tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post9019697109776708577..comments2024-03-06T03:15:58.539-05:00Comments on <b>THE NEW REFORM CLUB</b>: Jean Elshtain on the orientation of Catholic social theoryHunter Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14961831404331998743noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-24140523783769713732015-06-23T01:25:38.208-04:002015-06-23T01:25:38.208-04:00Well put, Tom. Pope Francis should appoint to to b...Well put, Tom. Pope Francis should appoint to to be one of his advisors! You are spot on about Catholic social teaching being grounded in natural law -- in many ways it is simply natural law applied though the lens of the Beatitudes. IMHO.Mark D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/05000893614655251587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-92117983155244516892015-06-10T01:10:03.205-04:002015-06-10T01:10:03.205-04:00The elegant classicist, the Jewish and/or atheist ...The elegant classicist, the Jewish and/or atheist [not mutually exclusive terms] philosopher Leo Strauss once respectfully referred to "Roman Catholic social science." Since Uncle Leo had that 3000-year stare, and saw everything in terms of Moses or Plato, that "Roman Catholic social science" even merited a mention at the philosophical table, let alone respect, rather floored me.<br /><br />As for "Roman Catholic social science," it must be built upon natural law. it's gotta work in the real world. It's all more a question of means; all are agreed on the ends. Poverty = bad. Pollution = bad. Murder = bad.<br /><br /><i>The Church does not have technical solutions to offer and does not claim “to interfere in any way in the politics of States.”</i><br /><br />said Pope Ratzinger in <i>Caritas in Veritate</i>, and this must be kept in mind whenever the laundry list of all the world's troubles is trotted out, for which, of course, the left has its matching list of statist solutions.<br /><br />As for poverty, the question isn't whether there should be a "preferential option for the poor" as Francis puts it, but what's the best means to feed them. Normative Catholic teaching hasn't yet caught up with the fact that free-market economics--capitalism, if you will--has done more to lessen poverty than any coercive redistribution scheme* [in fact, the latter often causes poverty].<br /><br />Natural law is still the operative dynamic in the Catholic regard for the matters of this world, and "the invisible hand" works. [Natural law requires that its suppositions are borne out in reality.] It is not disloyal to the Pope or the Church for Weigel and the "theo-cons" to argue the Church must update economic principles that were formulated in the early days of the Industrial Revolution.<br /><br />___________________<br />*http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-billion-people-have-been-taken-out-extreme-poverty-20-years-world-should-aim<br /><br /><br />IN HIS inaugural address in 1949 Harry Truman said that “more than half the people in the world are living in conditions approaching misery. For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and skill to relieve the suffering of those people.” It has taken much longer than Truman hoped, but the world has lately been making extraordinary progress in lifting people out of extreme poverty. Between 1990 and 2010, their number fell by half as a share of the total population in developing countries, from 43% to 21%—a reduction of almost 1 billion people.<br /><br />...<br /><br />Most of the credit, however, must go to capitalism and free trade, for they enable economies to grow—and it was growth, principally, that has eased destitution.<br /><br />Poverty rates started to collapse towards the end of the 20th century largely because developing-country growth accelerated, from an average annual rate of 4.3% in 1960-2000 to 6% in 2000-10...<br />Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.com