Last Call For Papal Bull

Ross Douthat, conservative columnist for the NY Times and self-styled modern right-wing Catholic, has decided that Pope Francis's recent missive on the evils of trickle-down capitalism just doesn't apply to trickle-down capitalists like Ross Douthat.

That explanation rests, I think, on three ideas. First, that when it comes to lifting the poor out of poverty, global capitalism, faults and all, has a better track record by far than any other system or approach. 

Second, that Catholic social teaching, properly understood, emphasizes both solidarity and subsidiarity — that is, a small-c conservative preference for local efforts over national ones, voluntarism over bureaucracy. 

Third, that on recent evidence, the most expansive welfare states can crowd out what Christianity considers the most basic human goods — by lowering birthrates, discouraging private charity and restricting the church’s freedom to minister in subtle but increasingly consequential ways. 

This Catholic case for limited government, however, is not a case for the Ayn Randian temptation inherent to a capitalism-friendly politics. There is no Catholic warrant for valorizing entrepreneurs at the expense of ordinary workers, or for dismissing all regulation as unnecessary and all redistribution as immoral. 

And this is where Francis’s vision should matter to American Catholics who usually cast ballots for Republican politicians. The pope’s words shouldn’t inspire them to convert en masse to liberalism, or to worry that the throne of Peter has been seized by a Marxist anti-pope. But they should encourage a much greater integration of Catholic and conservative ideas than we’ve seen since “compassionate conservatism” collapsed, and inspire Catholics to ask more — often much more — of the Republican Party, on a range of policy issues. 

Translation:  Conservative Catholicism can never fail, it can only be failed.  Spare the rod and spoil the child beats I am my brother's keeper any day of the week, apparently.  We'll just have to double down on the beatings until morale improves and bootstraps are lifted by themselves.

That's pretty much the opposite of what Pope Francis is actually saying, but that's what Ross sees.  Funny how that just happens to be exactly the same social shaming formula we've seen from the fire and brimstone set for the last entire history of Christian religion.