Can We Compare the U.S. Government to the Catholic Church?

At the City Club of Cleveland, Peter Borre, Co-Chairman of the Council of Parishes, discussed how the Catholic Church responded to its financial crisis with austerity.

The Catholic Church’s financial crisis originated with the clergy sex abuse scandal. It is estimated that over the past 15 years, the Church has paid out between 3 and 4 billion dollars. This has devastated the dioceses of Boston, Cleveland, and appears currently to be hitting Philadelphia.

Given a major cash shortage, there are two logical ways to respond. The first alternative is to engage in austerity. You can reduce your expenses by downsizing. The second alternative is make up the cash shortage in some way: taxes can be raised, donations solicited or loans taken out. The American Church, under its American leadership, has chosen austerity. In Cleveland, the Church leadership chose to close 12 local parishes.

The United States government has also chosen austerity, as has Great Britain and the European Union. Responding to a financial crisis by reducing expenditures leads to the reduction of income, which leads to more reduction of expenditures. It’s a downward spiral. As the old saying goes: "You have to spend money to make money."

Why did the Church choose austerity? Here we must distinguish between the truth and the propaganda of the leadership.  The leadership pointed to demographics, the shortage of priests and the shortage of cash. According to Borre, however, the demographic argument is simply false. There has not been a decrease in the population served by the 12 parishes. As for the inability to recruit new priests and the shortage of cash, they are both the result of the corruption of the current leadership.

What could we expect from an assertive, positive, talented leadership, responsive to the needs and wishes of its membership?  Instead of seeing decline as inevitable, it would see that the demographics are positive and that the replacement of the current leadership with a new leadership committed to growth would bring about a dramatic influx of donations and a dramatic improvement in its ability to recruit priests.

Can we compare the U.S. government to the Catholic Church? Yes and no. Today, the United States, and much of the world, are suffering from a financial crisis brought about by the mismanagement of its leaders. Our political leaders have sided with the corporate power brokers of our political and financial systems and present austerity as a moral positive. In the same way that the Catholic Bishops put their religious careers ahead of the interests of the Church, we have a political leadership which puts the winning of elections ahead of the needs of the country. What is needed in both cases is a new leadership, responsive to the needs of its members and citizens.

The case of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland provides some grounds for optimism.  The Vatican has responded to the outrage of the people by ordering that the 12 closed Cleveland parishes be reopened. According to Borre, this response is unprecedented in the history of the American Catholic Church and is clearly meant to send a message condemning the American Church leadership. So chalk one up for the citizens, in opposition to corrupt leadership.

Unfortunately, passion for political change in America seems limited to the fringes: the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. The great majority of Americans are watching politics on television, rooting for their team, disappointed in how poorly they are playing, but a win is a win.

Beyond the Two Political Parties

Since it began a little over a year ago, the perspective of this blog has changed.  In the beginning, it was motivated by a very belated, sudden realization of how bad the Republican Party had become. Before I first realized it, this had already been the case for a number of years. It was like I had been asleep, thinking the Republicans were still a political party which independent, fair-minded people could and should consider voting for. Even if I didn’t agree with many of his policies, Ronald Reagan deserved my respect as a citizen and a patriot. George W. Bush, on the other hand, and the entire Republican Party today, are not citizens, but political operatives guided by an agenda which has proven to be extremely marketable, but which their own voters would not support if they truly understood it. This is still my conclusion and a very important part of what I do in this blog. What has changed, however, is that I no longer believe that the Democratic Party can be counted on to defend us against that agenda.

Republican propaganda is based on a simple notion: “government” is bad. Their use of the word “government” is intentionally vague, but I think it fair to say that what is being attacked is the modern welfare state: the notion that the state should “assume primary responsibility for the welfare of citizens” (American Heritage Dictionary).  The major achievements of the welfare state include such things as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, but it also includes unemployment insurance, public education, firemen, policemen, disaster relief, protection for the environment, public works, assistance to certain key industries and, of course, direct assistance to the destitute, which is only a very tiny fraction of what the government does. Republican propaganda puts forth a plethora of theories, which my Republican friends espouse, supporting the notion that the people would be better off with greatly reduced government. Underlying it all is the idea that the welfare state is wasteful and that it transfers money from those who work towards those who don’t. Anger over this is what drives their voters to the polls.

Like the Republicans, the Democrats are political operatives, but they do not meet the anti-government passion with pro-government passion. It’s like the modern corporation which buys a traditional product label hoping to retain the customers of the old product while appealing to new customers unfamiliar with it. The Democratic Party of Clinton and Obama makes use of the Democratic label of the Progressives, FDR and LBJ, but it doesn’t seem to believe the old product is marketable. Indeed, it frequently reaches across the aisle to integrate Republican propaganda into its messaging. Someone has told them that “reaching across the aisle” contrasts nicely with the anger driving the Republican voters and is therefore, itself, very marketable.

In his autobiographical book on his years in the Clinton administration, Robert Reich tells how Clinton used political marketing experts to decide whether to sign welfare reform and to support an increase in the minimum wage. Similarly, we see Obama waffling around issues such as approving the Keystone XL pipeline until it becomes clear which position will be the easiest to sell. For passionate liberals, the Keystone XL pipeline debate is whether we should be exploiting the Tar Sands of Alberta, Canada, one of the dirtiest fossil fuels in the history of the world. For Obama, it is about distancing himself from any discussion of global warming, without losing the support of his base.

If you want to read a powerful, and passionate defense of liberalism and the welfare state, I recommend Jimmy Carter’s indictment of the George W. Bush administration: Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis (2006). When he was elected in 1976, I considered Jimmy Carter to be only moderately liberal, but the contrast between the passion of Carter and the embarrassment of Clinton/Obama is remarkable.

So, today my blogs tend to be of two types. In the first type, I explain why no one in their right mind would ever vote for a Republican. But in the second type, I leave that completely aside, because many people who are passionate Republicans suddenly start passionately agreeing with me when I say that both parties have betrayed the American people. The future lies in a movement of the people which will reform the political system.