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.
In 1961, William F. Buckley published a critique of Blessed Pope John XXIII’s encyclical, Mater et Magistra, Mother and Teacher. Buckley’s article was entitled, “Going the rounds in conservative circles: ‘Mater, si, Magistra, no.'”
The phrase came from a not-yet converted Garry Wills in a telephone conversation with Buckley. It was the first significant instance of public dissent from the magisterium of the Church by an American public intellectual.
Note the date: 1961. Before the Second Vatican Council. John XXIII’s encyclical was not a fruit of the Council. It was based on a long line of Church teachings, rooted in the anthropology and ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas, and explicitly applied to modern social, economic and political circumstances beginning in 1891, with Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum.
The basic threads of Catholic Social teaching were developed further by Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII. All before the Council, all before “dissent” became a phenomenon associated with the Catholic Left.
The teachings from which Buckley then, and Congressman Ryan now, dissent are traditional teachings, rooted deeply in an understanding of the human vocation.
Buckley, of course, would not go as far as Ryan. One has a hard time imagining Buckley heaping praise on Ayn Rand as Paul Ryan has done. Continue reading
Image: The Telegraph