{"id":101755,"date":"2018-01-02T00:16:37","date_gmt":"2018-01-02T07:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=101755"},"modified":"2018-01-03T11:37:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T18:37:00","slug":"bp-mcelroy-speaks-perfect-orthodoxy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2018\/01\/bp-mcelroy-speaks-perfect-orthodoxy.html","title":{"rendered":"Bp. McElroy speaks with perfect orthodoxy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump was the candidate of disruption. He was the disrupter, he said. Well now, we must all become disrupters. We must disrupt those who would seek to send troops into our streets to deport the undocumented, to rip mothers and fathers from their families. We must disrupt those who portray refugees as enemies rather than our brothers and sisters in terrible need. We must disrupt those who train us to see Muslim men and women and children as sources of fear rather than as children of God. We must disrupt those who seek to rob our medical care, especially from the poor. We must disrupt those who would take even food stamps and nutrition assistance from the mouths of children.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2026and because he does, he is intensely hated, like the Holy Father\u2013and like Christ who said \u201cBlessed are the poor\u201d and \u201cWoe to you who are rich.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Church\u2019s basic approach to the goods of this world is exactly the same as its approach to spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12.\u00a0 The gifts you are given are not for you.\u00a0 You have been chosen for the sake of the unchosen.\u00a0 What you have has been give you so that you can give it to those who have not received what you have.\u00a0 In this way, you are given the chance to be a participant in and cooperator with God in the redemption of the world.\u00a0 If you say of your material or spiritual goods, \u201cI will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry\u201d God will say to you, \u201cFool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?\u201d And so Jesus says,\u00a0\u201cSo is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.\u201d\u00a0(Lk 12:18\u201321).<\/p>\n

The Church has always taught this:<\/p>\n

St. Ambrose: \u201cYou are not making a gift of your possessions to poor persons. You are handing over to them what is theirs. For what has been given in common for the use of all, you have arrogated to yourself. The world is given to all and not only to the rich.\u201d<\/p>\n

St. John Chrysostom: \u201cNot to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

St. Gregory the Great:\u00a0\u201cWhen we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs, not ours. More than performing works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

St. Basil: \u201cAre not thou then a robber, for counting as thine own what thou hast receivest to distribute? It is the bread of the famished which thou receivest, the garment of the naked which thou hoardest in thy chest, the shoe of the barefooted which rots in thy possessions, the money of the pennyless which thou hast buried in the earth. Wherefore then dost thou injure so many to whom thou mightest be a benefactor.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

St. Bede: \u201cHe then who wishes to be rich toward God will not lay up treasures for himself, but distribute his possessions to the poor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leo XII: \u201cEvery person has by nature the right to possess property as his or her own. \u2026 But if the question be asked: How must one\u2019s possessions be used? the Church replies without hesitation in the words of St. Thomas Aquinas: \u2018One should not consider one\u2019s material possessions as one\u2019s own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when other are in need. \u2026 .\u2019 True, no one is commanded to distribute to others that which is required for one\u2019s own needs and those of one\u2019s household; nor even to give away what is reasonably required to keep up becomingly one\u2019s condition in life. \u2026 But when what necessity demands has been supplied and one\u2019s standing fairly provided for, it becomes a duty to give to the needy out of what remains over.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Pius XI: \u201cThe right to own private property has been given to the human by nature, or rather by the Creator himself. \u2026 At the same time\u00a0a person\u2019s superfluous income is not left entirely to one\u2019s own discretion. \u2026\u00a0<\/em>On the contrary, the grave obligations of charity, beneficence and liberality, which rest upon the wealthy, are constantly insisted upon in telling words by holy Scripture and the Fathers of the Church. However, the investment of superfluous income in securing favorable opportunities for employment \u2026 is to be considered \u2026 an act of real liberality, particularly appropriate to the needs of our time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaudium et Spes: \u201cGod has intended the earth and all that it contains for the use of all people and all peoples. Hence justice, accompanied by charity, must so regulate the distribution of created goods that they are actually available to all in an equitable measure. . . . Therefore, in using them, everyone should consider legitimate possessions not only as their own, but also as common property, in the sense that they should be able to profit not only themselves but other people as well. Moreover, all have the right to possess a share of earthly goods sufficient for themselves and their families. This is what the Fathers and Doctors of the Church had in mind when teaching that people are obliged to come to the aid of the poor, and to do so not merely out of their superfluous goods.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Paul VI: \u201cPrivate property does not constitute for anyone an absolute and unconditional right.\u00a0No one is justified in keeping for one\u2019s exclusive use what one does not need, when others lack necessities.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

