At 11:01 PM 6/13/01, John D. Giorgis wrote:
>At 12:50 AM 6/10/01 -0500 Ronn Blankenship wrote:
> >P.S. I'm still curious if the following quote refers to "Roman Catholic"
> >social thought and if so, why specifically that denomination?
> >
> >> >
> >> > "Compassionate conservatism is the way to reconcile the two most vital
> >> > conservative intellectual traditions: libertarianism & Catholic social
> >> > thought."
> >> > -Michael Gerson, advisor to George W. Bush
>
>To be perfectly honest, I don't know, having not met Michael Gerson. I
>personally find the quote appealing as the balance between my
>libertarianism and my Catholic background in social justice has been a
>rather back-and-forth battle in the past. Since the advent of George W.
>Bush on the national scene, however, I feel like I have been making very
>large refinements in my personal beliefs - refinements that are largely in
>line with Bush's "compassionate conservatism," and that reconcile the two
>intellectual traditions cited above.
>
>Nevertheless, the quote does specifically refer to "Roman Catholic" social
>teaching Here is some speculation on my part as to why:
>
>1) They really isn't that much of a "Protestant Social Teaching" (and the
>Orthodox Community in the USA is so small, that it wouldn't make sense to
>talk about "Orthodox Catholic social thought" as being an important
>intellectual tradition.) I know that the focus of Catholics on social
>justice is a major dividing point between Protestants and Catholics.
>
>2) There is also a blatantly political reason for this. There is no
>question that Catholics currently constitute a major swing-voting bloc.
>Although an over-simplification, Catholics are generally portrayed as being
>torn between voting for their pro-life and pro-family inclinations on the
>right, or their anti-death-penalty and social justice inclinations on the
>Left. Moreover, Bush having been barely elected by a solid bloc of
>Southern electoral votes, clearly needs to find some new electoral votes if
>he hopes to win in 2004. There are an awful lot of Catholics in
>potential swing states like PA and MI, and the Bush Administration has been
>unabashed about actively wooing the Catholic vote from Day 1 in Office.
>
>3) Conservatism has long had some very strong ties to the Roman Catholic
>Church. I am guessing that part of this is the influence of William F.
>Buckley, a godfather of mothern conservatism, as well as founder and editor
>emiritus of the incredibly influential _National Review_ magazine.
IMO, "Catholic social thought" sounds like he is only trying to appeal to
members of that particular denomination, whereas something like "Christian
social thought" (or the standard phrase "Christian values") would have come
across as more inclusive, especially as a majority of US believers in
Christ are not members of a denomination that calls itself
"Catholic" (Roman or otherwise) and may feel excluded by his remarks. So
I was wondering why he used that particular
phrase, or if, just for example, "Catholic social thought" might perhaps be
a "code phrase" meaning "anti-abortion."
I guess there are worse examples he could have picked if he wanted a group
of believers in Christ who are generally thought of as conservative: for
instance, had he said "Mormon social thought," many people would probably
have thought he was advocating plural marriage, even though that practice
has not been taught by the LDS Church for over a century . . .
-- Ronn! :)
