{"id":55117,"date":"2014-11-11T00:38:50","date_gmt":"2014-11-11T07:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=55117"},"modified":"2014-12-28T19:46:49","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T02:46:49","slug":"libertarianism-is-not-compatible-with-the-catholic-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2014\/11\/libertarianism-is-not-compatible-with-the-catholic-faith.html","title":{"rendered":"Libertarianism is not Compatible with the Catholic Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Here\u2019s a nice piece explaining why.<\/a><\/p>\n

Libertarianism\u2019s highest good is the personal autonomy of the atomized individual. The highest good of the Faith is union with God the Blessed Trinity in love and love of one\u2019s neighbor as oneself. In Libertarianism as it is lived out on the ground, one can season one\u2019s worship of the imperial autonomous self with a bit of religion if one is into that sort of thing (though, really, just between you and me, that\u2019s for weaklings). But God is most certainly an *accessory* at best to the Libertarian vision of the person, whose personal autonomy\u2013not his state as a creature whose entire being is entirely in a radical debt of love to God and in a radical debt of love to the human race\u2013is the paramount fact about him. \u201cYou are not your own. You were bought with a price\u201d is not something Libertarianism likes to dwell on much.<\/p>\n

Likewise, its theory of the state is that the state exists merely to facilitate the personal autonomy of the individual and to keep this hive of independent monads called \u201csociety\u201d from bumping into each other too much. The Ideal Man of Libertarianism is Ron Swanson:<\/p>\n