding to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling for Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that overturned a state law banning the sale of birth control on the grounds that it violated the “right to marital privacy” (It is not surprising that Woods, as a traditionalist Catholic, Woods would derisively hone in on this decision). In his dissent, Justice Hugo Black then found no general “right of privacy.”  Nevertheless, majorities in Griswold  (and later in Roe v. Wade) did find support for the right to privacy in the Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments, and this is now a matter of settled law.  However, no one has been able to reasonably infer a right to either nullification or secession in the Constitution.

While Article IV of the Constitution provides for the admission of new states, there is no provision for secession (Lincoln touched upon this in his First Inaugural Address:  ”Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.”).

We can say the same about the nullification of federal legislation. Lincoln knew that neither secession nor nullification were not to be confused with the Right of Revolution as stated in the Declaration of Independence (“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], the people have a right to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness”).

More importantly, the concept of any state nullifying any federal law without the proper court challenge was contemplated and rejected by the Framers in Article IV of the Constitution. More broadly in the Constitution’s “Supremacy Clause” is unambiguous. The Constitution and laws made by the Congress are “the supreme law of the land.”  And it doesn’t give or suggest any override authority to the state governors and legislatures:  

“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.”

The Rub

Indeed, the radical ambiguity of Woods and his cohorts about how one determines what is and is not Constitutional — is a recipe for arbitrary and capricious behavior.  We have the Supreme Court to make those calls. And while Article III does not specifically assign that power was, as evidenced by Alexander Hamilton, one clearly intended by its proponents.

Simply put, the Woods’ formulation has the potential for radical breaks with the supreme law of the land, for example on matters of matters of birth control, reproductive rights, and even the establishment of an official state religion. In sum, the denial of some of the most basic rights guaranteed to individuals by the U.S. Constitution opens the door not to a more perfect union, but to a confederation of little theocracies.

Indeed, James Madison, writing in Federalist No. 44 observed regarding the supremacy clause of the Constitution:  ”Without the substance of this power, the whole Constitution would be a dead letter.” He then presciently warned:  

“The question, therefore, whether this amount of power shall be granted or not, resolves itself into another question, whether or not a government commensurate to the exigencies of the Union shall be established; or, in other words, whether the Union itself shall be preserved.”

That is indeed still the question.

Refuting Nullification, Part One

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The emerging influence of Thomas J. Woods and other neo-Confederate ideologues within the Catholic Right was the focus of the first post in this series. They are advocating the failed concepts of secession and the nullification of federal statutes and court rulings. The second post in the series explored why nullification matters and how it can lead to localized tyranny and theocracy. To complete the quartet, we will discuss first how proponent’s claims for historical justification are simply wrong, and then detail the Constitutional argument against nullification.

Traditionalist Catholics such as Thomas Woods and Opus Dei firebrand Fr. C. John McCloskey, who are openly discussing nullification and secession — are finding common cause in a growing movement. The libertarian Catholic Acton Institute has looked upon Woods’ gospel of nullification with approval, even (incorrectly) equating it with the Catholic principle of subsidiarity (human affairs are best handled at the lowest possible level). More and more the concept is being discussed as a viable political option by socially conservative and traditionalist Catholics.

As I previously reported, among the Catholic Rightists beating the drum for nullification are Pat Buchanan, Thomas DiLorenzo, Thomas Fleming and Thomas E. Woods, Jr.  All four advocate states’ rights, a seething resentment of Abraham Lincoln, and as Rachel Tabachnick recently highlighted, Woods is a key member of the pro-secession League of the South, Traditional Catholicism (save possibly DiLorenzo) and Austrian-school, libertarian economics.

Known as “tenthers” they argue that individual states, citing the Tenth Amendment to the federal Constitution, have the right to nullify federal legislation or court rulings of which they disapprove — on quite a range of subjects. Some have recently argued that states should and have the right to block federal health care reform; refuse to enforce federal firearms regulation and some cases, as a justification for imposing Christianity as an official state religion. Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas – an Opus Dei convert to Catholicism — has already signed several nullification bills into law, inviting a federal court challenge. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has written to Brownback to inform him that his legislation is unconstitutional. Indeed, nullification follows a pre-Fourteenth Amendment view of Constitutional law, before due process and equal protection were extended to cover the behavior of the several states.

As dubious as nullification may sound to liberals, let’s note that even the conservative Heritage Foundation calls it “Unlawful and Unconstitutional.” The libertarian Cato Institute is only slightly less absolute, citing a limited use for nullification, but cautions: “Can a state impede federal authorities from enforcing their own law if the state deems the law to be unconstitutional. The answer is “No,” although more radical nullification proponents would disagree.”

States Did Not Precede the Union

The claim by Woods and other latter-day John Calhouns that nullification is consistent with the original intent of the Constitution is rooted in bad history. They assert that the states constitute a higher authority than any of the branches of the federal government because the individual states existed before the national government was created. However, a fair reading of American history debunks that myth – and by extension, the foundation of the entire nullification argument.

When the notion of secession was at its height, Abraham Lincoln argued for a sturdy form of federalism. “Plainly,” Lincoln declared, “the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.” Lincoln was soon proved to be correct. In the closing days of the Civil War, Alabama and Georgia were so protective of their notion of state sovereignty that they threatened to secede from the Confederacy. Even Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy admitted, his movement “died of a theory” — and that theory was states rights.

