Times Op-Ed hits the mark on encyclical

Ross Douthat makes some keen -- and accurate -- observations about the pope's new encylical, Caritas Veritate, in an Op-Ed column in The New York Times. Douthat clearly gets it, more so than most of the American secular media, it seems.

"But Benedict’s encyclical is nothing if not political. 'Caritas in Veritate' promotes a vision of economic solidarity rooted in moral conservatism. It links the dignity of labor to the sanctity of marriage. It praises the redistribution of wealth while emphasizing the importance of decentralized governance. It connects the despoiling of the environment to the mass destruction of human embryos.

This is not a message you’re likely to hear in Barack Obama’s next State of the Union, or in the Republican Party’s response. It represents a kind of left-right fusionism with little traction in American politics...

Why should being pro-environment preclude being pro-life? Why can’t Republicans worry about economic inequality, and Democrats consider devolving more power to localities and states? Does opposing the Iraq war mean that you have to endorse an anything-goes approach to bioethics? Does supporting free trade require supporting the death penalty?

These questions, and many others like them, are the kind that a healthy political system would allow voters and politicians to explore.

But for now, at least, you’re more likely to find them being raised in Benedict XVI’s Vatican than in Barack Obama’s Washington."

Well said. Read the full column, "The Audacity of the Pope," by clicking HERE.