“If men were angels,” James Madison once wrote, “no government would be necessary.” Though published more than two centuries ago, Madison’s words have been proven true time and time again. Indeed, if we really were a society build on love and charity there would be little need for many government-run programs. Unfortunately, this is not the world we live in. To be sure, churches, non pr... More

Subsidiarity is a big idea from the Church. Hopefully our video can give you enough information to understand basically what it is and why it is important. But a few minutes is not enough time to thouroughly explain the philosophy. So, if you would like to learn more about Subsidiarity, and other ideas the Church teaches about how we can best structure a just society, please use the following lin... More

[I should know better than to post something at 1 a.m. without letting myself read it with fresh eyes in the morning. Corrected a few errors and unclear thoughts and fixed the problem with the embedded video. --- Tom Crowe] During the Democrat National Convention today a video played in which the speaker said, “government is the only thing we all belong to.” Here’s the clip: Urg... More

Here’s a great chance to hear Paul Ryan discuss a key Catholic question with a challenging questioner: How do you help the poor? (more…) ... More

I love this fiery speech from Rep. Mike Kelly, R-PA, from the House floor dealing with the onerous regulations handed down by Washington bureaucrats. Too often Republicans or conservatives talk about overregulation only in terms of dollars and sense. “Such and such regulation will cost boat manufactures $1.6 katrillion…” They forget about the big picture and how it affects peopl... More

Rule of thumb: When you're to the left of Cardinal Mahony, you're too far to the left. A question without an answer is that question, “how much government intervention in caring for the less-fortunate is the right amount?” Catholic social teaching gives us a framework by which to evaluate whether the government is doing too much or not enough to help those in need, but the Cath... More

Back in June I wrote The Catholic Case for Rick Santorum. Now that Santorum has registered a strong tied-for-first finish in Iowa and is the talk of the chattering classes, far-left Catholics have woken up and swooped in for the attack. The most notable example of this attempted theological assassination is by John Gehring of Faith in Public Life, who previously worked for Catholics in Alliance fo... More

Welcome to the Lunchtime Reader, where we assemble important stories to keep your eyes on. Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J. There was lots of reaction to the news reports of “The Vatican” supposedly endorsing the creation of a world centralized bank. CatholicLane.com has an article by Robert Moynihan of Inside the Vatican in which he implores people to actually read the text of the document. http://cvot... More

Render unto Caesar ... Elsewhere here, Thomas Peters has one explanation of the Drudge Report headline, under a picture of the Pope, suggesting that the Vatican is ordering up a new world bank. I got a frightened e-mail from a friend who is a recent convert calling the article  “the most disturbing thing I have read in a long time.” As I told him, first of all, as with any Drudge scream-line,... More

Vatican Bank President Ettore Gotti Tedeschi We’re going to be hearing a lot about raising taxes this year and next, and especially about the need to raise taxes on “the rich” in order to force them to pay their “fair share.” That’s because the American public has woken up to the fact that our government has been outspending itself at a furious pace — and ... More