Comments for The Alternative to God at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 13 out of 13 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Mon, 20 May 2013 09:18:46 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-alternative-to-god.html#comment-15880 Thank you and God bless you, Fr. Schall! Again, the clarity and courage of your writing inspires me to think. May I use this piece with your permission in a online pilot project I'm running through the Jesuit Virtual Learning Academy entitled: A Catholic Perspective on Economic Freedom? We have 35 students and their teachers from Jesuit high schools in five countries involved now, including from Venezuela and Zimbabwe. You piece here reflects I believe what Pope Benedict XVI writes about in Caritas in Veritate regard authentic integral human development. It is anchored in persons, not party or program or even paradigm. All the best, Steve Haessler - Stephen J. Haessler Tue, 19 Feb 2013 12:59:41 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-alternative-to-god.html#comment-15742 Contra Diaperman...in continuity with Pope B and Fr. S...here's a quote (lifted from another context) from Pope Benedict XVI: "God is not a bureaucrat." Source: "Seek That Which Is Above," Ignatius Press, 1986 and 2007, p. 85. - Chris in Maryland Sat, 09 Feb 2013 02:19:10 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-alternative-to-god.html#comment-15730 Schall hits the nail on the head again! The problem is not so much what socialism tries to do, at least in theory. The problem is that it is an iron mandate for all without any regard for individuals, and that this often takes the place of caring about others at all. Charity must be balanced with good government, but the belief that a perfect system can be created that gives everything to everyone perfectly is simply false. It is never going to happen. And it can become a substitute for God and everything else -- a totalitarian quest to be the ones who know what's best for everyone else (you sure wouldn't want to be "everyone else). - Gail Finke Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:26:16 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-alternative-to-god.html#comment-15727 Micha Elyi, I agree with you, but that is not the way it works in the world, plus they think I am a white male. Louise, with a razor job like that I would expect that even the daiperman himself is a bit chagrined. Somehow modernists know in the back of their minds that Ockham’s method and its evolution into the hydra of the modern university is a subversion of reality, but the point is to compel others, not to convince them. I don’t know the Holy Father as well as I would like, but from the little I do know I firmly believe he would not espouse any part of the social utopia schemes that are the horrid progeny of marx, the French revolution and all the modern philosophies. It is certainly curious that someone would say otherwise here and in response to the good Fr. Schall. - Achilles Thu, 07 Feb 2013 12:21:16 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-alternative-to-god.html#comment-15710 Diaperman, could you give the citation for the quote? I would like to read it in context as mentioned by Achilles. - Louise Wed, 06 Feb 2013 15:27:08 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-alternative-to-god.html#comment-15708 Diaperman, your extraction of our Holy Father's comments from its true context leaves me finding the tenor and tone of your arguements in tune with the National Catholic Reporter. Please, would you have anyone who did not know better believing that you are more in tune with the mind of the Pope than is Fr. Schall? - Achilles Wed, 06 Feb 2013 12:42:11 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-alternative-to-god.html#comment-15704 This recalls an observation of Peter Hitchens (the devout Anglican brother of the late professional atheist Christopher) about his years reporting from Moscow. He said the Musovites were as generous and congenial in private as they were rude, grasping, and self-centered in public -- made selfish by a state that turned them into daylight materialistic monsters by "taking care of them" -- which it ultimately did badly, unless you wanted an abortion (see Jonathan Last's new book, WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN NO ONE'S EXPECTING). As for the Venerable Archbishop Sheen -- could there have been a better first American Holy Father? I suspect he anticipated the current insightful occupant of the Chair of St. Peter in many things. - Graham Combs Wed, 06 Feb 2013 09:29:00 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-alternative-to-god.html#comment-15703 My bosses said they agreed with me, but had to write it up and they forbade me from expressing my opinion in the future. --Achilles The someone who solicited your opinion then bawled to the boss because she didn't like your opinion should have been doubly written up. Once for engaging in thoughtcrime herself by even bringing up the verboten subject and a second time for luring a coworker into thoughtcrime. - Micha Elyi Wed, 06 Feb 2013 09:07:19 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-alternative-to-god.html#comment-15697 Excellent article. I agree with it 100%. I know many good people, some Catholic, who do want to "take care of" others. These people do good works, but they are missing part of the picture. Some do not attend mass because they miss the link between following God and loving neighbor. Some actually treat God as if He were a means to an end, that end being developing programs to "take care of" others. This apparent good oftens descends to totalitarianism, as the view of the strong becomes the only accepted view, and they use their strength to use the power of the state for their own purposes. And these purposes ignore the truth of the human person. Many "progressives" are really control freaks who just want to tell others what to do, and don't like it when the Church tries to tell God's truth. I think the First Letter of John addresses this well. John clearly puts the love of God first, because God's love for us precedes all. You don't love God so you can love your neighbor. You love your neighbor as a means to loving God, which is the final end for all of us. P.S. To diaperman: Social Secutiry and Medicare can be good programs, but the benefit structure must bear a relationship to the funding mechanism. That is not the case today. Reform is needed to accomplish this. - athanasius Wed, 06 Feb 2013 05:43:48 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-alternative-to-god.html#comment-15683 With all due respect you misunderstand Benedict by imputing to him your hostility to the state. Benedict said pretty recently in fact that "In many respects, democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine and has in any case made a remarkable contribution to the formation of a social consciousness." Yes, this is qualified as always by a perennial concern that the state not crowd out charity, not sap private initiative, not replace family and community. But the Church has never been hostile per se to the idea of redistributing money and resources to those in need. Indeed, Catholic social teaching requires (among other things) an adequate distribution of property. Somehow, Father Schall, I get a different sense of all this reading your articles than I do from studying actual documents of Catholic social teaching. And several of your remarks are at odds with reality in its specifics. To take two examples, two of America's largest programs Social Security and Medicare are gargantuan in terms of dollar size...but they are not administered by a "vast bureaucracy" as you seem to suppose. Are these programs of ensuring adequate living standards for the elderly truly at odds with "what man is?" Are they inconsistent with a "growth economics and theology" (whatever that is)? One could argue in fact that the presence of a social safety net provides the surer platform from which to take entrepeneurial risks since one won't be left utterly destitute in old age. At any rate, your tendency to couch arguments in abstractions and generalities leaves me cold. - diaperman Tue, 05 Feb 2013 14:20:09 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-alternative-to-god.html#comment-15680 Exactly Father. When you lose God as the frame of reference you no longer even know what is good for yourself or your neighbor, since we are made in God's image. Hence the "care" we give our neighbor starts to descend into evil. Witness the mandate which thinks giving out contraceptives, abortion etc is being good to our neighbor. - Louise Tue, 05 Feb 2013 12:12:20 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-alternative-to-god.html#comment-15668 It was Sir Winston Churchill who observed that "Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy." - Michael Paterson-Seymour Mon, 04 Feb 2013 23:28:15 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-alternative-to-god.html#comment-15667 What an excellent essay! I got a write up last week becuase someone asked me about homosexuals and I answered with the Orthodox Catholic position. It hurt their feelings becuase they have an uncle who is gay and awesome and they told my bosses. My bosses said they agreet with me, but had to write it up and they forbade me from expressing my opinion in the future. What a day to be an American. Fr. Schall, thank you! - Achilles Mon, 04 Feb 2013 20:32:37 +0100