The "Social Justice" Crowd Helped Create This HHS Mandate Mess

I present for your consideration an article written by Father Philip De Vous that appeared in Renew America a few days ago entitled Leviathan, Civil Society and National Morality.  I think Father does an excellent job in laying out just how it is the inherent nature of a socialistic government to arrogate to itself overarching authority over the lives of citizens, becoming a tyranny.  The Founding Fathers of this nation understood that concept, which is why they set in the Constitution strict limits on the power and authority of federal government.

The "social justice" crowd within our clergy and hierarchy, particularly in the USCCB and the state Catholic Conferences, in their entreaties to the federal government to "care for the poor", have bestowed upon that same government dangerous levels of power and authority, believing that such actions would improve the lots of the poor.  Well, we see what a stellar job the Great Society of the 1960s did now, don't we?  Most of these hierarchy simply forgot that "a government big enough to give you everything is also big enough to take everything from you."  A few - maybe more than a few - occupied high positions in Church hierarchy precisely so that they could utilize this trend and turn the Church into a tool for advancing socialism and progressivism.

I differ with Father when he says, "On the whole, these are matters that are to be handled through the work of parents, priests, preachers, friends, and family, not by presidential candidates. Certainly a president needs to be a man of character, the fact that government has grown so large and invaded every aspect of life is why presidential candidates are talking, or are feeling forced to talk, about these personal things rather than things that pertain to the broad issues that constitute the national agenda."  I for one do believe that law has a role to play.  In terms of the Constitution, we see that a legitimate role of government is to defend its citizens against unjust aggression.  That would include abortion and yes, contraception for many "contraceptives are in fact abortifacients.   As the late Dr Martin Luther King Jr once said, "The law cannot make my white brother love me; but it can keep him from lynching me."  Law does have an educational component to it, and that is to teach the bare minimum standards of civil conduct, namely, what behaviors cannot be tolerated in an orderly civil society.

However, his main point is well-taken, that we must shrink government back to its Constitutional limits.  Thus the Church must stop placing demands upon it to act as a nanny; in other words, the Church needs to rediscover the principle of subsidiarity.

I now present the latest Vortex.  Michael Voris makes an even stronger case against progressive encroachment inside the Church.  I am of the view that unless we purge these elements from our leadership (an excellent start would be to do away with the CCHD), the Church's moral voice will be fatally compromised.   Click here if you cannot see embedded video.