The fallacy that “the states preceded the federal government” argument is exposed by simply considering the history of the thirteen colonies. At the time of the revolution each were Crown colonies, which is to say that the King of England appointed their governors. Royal charter founded indeed most of them. New York (then including whole swaths of territory that would become New Jersey) was wrestled from the Dutch by the British, and added to her American holdings. Little more than a century later, the British military might engaged in a war with France and her Native American allies to protect the colonies (in what we now call the French and Indian War.) The British victory enlarged the American colonies. Massachusetts gained control of what is now Maine while Virginia expanded into what is now West Virginia.

The political loyalty of what was to become our first thirteen states originally was to the King and Parliament, a binding central government. The common thread that ran through the complaints of each American colony in April 1775 was that they were being taxed and bullied by that central entity without any true representation in its decision-making. And when they initially revolted they did not do so advocating for their rights as Rhode Islanders or New Yorkers or as Georgians but as their rights as British subjects. They were simply demanding a say in the Parliament that was legislating without them being able to debate or vote on any law that adversely affected their general welfare.

When the Continental Army drove the British from Boston in March 1776, units from Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia while being commanded by a Virginian, George Washington, joined the Massachusetts Militia. They answered to a Continental Congress, not individual state governments. More importantly, when independence was declared it was done with purpose of severing their common governing relationship with London and replacing it with our own central authority. This was the cause that transformed into the creation of a nation.

The argument that the states precede the federal government truly falls apart with the addition of the post-Revolution states. The states that were created out of the Louisiana Purchase were made possible with the common funds from the United States Treasury. Individual states were also carved out from United States’ Territories. The same is true of Alaska. In the case of what are now our Southwestern states, those descended from territories seized from Mexico by a nationally organized war (a conflict opposed by then-Congressman Lincoln). Many of the upper western states were created from territories similarly seized from Native tribes such as the Sioux and Cheyenne.

Finally, it is worth noting that whatever our political outlooks, few of us see the founding of the Jamestown and Plymouth colonies as the origin of individual sections or states. Rather, we see them as the beginning of our identity, warts and all, as an American People (the longer history of Native Americans, notwithstanding). We celebrate Thanksgiving Day, for example, as a national tradition, not one unique to Massachusetts. Likewise, we celebrate July 4th as the beginning of the American Revolution, not the secession of the individual original thirteen colonies from the British Empire. Rather, we all revolted in unison and reliance upon each other to create a new nation.

Thomas Woods and his ilk are simply wrong about American history; the states did not precede either a central government or our common identity as a people.

Thomas E. Woods, Jr. and the Neo-Confederate Catholic Right

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

Thomas Woods is an increasingly influential  player on the Catholic Right. In this and a subsequent post, we will consider how his world view is   incompatible with both Catholic Social Justice principles and American history.

Over the years, this column has looked at the many facets of the Catholic Right, including neo-cons, paleo-cons, Bill Donohue, Opus Dei, and more. We now come to the Neo-Confederate Catholic Right, a peculiar variation of libertarianism, which focuses almost exclusively on economics while maintaining most, if not all of the social conservative culture war issues such as opposition to reproductive rights and marriage equality. Indeed, this movement employs the long discredited states’ rights theory of nullification — the notion that any state has the right to ignore any federal court order or law which that state has deemed unconstitutional.

Among the Catholic Rightists beating the drum for nullification are Pat Buchanan, Thomas DiLorenzo, Thomas Fleming and Thomas E. Woods, Jr.  All four advocate states’ rights, a seething resentment of Abraham Lincoln, and as Rachel Tabachnick recently highlighted, Woods is a key member of the pro-secession League of the South, Traditional Catholicism (save possibly DiLorenzo) and Austrian-school, libertarian economics.

Woods is a convert to the type of Catholicism sought by many on the Catholic Right. As such, he is a vocal proponent for a return to a pre-Vatican II mindset. He is extreme in his economic libertarianism as well as secession and nullification.  While nullification has a long and dark history on matters of race in the U.S., it is also looming as an issue for reproductive rights and marriage equality.

It is therefore no surprise that among Woods’ admirers is the influential Opus Dei priest C. John McCloskey. The former Ivy League-Wall Street laissez-faire apostle-turned-prelate has himself ruminated on the appeal of secession to achieve theocracy.  In his infamous futuristic dystopian essay 2030: Looking Backwards he gleefully imagines a violent separation from the United States:

The tens of thousands of martyrs and confessors for the Faith in North America were indeed the “seed of the Church” as they were in pre-Edict of Milan Christianity. The final short and relatively bloodless conflict produced our Regional States of North America. The outcome was by no means an ideal solution but it does allow Christians to live in states that recognize the natural law and divine Revelation, the right of free practice of religion, and laws on marriage, family, and life that reflect the primacy of our Faith. With time and the reality of the ever-decreasing population of the states that worship at the altar of “the culture of death,” perhaps we will be able to reunite and fulfill the Founding Fathers of the old United States dream to be “a shining city on a hill.”

