Already, the entry of Congressman Paul Ryan onto the national stage is generating some interesting debates within the Catholic world and within the political commentariat. It seems to me that three issues are brought into greater focus by the selection of Ryan, although hoping for intellectual clarity on those issues during a political campaign may be hoping for the proverbial bridge too far. But, here goes.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/ryan-selection-shape-election

I guess it goes without saying that Paul Ryan would have little interest in the predictions for 2052 when my grandchild will be 40 or so.
But Geraldine Doogue certainly did on Sunday and see also
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/a-global-forecast-for-the-ne...

Too complicated for both the Tea Party and your average Rethuglican.

Can we not reduce it to a bumper sticker?

Paul Ryan: Ayn Rand Catholic
by Ted Schmidt

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. ...William Butler Yeats : The Second Coming

Nothing bespeaks the devolution of contemporary Catholicism and the abandonment of the Vatican ll vision as the announcement of Paul Ryan as Vice-Presidential Republican candidate for the year 2012.

One hardly knows where to start when analyzing the shocking use of "my Catholic faith" in describing Ryan's bizarre gospel worldview.

Of course Ryan begins with his conservative cred—his pro-life stance—meaning anti-abortion (a fight which will never be won given the polarization in the US), so it's safe to be "pro-life"—and vote for war budgets at every chance.

In April Ryan was taken to the woodshed when he dared use Catholic Social Teaching, in particularly subsidiarity, as the basis of his budget proposal. 50 Catholic theologians and leaders blasted Ryan's proposals out of the water, stating that CST always saw a positive role for the federal government. As John Paul ll summarized this approach in Centissimus Annus (1991).

It is the task of the State to provide for the defence and preservation of common goods such as the natural and human environments, which cannot be safeguarded simply by market forces ... the State and all of society have the duty of defending those collective goods which, among others, constitute the essential framework for the legitimate pursuit of personal goals on the part of each individual.

Here we find a new limit on the market: there are collective and qualitative needs which cannot be satisfied by market mechanisms. There are important human needs which escape its logic. ...Nevertheless, these mechanisms carry the risk of an "idolatry" of the market, an idolatry which ignores the existence of goods which by their nature are not and cannot be mere commodities.

The 50 theologians challenged Ryan's budget: "Simply put, this budget is morally indefensible and betrays Catholic principles of solidarity, just taxation and a commitment to the common good. A budget that turns its back on the hungry, the elderly and the sick while giving more tax breaks to the wealthiest few can't be justified in Christian terms," argue the signatories.

Give Ryan credit, he is not short of chutzpah, He then marched over to Georgetown, the Jesuit university to defend the indefensible. Here he was met by a petition of 90 faculty members and administrators basically telling him he was totally out to lunch. They asked Ryan to justify cuts to social programs which benefit the poor and no cuts to the shocking bloated military budget

Former America editor Jesuit Fr. Tom Reese, one of the organizers of the letter bluntly stated . "This is nonsense. As scholars, we want to join the Catholic bishops in pointing out that his budget has a devastating impact on programs for the poor."

You can bet Ryan never read America or Centissimus Annus. But as a market idolator, he sure loves Ayn Rand, the high priestess of untrammeled capitalism and blatant selfishness.

Here are a few choice bons mots of Ryan on his literary heroine:

• "I just want to speak to you a little bit about Ayn Rand and what she meant to me in my life and [in] the fight we're engaged here in Congress. I grew up on Ayn Rand, that's what I tell people." • "I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are."
  
• "It's inspired me so much that it's required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged. People tell me I need to start with The Fountainhead then go to Atlas Shrugged [laughter]. There's a big debate about that. We go to Fountainhead, but then we move on, and we require Mises and Hayek as well."
  
• "But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand."
  
• "It's so important that we go back to our roots to look at Ayn Rand's vision, her writings, to see what our girding, under-grounding [sic] principles are."
  
