The Practicing Progressive

Oh no, not again!

It appears one more conservative icon has fallen off the politically appropriate pedestal. Only this time the fall wasn’t caused by an Argentine mistress, a co-worker’s wife, a too narrow bathroom stall or even a ditzy farewell address. No, this symbol of sanctified esteem fell from old-school prominence primarily because he began espousing New Deal-like principles and down-right leftist leanings.

Such treasonous behavior to the traditionalist cause can be found throughout the fallen hero’s 28,000 word document released just this past Tuesday under the decidedly un-American sounding title of “Caritas In Veritate”. Surely the fervently faithful followers of laissez faire capitalism must cringe when they read of their former champion’s call for a “redistribution of wealth” and an international governing body that would oversee and regulate world economies.

That rumble you hear is Milton Friedman rolling over in his grave.

Ronald Reagan may be doing the same if word gets to him of what our writer thinks of the old “trickle-down” system of social welfare: “business management cannot concern itself only with the interests of the proprietors, but must also assume responsibility for all the other stakeholders who contribute to the life of the business: the workers, the clients, the suppliers of various elements of production, the community of reference.”

And listen to this...” The economy needs ethics in order to function correctly — not any ethics whatsoever, but an ethics which is people-centered.” Was that Ayn Rand who just started spinning?

Wait! There’s more. “The development of peoples depends, above all, on a recognition that the human race is a single family working together in true communion, not simply a group of subjects who happen to live side by side.” If that isn’t leftist lingo I don’t know what is.

Here’s just one more example of why our conservative friends and enemies are wringing their hands and shaking their heads...” there is urgent need of a true world political authority.” A New World Order! What more evidence does one need to see how a hero of the right has become so wrong?

By now, of course, you have discerned that the source of disappointment among conservatism’s disciples is Pope Benedict XVI’s third encyclical that certainly challenges much of conventional conservative thinking. It must be more than a little disconcerting for folk who have been under the impression that the Catholic Church in America was essentially the Republican Party at prayer to discover that the Pope isn’t in their political pulpit.
Those who thought they had America’s Catholics locked into the conservative cause are starting to question their presumptions. When a Jesuit priest, Father Thomas Reese, writing in the Washington Post states that “…he (Benedict) is to the left of almost every politician in America.” … you have to think that conservatives have to re-think. The current school of thought that has Evangelicals and Catholics united under the Republican banner is beginning to realize it is time to go back to class.

Of course, liberals have done their share of fulfilling the old saw that says when one presumes to assume they make only an ass out of u and me. Any student of recent history is well aware that the old rules no longer apply. Labor has left the liberal fold, an African-American heads the Republican Party and the Democratic South long ago went south.

Still, this week’s declaration by Pope Benedict may have some sitting on the left side of the aisle in Congress searching for a seat at this Sunday’s Mass.