What McCloskey describes as “by no means an ideal solution” has a more accurate, more commonly-held description: Treason.

And yet there is more than a hint of hypocrisy in McCloskey’s admiration of Woods – especially his libertarian economic outlook.  Catholic writer Angus Sibely has observed, Woods is a devotee of über-libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard. A closer examination of Rothbard beliefs reveals why this is problematic.

First, Rothbard is the father of anarcho-capitalism, the basis of Woods’ economic philosophy.  It is such an extreme philosophy that even law enforcement and the courts would be privatized; taxation would be replaced by either private payments or insurance settlements. Rothbard is on record saying “the entire theory of labor unions is deeply flawed.” As Angus Sibley explains, it is the very antithesis of Catholic economic teachings:

Most practical methods of reducing inequalities are repugnant to libertarians. Labor unions are hated because they obstruct the worker’s freedom to agree his own contract with his employer. … Redistributive taxation (higher tax rates on higher personal incomes) “is a mode of disguised expropriation of successful capitalists and entrepreneurs” according to Mises, while his admirer Murray Rothbard stated that “Taxation is Robbery” and that “the libertarian favors the right to unrestricted private property and free-exchange”.

Hayek rejected outright the principle of distributive justice: “the results of the individual’s efforts are necessarily unpredictable, and the question of whether the resulting distribution of incomes is just or unjust has no meaning.”  Catholic teaching flatly repudiates such nonsense. Leo XIII (Rerum Novarum, §45) spoke of “a dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner”, and he strongly commended (#49) workers’ associations, of which “the most important of all are workingmen’s unions.” John Paul II (Centesimus Annus, §20) observed that “unions… are indeed a mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice, for the just rights of working people.”

But what is all-too-conveniently glossed over by Woods, McCloskey and others — is Rothbard’s shocking and idiosyncratic view on abortion.  It is a view that is consistent with extreme libertarianism, but is very far from any other pro-choice thought I have ever heard. Rothbard’s view suggests a deep fissure on the conservative spectrum that they would rather we not see.

Most fetuses are in the mother’s womb because the mother consents to this situation, but the fetus is there by the mother’s freely-granted consent. But should the mother decide that she does not want the fetus there any longer, then the fetus becomes a parasitic “invader” of her person, and the mother has the perfect right to expel this invader from her domain. Abortion should be looked upon, not as “murder” of a living person, but as the expulsion of an unwanted invader from the mother’s body. Any laws restricting or prohibiting abortion are therefore invasions of the rights of mothers.  [Emphasis added]

We need to understand why Woods and McCloskey’s Neo-Confederate philosophy of nullification and secession is so appealing to some on the Catholic Right so we can not only better answer them, but sharpen the contrast with just alternatives. Those tasks will be tackled in subsequent posts.

No Weigel Room For NBC’s Non-Disclosure

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

George Weigel, who has frequently appeared on the NBC Nightly News as a “Vatican analyst” in the run up to the Conclave of Cardinals that will select the next pope, has served as a  consultant on Catholic issues to NBC since 1999.  But what NBC does not tell us — is that Weigel is no ordinary expert.  He is one of the leaders of today’s Catholic Right.

NBC‘s go to guy on all things Catholic in fact, has a long record of helping to create a more stridently conservative Catholic Church and has published a new book to help evangelize for it. (The book was was recently cheered on Twitter by no less than mega-church Pastor Rick Warren.)  This comes on the heels of years of working in the trenches building a conservative Catholic-Evangelical alliance that has culminated in The Manhattan Declaration, a manifesto attacking a series of progressive positions from contraception to marriage equality.

I’ve noted over and over again, Weigel is a Catholic neocon par excellence, having served as a leader of both the Institute on Religion and Democracy and Ethics Public Policy Center as well as being one of the original signatories of the Project for the New American Century.  

NBC‘s failure to disclose Weigel’s relevant affiliations and obvious biases violates the most basic standards of journalism.

As if any and all this were not enough, there is more that merits disclosure:  Notably, his service as an Adviser to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights headed by the bombastic William Donohue.Nightly News viewers might be taken aback by Donohue’s recent role in trying to obfuscate Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn’s misdemeanor conviction for failing to report suspected child abuse by Father Shawn Ratigan.

NBC viewers are also kept in the dark about Weigel’s disapproval of over a century Catholic economic principles.  And not only is he one of the most prominent Catholic neo-conservatives, he condescendingly dismisses those co-religionists who disagree with his orthodox Catholic vision as “Catholic Lite” or as being “a culture of dissent.” In essence, he is belittling the majority of American Catholics in one-way or another.

There are many good reasons why disclosure of potential bias if not conflict of interest is considered the minimum ethical standard for news organizations.

Weigel is, for example, using his analyst perch to subtlety advance his agenda. Consider this recent appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball (countered here at least by National Catholic Reporter editor, Tom Roberts). At the 1:21 mark, Weigel substitutes his desire for that of the Cardinals that the next pope continues in the more aggressive evangelization begun by John Paul II. (That Weigel is, in fact, selling a new book on the subject, went unmentioned.)  Later, at the 3:41 mark, he dissembles on priestly celibacy, speaking as if it always existed. As Tom Roberts pointed out, that was not the case.

