Catholic Limits on Political Categorization

Robert George on the limits Catholicism puts on political categorization :

It has long seemed to me that being a Catholic means that certain positions at the extremes of the spectrum are off the table. One cannot be a socialist, strictly speaking. The Church’s strong endorsement of private property eliminates the option of supporting state ownership of the means of production and also rules out (in most circumstances) radically redistributive policies. At the same time, being a Catholic is incompatible with being a radical individualist or “libertarian” of the Ayn Randian sort. (To her credit, I suppose, Rand herself understood this, though some of her disciples, including some Catholics who seem to have fallen under her influence, don’t seem to have noticed it.) The Church’s teaching on the preferential option for the poor is only one of many principles placing Catholicism radically at odds with Randianism.

So whether it is a union rally in Madison, Wisconsin or a tea party in Doylestown, Pennsyvania, Catholics in attendance ought not to be wearing Che Guevara tee-shirts or waving Ayn Rand placards.

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