This past election season “Tea Party” rallies were held around the
country to protest government policy or to call for a new direction for
the country.
The movement even showed some substantial political clout
at the ballot box.
But is the movement compatible with Catholic social
teaching?
CNA spoke about the movement with Dr. Steven Schneck, Director of the
Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at the Catholic
University of America, and Fr. Robert Sirico, president of the Grand
Rapids, Michigan-based Acton Institute.
Fr. Sirico described the Tea Party as “an amorphous thing” with a lot
of variety and as a “populist, spontaneous movement.”
He thought its
common themes include a desire for less government and a desire “to
limit the power that politicians have over peoples’ lives.”
Participants find motivation in a variety of philosophies. Some have
“well-developed Catholic sensibilities” while others’ sensibilities are
“almost anarchistic.”
He thought it was “remarkable” that the Tea Party
could bring so many non-political people into the political process.
The Church’s teaching on subsidiarity can meet these people and
“augment what they’re doing,” he said, while also guarding against “the
more fanatical edges of the tea party.”
Fr. Sirico explained subsidiarity as being the principle that higher
levels of society should not intervene in lower levels without “manifest
and real necessity,” and such intervention should only be temporary.
“Needs are best met at the local level,” he said, calling government “the resource of last resort.”
For his part, Dr. Schneck agreed the Tea Party is still a movement
being formed. He sees it as motivated in part by middle class
frustration with “a political environment that seems to reward the rich
and the poor but ignores or even undercuts the middle.”
He also sees a
“libertarian dynamic that wants to end do-gooder, nanny government.”
He told CNA that Catholics are called to practice politics based on
four aspects: the dignity of the person, the common good rather than
private interests, solidarity with our fellow citizens in community, and
an understanding of subsidiarity that recognizes the appropriate role
of the state and civil society in addressing community needs.
This approach also reveals other requirements for good politics, such
as preferential consideration of the poor, welcoming the immigrant, the
importance of family and community, and a “stewardship” understanding
of property and creation.
Granting that no political movement conforms to these principles,
Schneck said the Tea Party movement has its clearest tensions with
Catholic teaching on the issues of the common good and solidarity, while
immigration, poverty and stewardship may be other areas of tension.
“Solidarity reminds us that we must properly understand ourselves and
others as part of the Mystical Body of Christ,” he explained, saying
that responsibility to others is “prior to our individual liberties.”
“Our freedom is not limited by our responsibilities to others in community, but is rather enhanced by what we do for others.”
Schneck also warned that a “hard-edged individualism” which sees
justice best resolved in competition ignores solidarity’s emphasis on
“caritas,” that is, Christian love.
On the issue of national health care, which many Tea Party
participants have opposed, Schneck noted Pope Benedict’s recent
insistence that health care is an inalienable right and governments are
obliged to ensure universal health care for all citizens regardless of
their ability to pay.
Like Fr. Sirico, Schneck thought that subsidiarity “dovetails quite
well” with Tea Party thinking, for example in arguing that education
policy is best set by local government rather than national.
“As part of subsidiarity, however, it is also true that if local
government or the private resources of civil society are unable to
address the needs of the common good, then the national government is
morally bound to respond,” he continued.
Fr. Sirico had his own criticisms of the movement. He thought
charismatic leaders could lead people in the wrong direction, and the
Tea Party’s lack of a “historical memory” of past mistakes means that it
lacks safeguards against plausible-looking proposals that “end up being
harmful.”
Some Tea Party rhetoric suggests it has no role for
government to serve the poor.
However, Fr. Sirico said in his experience most people sympathetic to
the Tea Party movement, including himself, are not of that mindset.
He compared the government policy to a dentist visit, saying “we just want to get through it with as little pain as possible.”
Schneck added that it was “gratifying” to see individual Tea Party
representatives oppose abortion “even though libertarianism
theoretically is suspicious of government promoting moral or religious
values.”
The future of the Tea Party’s support for pro-life concerns and
marriage issues has also been a public issue.
Some Tea Party spokesmen
have said the Republican Party should not focus on either.
Jeffrey Bell, a visiting fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy
Center, told CNA he saw very little of this opinion in the daily
activities of movement participants and sympathizers.
“People who think that voters are not concerned about social issues
should go look at Iowa,” he commented, referring to the electoral
successes of traditional marriage activists in the key presidential
primary state.
“People don’t get amnesia on other issues just because the economy is
in bad shape. They’re still a factor,” Bell remarked. “And the people
who feel strongly about these issues, who are quite a few, are going to
be less likely to vote for a candidate who is on the other side.”
He did not think a Tea Party focus on fiscal issues and small
government could eclipse social concerns.
Polls indicate that most Tea
Party participants are social conservatives, said Bell, and “very, very
few” Tea Party-backed candidates for the Senate or the House were
pro-choice on abortion.
He contended that both movements are “very similar” because of the
importance they place on returning “to the values of the Founding.”
“It’s really a triumph of social conservatives that people would see
these economic and size of government issues in the same light as many
would also see abortion and traditional marriage,” Bell claimed.
Those who are speaking of a “big civil war” between social
conservatives and others in the Tea Party are, in Bell’s view, “creating
an issue where, on the ground, not much of an issue exists.”
SIC: CNA/INT'L