To fully comprehend how far off the mark NBC is in failing to disclose their Vatican analyst’s outlook, just consider that even Fox News generally alerts its viewers of an on-air guest’s philosophical leanings.

Cardinal Dolan’s Neocon Cheerleader

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

Since Pope Benedict announced his resignation  only one of the potential successors  (Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi) offers hope for a more moderate papacy. So while conservatives are unlikely to be disappointed, prominent American Catholic neo-con Michael Novak is rooting for Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York.  Indeed, if Novak’s one man dream team were to ascend to the Chair of Saint Peter, neo-conservatives like Novak would have the ability influence world events beyond their wildest dreams.  

And if Novak’s dream comes true it would certainly involve the kind of  state-based faith and buccaneer capitalism I have written a lot about.  As typical of many American neocons, Novak began his political odyssey on the Socialist Left but over time, lurched over to the neoconservative Right.  But he is still a revolutionary in search of a revolution.

Novak is a hyper-libertarian when it comes to money but leans towards collective state power on individual morality. And yet there is something profoundly hypocritical about complaining about any state -role in economics while advocating state directed and enforced neo-orthodox Catholic morality. When it comes to business it’s “laissez-faire”, but individuals including (maybe especially) non-Catholics should be coerced into Novak’s neo-Catholic orthodoxy by the long arm of the law.

We should remember that neo-conservatism is built upon a three-legged stool of nationalism (as opposed to patriotism); laissez-faire capitalism (as opposed to the New Deal legacy variety); and religious orthodoxy (as opposed to religious neutrality). It is with this in mind that I must wonder about Novak’s recent cheerleading for Cardinal Dolan to become the Church’s next pope.

While Novak did not mention Cardinal Dolan by name it isn’t difficult to figure out who he wants running things from Vatican City. The neocon “philosopher” has declared, “it’s time for an English speaking candidate to be considered for the post.” After this was pointed out to Cardinal Dolan in a recent interview, with the added proviso “Novak was also referring to the cultural contribution a U.S. Pope could make acting as a crossroads between European and Hispanic cultures” Dolan replied, “Novak is a very intelligent person and what he says always makes sense.”  

For all of his jovial outward appearances, Gotham’s prelate is a vicious culture warrior. For example, when the Opus Dei bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Robert Finn, was taking heat from the group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), he joined Bill Donohue and the Catholic League in waging a scorched earth campaign against them, designed to drain it of money while scaring potential victims from cooperating with SNAP.  Novak, it should be noted, serves on the Catholic League’s Board of Advisors, along with other Catholic neocons. The Cardinal has also gone to war against the Affordable Care Act while blunting Catholic criticism of GOP Congressman Paul Ryan’s Ayn Rand, libertarian-inspired budget plan.

While Dolan might be the neconservative’s man, Novak’s cheer leading for him is about more than the papacy.  

It is no secret that neo-conservatism has taken a big hit since the debacle of the Iraq War and the halcyon days of  the Bush administration.  Indeed, some of the more pointed criticism of the 2003 invasion has come from the Vatican. Beyond that, much to neocon chagrin even the Papacy of Benedict XVI has denounced the libertarian economics favored by the likes of Robert George, George Weigel and Mr. Novak himself.

Short and sweet:  having a pope who speaks their language sure would help the Catholic necons rebound out of the doldrums.

Bishop Jenky Gets the Coveted Coughie!

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

Yes, it’s that time of the year, folks. It’s time for the presentation of the annual Coughlin Award.  The competition was stiff, but one Catholic Right mover and shaker stood out out from the crowd, head and shoulders above the rest.
 

The Coughlin Award — affectionately known as “The Coughie” — is our way of recognizing the person who has best exemplified an exclusionary, strident interpretation of the Catholic faith in the preceding year.  The award is named for Father Charles Coughlin, the notorious radio priest of the 1930s who is the role model for today’s Religious Right radio and television evangelists, and other conservative media personalities.

This year our judges had a small but distinguished field of candidates from which to choose. Of course there was last year’s winner, Catholic League head honcho Bill Donohue.  He,  along with 2011 honoree, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, used the occasion of the indictment of Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Finn for failing to report a priest of suspected pedophilia to launch a war of attrition against a victims’ advocacy group, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).  For their efforts, the dynamic duo were awarded (dis)honorable mentions.

The winner of this years’ Coughlin Award is Bishop Daniel Jenky, of Peoria, Illinois for his outstanding achievements in fanning the flames of the culture wars.  But before we discuss the words and deeds that catapulted him over the dynamic due, a few words about the coveted Coughie itself are in order.

The award’s namesake, Catholic priest and anti-Semitic broadcaster Fr. Charles Coughlin is best known for his diatribes against FDR, Judaism and his open sympathy with the racist policies of Adolph Hitler.  Such advocacy was clearly antithetical the very definition of the word “catholic,” which, according to Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary means:

   

Catholic Cath”o*lic\ (k[a^]th”[-o]*[i^]k), a. [L. catholicus, Gr. kaqoliko`s, universal, general; kata` down, wholly + "o`los whole, probably akin to E. solid: cf. F. catholique.]

