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April 23, 2004

Dems are Better Catholics

Okay, I'm not that into claiming religious piety for political parties, but the whole assault on Kerry for betraying his Catholicism because of his pro-choice voting record is unbelievable coming from pro-death penalty, anti-welfare Republicans.

So it's great some Dem leaders have prepared a Catholic Voting Scorecard that shows Dem legislators better reflecting Church teachings than their GOP comrades. The Catholic Church has very explicit doctrine supporting the right to organize unions and a range of other economic issues that GOP political leaders love to ignore.

It might be worth remembering the Economic Justice for All pastoral letter produced by US Catholic Bishops back in the mid-1980s. It has tough positions on economic justice such as:

Employers are obligated to treat their employees as persons, paying them fair wages in exchange for the work done and establishing conditions and patterns of work that are truly human...

Minimum material resources are an absolute necessity for human life. If persons are to be recognized as members of the human community, then the community has an obligation to help fulfill these basic needs unless an absolute scarcity of resources makes this strictly impossible. No such scarcity exists in the United States today...

Where the effects of past discrimination persist, society has an obligation to take positive steps to overcome the legacy of injustice. Judiciously administered affirmative action programs in education and employment can be important expressions of the drive for solidarity and participation that is at the heart of true justice...

For example, a system of taxation based on assessment according to ability to pay is a prime necessity for the fulfillment of these social obligations...

A number of human rights also concern human welfare and are of a specifically economic nature. First among these are the rights to life, food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, and basic education. These are indispensable to the protection of human dignity...All persons also have a right to security in the event of sickness, unemployment, and old age...

"The needs of the poor take priority over the desires of the rich; the rights of workers over the maximization of profits; the preservation of the environment over uncontrolled industrial expansion; the production to meet social needs over production for military purposes"...

The Church fully supports the right of workers to form unions or other associations to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions...Unions may also legitimately resort to strikes where this is the only available means to the justice owed to workers [59]. No one may deny the right to organize without attacking human dignity itself. Therefore, we firmly oppose organized efforts, such as those regrettably now seen in this country, to break existing unions and prevent workers from organizing. Migrant agricultural workers today are particularly in need of the protection, including the right to organize and bargain collectively. U.S. labor law reform is needed to meet these problems as well as to provide more timely and effective remedies for unfair labor practices.

Yes, many Catholic Democratic leaders deviate from Catholic doctrine on abortion, but most Catholic GOP leaders are in massive violation of the Church's economic doctrines.

Catholic voters are probably as mixed in both their private adherence and public attitudes on the range of Church teachings, so maybe it would be better for all involved if the religious litmus tests were taken out of the public debate and personal piety remain a question of private faith.

Posted by Nathan at April 23, 2004 09:03 AM