Deus Caritas Est, budgets, politics, and the common good

A student in my "Catholic Social Thought and the Law" class, Coby Ascunce, shared these thoughts, for posting here at MOJ, in response to recent letters regarding budget proposals and Catholic Social Teaching:

As was posted last week, the USCCB recently released several letters expressing its opposition to some of the cuts in the newest budget proposal.  While the USCCB certainly fights for an admirable cause by speaking out against policy measures that will harm the poor and the vulnerable, we must look critically at whether or not these statements are within the proper bounds of the USCCB’s role according to Catholic social doctrine.  In Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict states: 

A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church.  Yet the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.

 The question then becomes whether the USCCB’s statements were attempts to bring openness of mind to the common good or attempts to organize a just society through the policy measures that the USCCB sees as best.  According to CSD, the former is beneficial and appropriate, but the latter violates the Church’s appropriate political role.  However, an interesting question remains.  Even if the USCCB’s actions were out of line, were they beneficial to American Catholics by providing clear instructions on specific policy matters? 

Deus Caritas Est provides one last piece of guidance—a challenge to us as Catholics, but especially as Catholic lawyers:

 The direct duty to work for a just ordering of society . . . is proper to the lay faithful. 

In other words, it is our duty to see past partisan lines and fight for the political policies that best achieve the common good and a just society—not the duty of the Church or the USCCB.  This is a heavy burden, but one that must be embraced in order to truly infuse the temporal order with Christian values.