St. John Paul II: \u201cIt will be necessary above all to abandon a mentality in which the poor \u2014 as individuals and as people \u2014 are considered a burden, as irksome intruders trying to consume what others have produced.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the Christianist Libertarian freak show\u2013a diabolical parody of the gospel\u2013makes open war on all this and attack shepherds like Francis and McElroy for reiterating what the Church teaches.\u00a0 Its standard lie is to call this \u201cMarxist\u201d until being overwhelmed by quote like the ones above.\u00a0 Then the tactic moves to talking about what is owed<\/em> to the poor as \u201ccharity\u201d, because the libertarian lie is to absolutize our material goods while relativizing the good of human life.<\/p>\n

But the truth is that what is owed to the poor is owed<\/em>, not charity.\u00a0 The Good Samaritan did not do \u201ccharity\u201d.\u00a0 He did what was just because he did what was owed<\/em> by him to the wounded man.\u00a0 The priest and the Levite did what was unjust.\u00a0 They denied the wounded man the care they owed him, just as Dives denied Lazarus the care he owed him.\u00a0 That\u2019s why Dives went to hell, because he *refused* to give Lazarus what he was owed in justice.<\/p>\n

The libertarian\u00a0lie is that we owe nothing to the common good.\u00a0 In its most extreme forms, even children are owed nothing by their parents, according to Murray Rothbard.\u00a0 But in the Scripture the poor are owed the basic necessities of life by us if they cannot supply them.\u00a0 And the question the Christian asks is \u201cHow can I help to the best of my ability?\u201d not \u201cHow little can I get away with and still make the grade for salvation?\u201d\u00a0 The focus of the Christian is on the needs of the other.\u00a0 The focus of the Christianist is on hoarding his stuff.<\/p>\n

This is why it is a total lie to say that a state social safety net that cares for the poor is \u201crobbing us of the chance to be charitable\u201d.\u00a0 A poor family whose little girl needs leukemia treatments is the focus of the Christian, who doesn\u2019t care about getting the credit for helping the family because he is focused on the family getting what it needs and not being forced to busk on the internet and watch their child die if not enough people can be bothered to help.<\/p>\n

The Christianist, in contrast, is only interested in the sick child and the poor family because he cares passionately about getting credit for the five bucks he kicked into their GoFundMe (unless he decided they were lazy and unworthy of his \u201ccharity\u201d).\u00a0 What matters not at all to him is that the family\u2019s needs are met (that\u2019s why he loves forcing them to busk on the internet and live in constant anxiety and terror).\u00a0 All that matters is that he have the feeling of being charitable and, above all, that nobody make<\/em> him meet the debt we owe them in justice.\u00a0 Because it\u2019s all about him, all the time.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here: \u201cPresident Trump was the candidate of disruption. He was the disrupter, he said. Well now, we must all become disrupters. We must disrupt those who would seek to send troops into our streets to deport the undocumented, to rip mothers and fathers from their families. We must disrupt those who portray refugees as enemies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":101369,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-101755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-catholic-social-teaching"],"yoast_head":"\nBp. McElroy speaks with perfect orthodoxy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here: "President Trump was the candidate of disruption. He was the disrupter, he said. Well now, we must all become disrupters. 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