A Dangerous New Day

In his Wall Street Journal column last week, on Paul Ryan’s battle with critics of his budget plan on moral principles, Bill McGurn quotes Dorothy Day: “We believe that Social Security legislation, now billed as a great victory for the poor and for the worker, is a great defeat for Christianity. It is an acceptance of the idea of force and compulsion.”

Yup. That Dorothy Day.
It’s a dangerous thing when politics tries to co-opt holiness. Because it is the holy that will ultimately set us free.
I am reminded of a column from not that long ago that appeared on CNN’s website, suggesting that some of us will stand in the way of Day ever being named a saint, because she had an abortion before her conversion.
Some things, though, are more important than politics.
And sincerely tending to those eternal matters make our politics better — when they are not simply cynical, utilitarian, or simply spin.