• "Because there is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand's writings and works."

Sadly Paul Ryan has revealed himself as a "market Catholic" one has bent the gospel in tortuous ways to justify the worst excesses of free market Catholicism. With his embrace of Randian principles he has shown himself a stranger to prophetic biblical Catholicism.

Ted Schmidt is the former editor of Catholic New Times in Toronto, Canada.

.....over cuts to poor

No one can say Mitt Romney hasn’t pitched his heart out to Catholic swing voters. On Saturday, he did so again, introducing his new running mate, Paul Ryan, this way: “A faithful Catholic, Paul believes in the worth and dignity of every human life."
He was referring, of course, to Ryan’s position against abortion rights. But this spring, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops took the unusual step of repudiating the deep cuts envisioned in Ryan’s budget proposal as out of keeping with the teachings of Jesus. One of a series of their letters to congressional committees read in part:
“I write to urge you to resist for moral and human reasons unacceptable cuts to hunger and nutrition programs [that would] hurt hungry children, poor families, vulnerable seniors and workers who cannot find employment. These cuts are unjustified and wrong"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/paul-ryan-introduced-as-faithfu...

Michael Sean Winters in the NCR.

Mitt Romney’s choice of Congressman Paul Ryan to be his running mate is electrifying. But, electricity is dangerous at times and, in this instance, Ryan is standing in a pool of watery dissent from Catholic Social Teaching that has existed on the Catholic right for some time.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/paul-ryan-champion-dissent

Forget about whether he's a Catholic or not, or anything about his views on economics and social justice, just so long as he supports the institutional line on contraception, abortion and a ban on gay marriage they can't lose the support of the American bishops. Nothing else matters aside from these "litmus test" issues of Catholic Orthodoxy.

It’s tempting to think that Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan, who is Catholic, will impact the battleground (and battleground-ish) states where Catholic voters make up a significant population: Pennsylvania (29%), Florida (26%), and even Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin (29%). And some observers believe that Romney’s inclusion of Poland on his foreign policy tour made less sense in terms of a foreign policy agenda than it did in terms of an appeal to Catholic voters—a theory that’s underscored by Romney’s release yesterday of a Catholic-directed campaign advertisement that features pictures of Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II and warns about attacks on religious liberty.

I must admit I'd wondered why on earth Romney visited Poland.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/joannabrooks/6276/will_romney's_vp_pick_wi...

Mr Ryan is best-known for a controversial alternative budget which he produced to counter President Obama's plans in 2011 and 2012, known as the Path to Prosperity.
It proposed reducing taxes, pensions and food aid, and changing government-funded healthcare. Mr Ryan insisted the proposals would not harm lower-income groups, saying they would create jobs and reduce inefficiency

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19224423

It will be very interesting to see the reaction of the US Bishops to the choice of the Catholic Ryan, as they have already condemned his budget proposals.

Mr. Romney, of course, has already heaped praise on the Ryan budget plan. But, words of praise are not the same thing as standing next to Ryan for the remaining 10 weeks of the campaign. If Romney chooses Ryan, he is choosing, not offering words of support for, his budget plans. And the USCCB has already stated clearly that the Ryan budget fails its three part definition of a moral budget, in that it fails to protect the poor, does not promote human dignity, and does not advance the common good. Ryan is a likable fellow, and a devoted Catholic, but if the leadership of the USCCB has to choose between Ryan on the one side and 120 years of explicit papal social teaching on the other, that is not really a difficult choice: The bishops pick Leo, Pius XI, John XXIII, Vatican II, Paul VI, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, none of whom anyone can even conceive of endorsing the kind of deep cuts in social programs – all without any replacement policies – that assist the poor and the vulnerable. Even conservative Catholics who tend to care more about the pro-life issue than anything else have to contend with the anti-life consequences of cuts in Medicaid and other programs.

Will they now be as vocal as they are about other areas and groups?

http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/please-let-it-be-ryan