    1. Universal or general; as, the catholic faith.

    Men of other countries [came] to bear their part in so great and catholic a war. -Southey.

    Note: This epithet, which is applicable to the whole Christian church, or its faith, is claimed by Roman Catholics to belong especially to their church, and in popular usage is so limited.

    *Not narrow-minded, partial, or bigoted; liberal; as, catholic tastes.

    *Of or pertaining to, or affecting the Roman Catholics; as, the Catholic emancipation act.

In order to win a Coughie, a candidate must successfully complete three qualifying tasks: 1) Make the faith decisively less inclusive 2) Engage in incendiary behavior and 3) Thereby ultimately embarrass the Church.

Now let’s take a look back at the pugnacious Peorian’s 2012 award winning performance.

Hands down, Bishop Jenky did his darned best to make Catholicism less inclusive.  Last April in a homily-screed aimed at the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that religious employers provide women with insurance coverage that pays for contraception he compared with Judas Isacariot who betrayed Jesus to the Romans, American Catholics who disagree with the hierarchy on the issue

May God have mercy especially on the souls of those politicians who pretend to be Catholic in church, but in their public lives, rather like Judas Iscariot, betray Jesus Christ by how they vote and how they willingly cooperate with intrinsic evil.

He then claimed that President Obama is following in the footsteps of Hitler and Stalin.

Hitler and Stalin at their better moments would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services and health care, in clear violation of our constitutional rights, president Obama with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path.

Such language easily satisfies award-winning requirements two (“engages in incendiary behavior”) and three (“ultimately embarrasses the Church”).  As I noted at the time:

…comparing President Obama to Hitler and Stalin is not merely a violation of Godwin’s Law, it is hurtful to those suffered at the hands of two of the worst tyrants of the twentieth century, not to mention their descendants. It is hard to beat Adolf Hitler when it comes to unspeakably brutal religious intolerance. Not only did he direct the murder six million Jews, but also he also similarly persecuted other people of faith. Jehovah’s  Witnesses and Christians such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fr. Maximilian Kolbe and Father Bronislaw Komorowski immediately come to mind. The Nazis destroyed untold numbers of Churches and synagogues.

On a smaller scale Stalin initiated his own ruthless  war on faith. The Soviet leader used the League of Militant Atheists as a mechanism to decimate churches, mosques and synagogues. Orthodox, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders were often murdered or imprisoned in Siberian gulags.

And to these examples of barbarity Bishop Jenky equates President Obama’s health care policy?

Judas. Hitler. Stalin. Jenky is a master of the classics. But his comments didn’t play well in or out of Peoria.   “There are few, if any, parallels in history to the religious intolerance and anti-Semitism fostered in society by Stalin, and especially Hitler,”  the director of Chicago’s Anti-Defamation League responded, “who under his regime perpetuated the open persecution and ultimate genocide of Jews, Catholics and many other minorities.”  Americans United for Separation of Church filed a complaint with the IRS that the bishop’s comments violate the federal tax code provision that bars churches and other non-profits from intervening in campains for elected office.

These episodes alone might have clinched the Coughie, but Jenky was not done. After all, it was an election year.

On October 31, 2012 Bishop Jenky released a letter that he ordered read at all Masses within his diocese the weekend before Election Day.  Among other things he alleged, he claimed, “I do not think there has ever been a time more threatening to our religious liberty than the present” because “Neither the president of the United States nor the current majority of the Federal Senate have been willing to even consider the Catholic community’s grave objections to those HHS mandates that would require all Catholic institutions, exempting only our church buildings, to fund abortion, sterilization, and artificial contraception.”

Dennis Coday of The National Catholic Reporter dryly noted, “If I am reading this right, I think he is ordering all Catholics to vote.” And knowing to which political party both the president and “the current majority of the Federal Senate” belong, you don’t have to be Fellini to figure how he wanted his flock to vote!

Bradley University political science professor Emily Gil pointed out in thePeoria Star Journal;  ”the Catholic Church can do whatever it wants to do with its own money, but not with the public’s money” — particularly when hospitals and other Church-affiliated agencies are using federal funds.

I give you the winner of this year’s Coughlin Award:  Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria, Illinois.

Who Knew that the Catholic Bishops Support Gun Control?

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

Last Friday, in the small Connecticut town of Newtown, a disturbed young man who should never had access to an assault rifle murdered his mother, six educators, twenty children and then himself.  In a frighteningly brief period a nation was plunged into grief.

What is now needed is greater restrictions on assault weapons, perhaps with a buyback of those weapons that are still accessible to other would-be deranged gunmen. Of course this will trigger outcries of those who claim their Second Amendment Rights are being trampled upon. There is one force that can effectively answer this false charge if they choose to do so: Cardinal Dolan and the Catholic bishops. Will they use that power? So far, they have not.

As a Catholic, I wish the leaders of my Church would join in efforts to protect our families and our communities against such tragedies as Newtown, Aurora and Columbine.  I am disappointed by their silence so far.  Indeed, they have been so quiet that many Americans will be surprised to learn that the Catholic Church officially favors gun control. The Vatican position is described in an article posted at U.S. Catholic.org aptly entitled, “Gun control: Church Firmly, Quietly Opposes Firearms for Civilians.”  The article refers to a statement the U.S. Bishops’ November 2000 document, “Responsibility, Rehabilitation and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice”:

“As bishops, we support measures that control the sale and use of firearms and make them safer — especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children or anyone other than the owner — and we reiterate our call for sensible regulation of handguns.”

