By Selwyn Duke

You’ve got to hand it to that Joe Biden. He certainly has
chutzpah. After all, what do you call it when a man who was banned
from receiving Communion diocese-wide by a bishop chastises an apparently
more faithful Catholic for a lack of doctrinal purity? I’m of course referring
to the vice-presidential debate and Biden’s comment that Paul Ryan had an
“issue” with “Catholic social doctrine.” 
 

Biden’s approach is nothing new; it’s a copout frequently used
by liberal—or, as they used to say, heretical—Catholics. It goes like this: self-conscious
that they’re being criticized for violating definitive Church teaching and
accused of being in a state of grave sin, they hang their hats on the idea that
they make up for it by going heavy on “social teaching.” Furthermore, they lean
on the notion that no one should point fingers at them because, by their
lights, conservatives fall terribly short of the glory of that social teaching.
It’s the theological version of “Oh, yeah?! But look at what Bush did!”

The most obvious problem with this is that it’s like saying
your theft is okay because Tom commits adultery, a callow appeal of the kind
mature people leave in childhood. Obviously, we’re responsible for our own walk
with righteousness, our own sins, not others’. Why, do you think the attempt to
justify bad behavior by citing other (supposedly) bad behavior will pass muster
when we meet our maker any more than it would before a judge? Imagine saying,
“Yes, Your Honor, I broke my wife’s jaw. But, look, I’m tellin’ ya’, there’s
this guy down the street who beats up his wife and his girlfriend.” In the same
way that courts judge us based on the law and not other criminals’ behavior, a
person of faith understands that he is to measure himself with the Perfect Law
from above, not the imperfect and flawed next to us.

But even this misses the point here, because the reality is
that these liberal Catholics can only claim moral parity with (or superiority
to) those they criticize by putting Church teaching, and their own minds,
through the durable-press spin cycle. And the proof is in the pudding: neither
Paul Ryan nor any other conservative has been denied Communion, unlike some
liberal politicians.

Before examining why, I should explain for those not
conversant in Catholic teaching that denial of Communion is a very serious
matter. It means that the individual in question is in a state of “mortal sin,”
which is sin grave enough to separate him from God. And, of course, if a bishop
has gone so far as to forbid priests in his diocese from dispensing Communion
to the person, it means that the violator’s defiance of definitive teaching is
overt and consistent.

But what does this teaching say? Is there actually an
equivalence between advocating abortion and opposing big-government social
programs?

Any such implication is ridiculous. The Church teaches that direct abortion is always wrong, as it
is the murder of innocent human life. In contrast, while Catholic social
doctrine dictates that we must help the less fortunate, there’s no specificity
as to how this must be done. There is no injunction to create government social
programs—or not to do so. The Church does, however, state how it mustn’t be
done. As Pope Pius XI put
it, Socialism…cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic
Church because its concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian
truth, and “[N]o one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true
socialist.”

So while Catholics have a lot of latitude in deciding how to
best administer charity, they may not disagree on abortion and remain in union
with the Church—hence the aforementioned denial of Communion. So, it’s ironic,
but the “personally opposed, no values imposed” argument pro-abortion “Catholic”
politicians love so much could only rightly be used by those they criticize. We
could truly say, “Personally, I believe in giving charity, but I don’t want to
impose this on others through government.”

Lastly, there’s something else Biden should know about
Catholic doctrine. The Church teaches—and this was reaffirmed
by the Pope several years ago—that politicians who publicly support
abortion automatically excommunicate themselves.

If I have chutzpah for saying that, then we have something
in common, Mr. Biden. The difference is that I place mine in the service of
Truth.

      © 2012 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved