Capitalism & Priests for Life

1) The truth that the system of government and private enterprise that was established in America over 200 years ago was one of the mightiest methods for ensuring that it would no longer be universally true that “the poor are always with us”, is the subject of this wonderful article by Michael Novak, from The Catholic Thing. An excerpt.

“Prior to 1776, scholars had assumed that there would always be poor people, because there always had been poor people. “The poor ye shall always have with ye,” expressed what their eyes could see. But when a significant body of formerly poor people in one large country rapidly moved out of poverty, a new moral calculus had to be invoked. Hannah Arendt observed in On Revolution that America’s success in raising up the poor forced upon nineteenth-century Europeans the famous “social question.” Once America had shown poverty to be neither universal nor commanded by the stars, what was Europe doing wrong?”

2) The most important doctrine of the Catholic Church’s social teaching is the protection of life, and elections have serious consequences in the fulfillment of this foundational protection.

Priests for Life, a dedicated apostolate protecting the right to life, have put together an excellent Presidential voting guide on Catholic issues, which will help guide those faithful Catholics who might be confused about what the Church teaches and what should guide their voting behavior.