That’s followed by a footnote that states:  ”However, we believe that in the long run and with few exceptions — i.e. police officers, military use — handguns should be eliminated from our society.”

“But who knew,”Maureen Fielder wondered in The National Catholic Reporter, “they even had a position?”

Buoyed by the thinking of Catholic libertarians such as Robert Sirico and Thomas Woods, and Catholic neoconservatives, an anarcho-capitalism has taken hold of this society where safety nets and even a sense of noblesse oblige has been discarded by many of society’s more economically powerful. As a result they (and too often we) lose touch with one another; discard respect for human dignity; and too often lose any sense of belonging in human society. Many of us no long see each other. We see commodities to be opportunistically used for personal advancement.  That violence would result in such an environment; is no surprise. Life is becoming cheaper.

But the libertarian and neoconservative Catholic factions that have exerted such influence on the Bishops have ignored a basic Catholic tenet: That all rights and private property are not absolute, but often come with a social mortgage. Property rights cease being defensible when they are no longer used in pursuit of basic goods (food, clothing, health) or are innocuous — but when they become agents of destruction, infringing on the basic rights of others. That, as Aurora and Newtown have demonstrated, is the case with assault rifles such as the AR-15 and other semi-automatic weapons – weapons designed for military applications, but are also turned on our communities and ourselves — while the Cardinal Dolan and the Bishops remain quiet.

This detachment from others manifests itself in crime or in the willingness to let assault weapons be marketed for profit in spite of the fact their primary purpose is to kill human beings with speed and efficiency. We now know that the gunman got the AR-16 assault rifle from his mother who purchased it because she feared a supposed coming economic Armageddon. Instead her own disturbed child murdered her with the weapon before he went to the Sandy Hook elementary school, apparently bent on slaughtering children.

Roman Catholic theology has long spoken of dignity being tied directly to a decent wage; good health care; retirement insurance. Based upon Aristotelian notions of respect, friendship and personality, these goods form the foundations of truer basic American principles such as to be free from fear and want.

An obvious extension of this proposition is that six and seven year-old children and their teachers have a right to learn in schools free from fear of slaughter by people armed with the kind weapons we use on our worst enemies in war. Can we end all such shootings with gun control? No, but it would be a start to try to reduce both the occurrences and severities of such incidents.

Some Catholic leaders, such as the Jesuits via the steady voice of James Martin, SJ and Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley have had the wisdom and foresight to speak out about the need for gun control.  But we also need to hear from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.  They could take a page from Father Martin:

“To put the matter bluntly, if one is in favor of protecting the unborn–and advocate for them, march in protest on their behalf, donate money to pro-life groups and encourage voting for legislators who protect the unborn-one should be equally in favor of protecting those lives six and seven years out of the womb, the ages of several of the children murdered last week in Connecticut.”

USCCB President Timothy Dolan issued a call for prayers for the victims and their families. While this is appropriate, it is insufficient.

(It is also worth noting that William Donohue and company at the Catholic Leauge are as of this writing, keeping themselves busy with their imagined “War on Christmas.”)

This brings us back to the matter of human dignity, which the USCCB seems to relegate more to embryos than those who bring them into the world, and into the society in which they will live.  

This brings me to my central point: If any one group can effectively begin breaking the NRA’s stranglehold on our government it is the Catholic bishops. No amount of Wayne LaPierre’s 527 funds can adversely affect the elevation of clergy as it can with those running for elected office. Cardinal Dolan has the ability to restore sanity to the question of gun ownership by calling for an assault weapons ban, more stringent background checks and by the closing of gun show loopholes. As president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops he now holds in his hands the power to deal a long overdue blow not only to gun violence, but its great enabler, economic libertarianism.

The disturbing question must now be raised: Has the American Catholic hierarchy acquiesced to movement conservatism on issues such as economics and gun violence in exchange for its support on culture war issues? Is there a quid pro quo between America’s Catholic Right and today’s secular Right, one that accepts a tacit agreement that if the Church is helped prosecuting its culture war agenda the current hierarchy will not interfere with the prosecution of a dog-eat-dog economic agenda, one that extends to the unfettered sale of assault weapons?

So I can’t help but wonder how and why the leaders of my church have come so far from their unequivocal 1975 statement, Handgun Violence: A Threat To Life, Statement on Gun Control..  

I also can’t help but wonder about their silence.

Robert W. Finn, Will You Please Go Now?

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The well-connected conservative culture warrior, Robert W. Finn, still leads the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri more than three months after being convicted of failing to report suspected child abuse.  This has led to a growing unease inside and outside of the Church that the problems that led to shocking child sex abuse scandals and high level coverups, are far from over.

The New York Times recently reported:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – In the three months since Bishop Robert W. Finn became the first American prelate convicted of failing to report a pedophile priest, lay people and victims’ advocates have repeatedly called for his resignation.

Now, recent interviews and a private survey by a company working for the Roman Catholic diocese here show for the first time that a significant number of the bishop’s own priests have lost confidence in him.

