I tried real hard to just shut up and look away, but I can’t—some of you will not be surprised. I am about to tick off a whole bunch of family, friends, neighbors, and fellow Roman Catholics.
According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal,
…a group of fellow Catholics from his home state of Wisconsin, including some Franciscan Friars are calling for the vice presidential hopeful’s “conversion.” The group launched a website, PrayforPaulsChangeofHeart.org, that asks visitors to
“Please pray for Paul Ryan, a devout Catholic, to have a change of heart on the federal budget.” It includes a special Rosary prayer to St. Paul, “the great convert,” to bring about a transformation in the anti-deficit Republican.
For the record, I am a parishioner of SS Peter & Paul Catholic Church in Naperville, Illinois, a Benedictine Oblate, and a Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, so you could say I am also a practicing Roman Catholic. With all due respect to my brothers and sisters in Christ, you are dead wrong.
Their gripe with Rep. Ryan stems from his proposed federal budget that calls for some pretty big cuts in how we as a nation spend our money. Specifically, they want Congressman Ryan to heed the guidelines published by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops regarding the formulation of the budget, to whit:
A just framework for future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons; it requires shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs fairly.
Again, with all due respect to their Excellencies, while these are admirable aims that can and should be discussed, the fiscal reality is that current federal spending levels are completely out of control. If we want to see a real crisis that
…will hurt hungry children, poor families, vulnerable seniors and workers who cannot find employment
then we should by all means create a utopian budget mortgaging the futures of our children, grandchildren, and maybe great-grandchildren. The end result will be the final decline of the United States into a second world country unable to care for its own, let alone the rest of the world.
Let’s face facts: we live in an increasingly dangerous and Godless world in which the United States has proved to be a stabilizing and largely pacific influence. That is because we foster freedom, prosperity, and security and project those benefits beyond our borders. No country on earth has such a high standard of living. No country on earth as a higher level of philanthropy. No country on earth spends as much as we do in foreign aid, let alone the willingness to send our sons and daughters to shed their blood on foreign soil for the rights of others.
Yes, we have crime, greed, immorality and vice. Ya know why? Because, like all countries on the planet, the United States is made up of human beings. Frail, broken, sinful, human beings in need of redemption. And until such time as Christ returns, such utopian visions of perfect equality and prosperity for all are just that, a vision. We must work in our own individual lives to improve the lives of those around us. Jesus said that men would know we are his disciples by the love we bear for each other. He was not talking about compelling charity through federal law by taking money from our neighbors’ paychecks, money they increasingly don’t have.
Congressman Ryan is a serious man, and a serious public servant who is willing to stand up and say unappetizing truths to a nation that needs to hear them. I do not presume to see into his soul, but I highly doubt that he is in any way attempting to throw the poor and needy in this country under the bus with his budget proposal. I bet if he were asked, he’d say that his philosophy is one of reaching out to your fellow man to aid him in his time of need, and that the federal government must not be the sole source of such aid.
Pray for Congressman Ryan yes, and all our leaders, as the bible tells us. Pray that they govern wisely and that we may live in peace. But before you presume to pray for someone else’s conversion, pray first for your own.
