This past
Tuesday, November 15, 2016, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
elected His Eminence Daniel
Cardinal DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, Texas, as their new
president for a three-year term. Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles,
California, was elected vice president.
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| Daniel Cardinal DiNardo |
Why is this important to an
interfaith group that takes no stand on purely religious matters and leaves the
internal affairs of a religion to its adherents? Because Cardinal DiNardo is a “conservative”
(a term that really doesn’t have any meaning in a religious context; there’s
“orthodox” and “unorthodox”) who might be more open to hearing about CESJ’s
“pro-life economic agenda” than the so-called “progressive” (another word
without real meaning in this context) members of the American Catholic
hierarchy.
That’s not to imply that
Archbishop Joseph Edward Kurtz of
Louisville, Kentucky, the outgoing president, is a “progressive.” No, His Excellency is also labeled
“conservative” . . . but he’s the outgoing president, and Cardinal DiNardo has
an incentive, with the election of Donald Trump, to try and guide and keep the
new U.S. president (as much as he can) on the straight and narrow.
And
to do that requires sound principles to keep the straight and narrow as straight
and narrow as it needs to be . . . and that
requires the three principles of economic justice and the four pillars of a
just market economy. And the principles
of economic justice and pillars of a just market economy — not by coincidence —
happen to be the core of the Just Third Way and thus a genuinely pro-life
economic agenda.
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| Can't we all just get along? |
Now,
the interesting part of the Just Third Way take on a pro-life economic agenda
is that it is the same as a pro-choice
economic agenda . . . that is, if you truly believe in free choice. That’s because at the center of the pro-life
economic agenda is respect for the dignity and sovereignty of the human person
— and that requires that every child, woman, and man have power over his or her
own life, and power, real power, only
comes from direct ownership of capital.
Once
someone has power, he or she can exercise control over his or her own
life. And (as Daniel Webster reminded us
nearly 200 years ago) “Power naturally and necessarily follows property.” If you have property, you will have control
over your own life, and you will be able to make the choices you want. If others have property, they will control
your life, and you will have to make the choices they want.
Thus,
someone who is truly “pro-choice” should come to exactly the same conclusion in
this matter: either we get a Capital Homestead Act as soon as possible, or “they”
(meaning the stupid pro-lifers or the evil pro-choicers) will be able to force “their”
morality (or lack thereof) on “us.”
The
choice (if you’ll pardon the expression) is ours: own or be owned.
#30#