But of course Finn still has his defenders, including one conservative priest who said, “Yes, there is a divide in the presbyterate, but in my opinion it’s the same old tired divide that has existed from the day he arrived.” He added, “In a word, some of the priests wish that we had a more liberal bishop, and they are willing to use any means to achieve that end.”

And then of course, there is the ever-full-of-bluster, Catholic League president, William Donohue.

Donohue, never one to let the facts get in the way of defending the indefensible, recently responded to the Times article. In a December 3, 2012 op-ed in the Albany Tribune, entitled, “Bishop Finn and the Catholic Left,” he dissembled once again, trying to frame the issue as solely one of a battle between conservative and liberal Catholics:

The Times says that Finn’s conviction of a misdemeanor “stemmed from his failure to report the Rev. Shawn Ratigan to the authorities after hundreds of pornographic pictures that Father Ratigan had taken of young girls were discovered on his laptop in December 2010.”

That statement is factually wrong. On October 15, 2011 the Times mentioned there was “a single photo of a young girl, nude from the waist down,” and “hundreds of photographs of children” showing “upskirt images and images focused on the crotch.”

Continuing directly, he made this incredible statement:

Now anyone who takes such pictures is clearly disturbed. But it also needs to be said that crotch shots are not pornographic. Moreover, the diocese described the “single photo” of a naked girl to a police officer who served on the diocesan sexual review board, and he said it did not constitute pornography. So why would the Times say that “hundreds of pornographic pictures” were found two years ago this month? The record shows that it was not until after the diocese called the cops in May 2011 that porn pictures were found on Ratigan’s computer.

He concluded by claiming, “In short, Bishop Finn deserves better. The attack on him, coming exclusively from the Catholic Left, smacks of an agenda.”

This is nonsense. Writing for The Religion News Service on December 4, 2012 Mark Silk pointed out that in fact, the picture was indeed defined as “pornography” in a report prepared for the diocese.

Silk added:

That’s not just pornography, Bill, it’s the kind of child abuse that is supposed to get a priest reported to the civil authorities. How do I know this? It’s right there in the USCCB’s Rome-approved “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” which mandates compliance with civil reporting statutes for the “grave delict” of “the acquisition, possession, or distribution by a cleric of pornographic images of minors under the age of fourteen, for purposes of sexual gratification, by whatever means or using any technology.”

Donohue’s argument about “the Catholic Left” also holds no water. There are conservative Opus Dei bishops leading the dioceses of Brooklyn-Queens and Newark. Another very conservative bishop presides over the Archdiocese of Los Angeles while Catholic Right culture warrior Archbishop Chaput presides in Philadelphia. In none of these locales is there any such call for resignation as there is in Kansas City. Why?  Because the issue is one that should transcend politics: child abuse.

On the same day as Donohue’s piece, Michael Sean Winters in the National Catholic Reporter put it best:

Today is December 3. On September 6, Bishop Robert Finn was convicted in civil court of failing to report an instance of child sexual abuse. Not only is Finn now serving a suspended sentence, he is in violation of the Dallas Charter the bishops adopted ten years ago to confront the sex abuse crisis. Three months. Bishop Finn is still the Bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph. The Vatican is said to want the American bishops to exert fraternal correction and get Finn to step down. The US bishops are said to be waiting for the Vatican to move. Enough already. Someone do something.

There does indeed however, appear to be a political angle at play in this whole sad episode. But Donohue doth protest too much.  If there is a political impulse affecting Finn’s status, it is coming from the neoconservative Catholic Right, not the Catholic Left — beginning with Bill Donohue!

Finn’s stepping down would, perhaps coincidentally, remove a high-profile conservative voice from a Mid-Western bastion of liberal thought. Kansas City is also a center for  Post-Keynesian economics (antithetical to neocon Catholics) particularly among the faculty at the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC). The school also serves as home base for the Keynesian-based Center for Full Employment and Price Stability as well as Savings and Loan regulator and Roosevelt Institute fellow, Bill Black who serves as an associate professor of economics.  And as I have previously pointed out, Finn is  one of a number of outspokenly conservative prelates in liberal locales.

In any case, “If Finn remains at the helm of Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese,” I previously wrote, “the Vatican will essentially be telling the faithful that they care far more about high profile reactionary leaders, and little to nothing about the rest of us.” And as the recent New York Times story reminds us, “Only the pope can remove a bishop from office.”

Fidelis’s CatholicVote.org Enbraces the Apostate Glenn Beck and More!

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The Tom Monaghan-linked group Fidelis which has seemingly dabbled in financial fiddling seems to be at it again. It’s political affiliate, CatholicVote.org is employing Catholic Right culture war memes to help elect Mitt Romney to the presidency – while also falsely casting economic libertarianism as the basis of the Church’s understanding of Social Justice.

We’ll talk about that in a moment, but let’s first call on Glenn Beck to help us set the stage.

One would think that Glenn Beck should be the last person to instruct American Catholics on how to vote in the upcoming election. After all, Beck is the former Fox television talk-show host who gave religious folks an odd admonition:

“I’m begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words.  Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!”

