CNA<\/a>).- In a recent debate, two Catholic commentators disagreed over how large a role government should play in exercising society's responsibility to assist the impoverished.<\/p>\n\tFather Robert Sirico, a priest of the Grand Rapids diocese and co-founder of the Acton Institute, a conservative think tank, said government should be kept small. He also stated that free markets \u2013 capitalist economies free from government interventions \u2013 will be strong enough to naturally care for the poor.<\/p>\n
\tThe Jan. 28 debate between Fr. Sirico and Michael Sean Winters, a writer with the National Catholic Reporter, occurred on the campus of the University of Colorado at Boulder.<\/p>\n
\tIt was hosted by The Aquinas Institute for Catholic Thought, an arm of the university's parish which aims to \u201cpromote the Catholic intellectual tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tDuring his remarks, Winters countered that a \u201crobust social welfare program,\u201d run by a government representing \u201cour collective moral action,\u201d is needed to correct the dangers posed by the unregulated competition of a free market.<\/p>\n
\tAhead of the debate, however, Fr. Sirico told CNA that \u201cproper moral formation\u201d can help the free market to adequately care for the poor.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThat people act in ways where they have a sense of common decency, and are allowed to see the full effects of their decisions. That will tutor people on how what they do affects others. Moreover\u2026we shouldn't have the kind of interventions of government, and charities, that empower immorality, that subsidize vice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tHe added that modern welfare systems, and \u201ceven some of our Catholic charities\u2026reduce the human person to a mere material object.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tBy focusing solely on material needs and neglecting love, solidarity, and the call to a moral life, Fr. Sirico believes that charitable acts can actually harm society and the poor.<\/p>\n
\tThe priest said during the debate that with the \u201coverarching ethical orientation\u201d a capitalist economy needs, it can provide for the needs of the poor. No solution, he said, will \u201cget around the necessity of morally transforming society.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tHe maintained that the free market is \u201cmorally neutral\u201d and that the human actors in the market must bring good morals to it.<\/p>\n
\tIn his comments, Winters countered Fr. Sirico's argument by saying that free markets actually do carry a value system with them.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe market does demand a certain value structure,\u201d he stated. He pointed out that if one business owner pays his employees a living wage \u201cbecause it's the Christian thing to do\u201d and his competitor does not, \u201cthe market is not going to reward you for your generosity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tWinters said that \u201cthe point is, we have an economic system that creates disincentives to act in a Christian manner \u2013 it is not morally neutral,\u201d as Fr. Sirico had said.<\/p>\n
\tPope Pius XI's 1931 encyclical \u201cQuadragesimo anno\u201d offered criticisms of both capitalist and communist economies, and spoke strongly against unregulated capitalism. The pontiff suggested that \u201cunlimited freedom of struggle among competitors\u201d rewards those \u201cwho give least heed to their conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tFr. Sirico said that \u201cmy approach doesn't fall under the condemnation of Pius XI\u201d because \u201cI am arguing against that kind of idea.\u201d He said that he is not defending laissez-faire capitalism.<\/p>\n
\tFor all their disagreements, the debaters were able to find common ground. Both uphold the right to private property and want Christianity to inform people's decision-making.<\/p>\n
\tWinters just believes this will be done better through government intervention in the economy, and Fr. Sirico would leave it up to individual choice.<\/p>\n
\tIn interviews before the debate, Fr. Sirico and Winters were both dismissive of distributism as an alternative to capitalism. Developed in large part by the English Catholic writer G. K. Chesterton, distributism upholds the right to private property but seeks to spread the ownership of capital more widely, through promotion of small and employee-owned businesses.<\/p>\n
\tWhile he believes distributism \u201cis one of the legitimate approaches to an economy,\u201d Fr. Sirico also thinks there are problems with it, calling it more of a \u201cmoral, aesthetic critique of forms of crass capitalism\u201d than \u201can economic system.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAnd Winters expressed having \u201ca hard time seeing how we get from here, to any of the distributivist proposals I'm familiar with.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThat afternoon, Winters said he looked forward to the evening's debate because \u201cit's really vital that Catholics engage each other\u2026because there are tensions on both sides of the political ledger that are quite willing to divide the Church to achieve political ambitions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cAll of us, we have to discover again how to have internal conversations, because the Church cannot be divided.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tHe said he was thankful for the \u201cincredibly vibrant campus ministry\u201d at the University of Colorado for organizing the debate and providing an atmosphere of charitable disagreement.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWhat is absolute, what is non-negotiable, and intrinsic, is the obligation to help the poor,\u201d Winters stated during the debate.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cBut there is room for disagreement about how we can achieve that. And that discussion has to be conducted with charity so we can learn from each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
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Boulder, Colo., Jan 31, 2013 \/ 02:02 am (CNA).- In a recent debate, two Catholic commentators disagreed over how large a role government should play in exercising society's responsibility to assist the impoverished.<\/p>\n
\tFather Robert Sirico, a pries…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\n
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