Daniel Henninger quotes Paul Ryan's explanation of how Catholic social teaching influenced his budget proposal:
"A person's faith is central to how they conduct themselves in public and in private. So to me, using my Catholic faith, we call it the social magisterium, which is how do you apply the doctrine of your teaching into your everyday life as a lay person?
"To me, the principle of subsidiarity . . . meaning government closest to the people governs best . . . where we, through our civic organizations, through our churches, through our charities, through all of our different groups where we interact with people as a community, that's how we advance the common good. By not having big government crowd out civic society, but by having enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities.
"Those principles are very, very important, and the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenets of Catholic social teaching, means don't keep people poor, don't make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life. Help people get out of poverty out onto a life of independence."
Predictably this has outraged the Catholic left, which basically equates CST with the Democrat Party platform.
Personally, I agree with Rob Vischer that CST is incapable of "easy categorization."
Having said that, however, I think it is essential that Catholic conservatives like Ryan articulate an alternative interpretation of CST that departs from the left-liberal conventional wisdom.
As with all of the Church’s ordinary teaching, the faithful “are to adhere to [the social teaching] with religious assent.” United States Catholic Conference, Catechism of the Catholic Church ¶ 892 (2d ed. 1997). Yet, the church encourages lay initiative “especially when the matter involves discovering or inventing the means for permeating social, political, and economic realities with the demands of Christian doctrine and life.” Id. at 899.
Mark Sargent observed that “the Catholic university—and hence, the Catholic law school—is where the Church does its thinking.” Mark A. Sargent, An Alternative to the Sectarian Vision: The Role of the Dean in an Inclusive Catholic Law School, 33 Univ. Toledo L. Rev. 171, 181 (2001). In my view, one properly may generalize Sargent’s proposition to the believing laity as a whole. Hence, it is the task of Catholic intellectuals to exercise critical reflective judgment with respect to society, the Church, and the relationship between the two.
An active and critical role for the laity seems especially important with respect to economic life. To be sure, when it comes to issues such as the degree of state intervention in the economy, for example, the Church outlines basic principles but recognizes substantial latitude with respect to their translation into public policy. Nowhere, for example, does the Church state what percentage of the economy should by controlled by the state, thus leaving a great deal of room for prudential judgment by Catholics.
Nevertheless, as Michael Novak has noted, the Catholic hierarchy tends to be poorly trained in economics and inexperienced with the business world. They “are likely to inherit either a pre-capitalist or a frankly socialist set of ideals about political economy.” Michael Novak, Toward a Theology of the Corporation 59 (rev. ed.1990). Consequently, the hierarchy is “more likely to err in this territory [i.e., economic justice] than in most others.” Id. at 12.
Thoughtful and faithful applications and critiques of the social teaching from Catholics like Paul Ryan are thus essential to ensure that that teaching remains resistant to “easy characterization.”