Now, a few oddly influential neocons or libertarians notwithstanding, economic justice is a cornerstone of Catholicism, especially since 1891 papal encyclical Rerum Novarum.  This means the right for workers to organize; the right to a living wage; and the belief that labor is not to be treated as a mere commodity.  This has been repeatedly reaffirmed, most recently in the papal encyclical Caritas in Veritate.

I guess no one should be surprised that Mr. Beck abandoned Catholicism to become a Mormon in 1999 because “For me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn’t work...”

The actual Catholic view of economic justice is as lost on the folks at CatholicVote.org as it is on the apostate, Glenn Beck.  So much so, that the group created a September 25th town hall call-in event designed to reach Catholic voters centered around the self-described “Rodeo Clown” in the hope of roping them into the GOP.  Uncoincidentally, the group’s the group’s president, Brian Burch, took a leave of absence to work for the Romney campaign.

As previously noted, CatholicVote.org is a project of Fidelis (it may have superseded Fidelis itself as its web site no longer exists)

Fidelis is currently affiliated with Champion the Vote, a project of United in Purpose (UIP), which has been quietly financing and organizing a revived, dynamic religious right. Who makes up UIP’s leadership? The Los Angeles Times reports, “Most of its financial supporters remain anonymous, but one of its main backers is technology entrepreneur Ken Eldred, a generous Republican donor. Its board includes Reid Rutherford, a Silicon Valley solar-energy plant developer.”

UIP is the group that bankrolled at least American Family Association’s involvement in the Perry prayer rally – an event that featured prominent anti-Catholic New Apostolic Reformation ministers.

There seems to be some hypocrisy here. Conservative Catholics and conservative evangelical Protestants both oppose reproductive rights; marriage equality; and embryonic stem cell research. Those issues are consistent with the Vatican hierarchy. But with that said, CatholicVote.org is clearly out of sync with Rome – and the larger Church — on economics and environmental stewardship.

This disconnect was readily apparent by their town hall event featuring none other than… the apostate Glenn Beck!

This disconnect is evident right on the CatholicVote.org’s “Issues” page on its web site where culture war hot button issues – marriage, for example – are prominently featured.

But also front and center is an an essay in the “Taxes and Government” by Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor of The National Review, complaining about how entitlements for the elderly are financed. The link to Economic Justice features a brief essay authored by Samuel Gregg, Director of Research for the libertarian Acton Institute.  And the link to Environmental Stewardship while darkly warning of the “worship of nature” makes no mention at all of global warming.

Let’s consider Samuel Gregg a little further. He is also affiliated with the anti-regulation, libertarian Atlas Economic Research Foundation.  A past president of Atlas once said its mission “is to litter the world with free-market think-tanks.” To that end, major funders include Exxon-Mobil ($500,000 since 1998) and Koch family foundations (1997-2008: $122,300). Other similarly-minded contributors include the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the Earhart Foundation (Harry B. Earhart, who started the foundation, funded much of the work of libertarian icon economist Friedrich von Hayek).

Ramesh Ponnuru’s leading role at The National Review speaks for itself.  But he comes from good libertarian stock. He served as a fellow of  The Institute of Economic Affairs , which also gave birth to Atlas. The Institute was founded by another Hayak benefactor, Antony Fisher.

By clicking on “Educational Freedom” we find an essay by Kevin Schmiesing calling for the public funding of vouchers for private school tuition. Who is Mr. Schmiesing? He is a research fellow at the Acton Institute.

Economic libertarianism is anything but synonymous with the principles of Catholic Social Justice. Indeed, it is its antithesis. It is a theory in which workers are commodities and should not be paid much beyond subsistence. I suspect that advancing this belief under the guise of religious freedom (for the hierarchy, that is) is what CatholicVote.org’s agenda is ultimately about.

Writing in his recent book, The “Poisoned Spring” of Economic Libertarianism: Menger, Mises, Hayek, Rothbard: a Critique From Catholic Social Teaching of the ‘Austrian school’ of Economics, Catholic economic author Angus Sibley noted:

Most practical methods of reducing inequalities are repugnant to libertarians. Labor unions are hated because they obstruct the worker’s freedom to agree his own contract with his employer. Minimum wage rates are another blasphemy against the divine free market, whose worshippers assert, against much historical evidence, that fixed minima “inevitably” reduce the demand for labor and so cause unemployment. Redistributive taxation (higher tax rates on higher personal incomes) “is a mode of disguised expropriation of successful capitalists and entrepreneurs” according to Mises, while his admirer Murray Rothbard stated that “Taxation is Robbery” and that “the libertarian favors the right to unrestricted private property and free-exchange”.

He also wrote:

Catholic teaching flatly repudiates all that nonsense. Leo XIII (Rerum Novarum, §45) spoke of “a dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner”, and he strongly commended (#49) workers’ associations, of which “the most important of all are workingmen’s unions.” John Paul II (Centesimus Annus, §20) observed that “unions… are indeed a mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice, for the just rights of working people.”

It is a sham, (arguably self-satire), for any organization that purports to inform Catholic voters of where the Church stands to try to sell them unCatholic ideas. But then again, to understand why CatholicVote.org engages in such mendacity one only need to follow the money — and Glenn Beck!