Mark's Clarion Call

Like Michael Perry, I respect and am inspired by Mark's passion (below). And, as a matter of habit -- and perhaps even of principle -- I'm inclined to join Michael in saying "Amen" to Mark's call for a new "Seamless Garment Party."

Unfortunately (for me), I probably could not join or support this Party. With all due respect, it is simply not clear that an authentically Catholic, social-justice program -- one that is animated by a commitment to principles of solidarity and subsidiarity -- must include counter-productive, market-distorting, and statist social-welfare policies. (Of course, this is certainly not to say -- anticipating objections -- that such a program may be robotically efficiency-based or ruthlessly individualistic, or that it could neglect social-welfare obligations. It is simply to keep in view the fact that a growing, vibrant, entrepreneurial, and largely free economy is better for rich and poor alike).

What is more -- in response to a claim that seems implicit in Mark's and Rob's diagnoses -- it strikes me that the problems with today's Democratic Party go far deeper than "life issues." That Party's orthodoxy with respect to school choice, religious freedom, the nature and scope of state power, and the function and integrity of mediating associations are -- in my judgment -- quite at odds with the "human flourishing" that Mark hopes his new Party would promote.

To be clear -- I share, to an extent, Mark's frustration with the political options presented to Catholics. I have no doubt that many Republicans do, as Mark and Rob suggest, cynically exploit at election time -- without actually promoting -- Catholic values. (That said, I believe Mark inaccurately characterizes President Bush's Catholic outreach, and his Catholic-consonant positions, as "fraudulent" and "hypocritical.") I doubt also, though, that a authentic Seamless Garment Party could be achieved simply by grafting Catholic pro-life positions onto the Democratic Party's economic and foreign-policy platforms.

Pax,

Rick