Michael Higgins, Vice-president of Mission and Catholic Identity at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut expressed his concerns about Paul Ryan’s implementation of Catholic doctrine in the August 16 edition of The Globe and Mail. As a Jewish woman and a multi-faith chaplain I am deeply saddened by the abuse of religion in politics.
Tzedakah v’Hesed are two words that refer to attributes of God. There are two English translations for each of the words. The translation of Tzedakah is justice and charity; Hesed is mercy and loving-kindness. God demands of us that we practice mercy when applying justice and that we remember to give to others with loving-kindness; perhaps because one day we might need some Tzedakah ourselves. Judaism and Christianity teach us to walk in God’s ways, imitatio dei. Jesus the most immanent presence of God took these teachings and like the rabbis before him and with him taught that imitating God was not confined to the Temple or the home. Judaism and Christianity are religions that balance the needs of the individual with the needs of the community. Caring for the stranger is a leitmotiv of the Bible: whether the stranger is passing through or someone in need of help living within the community.
Paul Ryan, a Catholic, developed his economic theories from Ayn Rand, a Russian born atheist born to Jewish parents. She grew up under communist rule; the collective taken to an extreme where individual free-will no longer exists. So it is not surprising that herphilosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute: the individual as godly.She called altruism a “basic evil” and referred to those who perpetuate the system of taxation and redistribution as “looters” and “moochers.” She wrote in her book “The Virtue of Selfishness” that accepting any government controls is “delivering oneself into gradual enslavement.”
And yet Paul Ryan said at a D.C. event honoring the author “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” Paul Ryan once told a group of her adherents “The fight we are in here is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.” If she were alive, he said, Rand would do “a great job in showing us just how wrong what government is doing is.”
Ayn Rand’s beliefs make sense in context with her life experiences but, how does Paul Ryan square her beliefs with his life experiences to the point that he is endorsing an atheist’s views that are heretical to the Golden Rule and his Catholic beliefs. The entire Book of Leviticus is filled with morals and ethics regarding the care of the poor, finding work for them, lifting them up, which means believing in them and not assuming that they are “looters and moochers.” And he is hoping to push through legislation that will reduce food stamps at a time of paucity, reduce student loans to those who most need them, repeal the Obama Affordable Health Care Act that provides care for the elderly and the most needy, and make welfare more difficult to access or maintain. This is anathema to Jesus’ teachings.
How does Ryan justify his economic policies? He now tries to distance himself from Rand and claims that his austere budget was motivated by the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which holds that issues should be handled at the most local level possible. But there is government at the local level and we have long evolved from relying on the institution of charity as the major source of care for the disadvantaged.
Ethical monotheism teaches us that we live in community, not alone as individuals. If we are going to speak on the right of religion to be in the public square then we have a right to expect more from those who call themselves religious.
