I was at dinner the other day when my friend told me something his father use to say. “If someone tells you that he is a Republican and Catholic, you know one of those statements is a lie.” As a registered Independent, I can’t say I was greatly offended. However, this insinuation that Catholics can’t be conservative is extremely ignorant, especially for a Catholic.
Many Catholics today think that capitalism, private property and individual rights are at odds with Catholic social justice. Capitalism certainly doesn’t have a stellar reputation among young voters. Instead of being seen as a system of freedom for everyone, capitalism is viewed as a system of greed for the wealthy.
Catholics have consistently moved farther away from the idea of freer markets to policies which raise taxes and increase government’s scope and power. If capitalism fit the stereotypes it is often given, I could understand why Catholics would want to move toward more liberal policies.
Luckily, the Church has never prohibited capitalism and for good reason. More often than not, it has praised free markets for the work they do for the common good. The only economic system the Church has prohibited is socialism. Pope Leo XIII went so far as to call socialism a “hideous deformity” at odds with religion.
What the Church does stress is the importance private property has in economic policy. In Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII said, “private ownership must be held sacred and inviolable.” These words echo perfectly the sentiment of the Declaration of Independence which professes the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
No other system is so concerned with the protection of private property as capitalism. The market is where liberty is born. Unfortunately, the government is where liberty goes to die.
As a Catholic, this is why I’m a conservative. I believe in every individual’s right to life, liberty and property. The free market is our best option for cultivating these freedoms.
I don’t know why liberal Catholics continue to distrust businesses and glorify governments, as if the state was our shining example of justice. It’s curious—I’ve never known a business to instigate international warfare, sponsor mass genocide or proliferate nuclear arms. Yet government is certainly guilty of such crimes.
And make no mistake, the United States government is no different. Our government has been involved in its fair share of corruption. We’ve seen state sponsored atrocities like the slave trade, the Trail of Tears, Japanese internment and most recently the legalization of abortion. Quite the model of justice.
Despite this, many of my Catholic friends will insist that the government is still morally superior to the free market. They’ll claim that capitalism and Catholicism are still incompatible. They’d tell me that the rich are too greedy and have too much money that poorer people deserve.
I would simply ask whether a person is greedy for wanting to keep what he has earned, or whether he is greedy for wanting to take what his neighbor has earned? The only way the state can survive is by taking what others have rightfully earned for themselves.
French economist Frederic Bastiat reminds us, “Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone.” It seems to me that the government is the ultimate force of greed and the greatest obstacle to liberty and peace.
Tyler Grudi is a staff writer for the Bona Venture. His email is gruditj15@bonaventure.edu
