Friday, August 17, 2012

Ryan's parish priest: 'He shouldn't wrap himself in Catholic teaching'

So here's what Father Stephen Umhoefer had to say about his hometown boy Paul Ryan:

Umhoefer also laments what he calls an excess of individualism in America that is sometimes abetted by politicians. He prepared for (Center for Media and Democracy) CMD a section of the church catechism, which states that the church "has refused to accept, in the practice of 'capitalism,' individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor." Umhoefer said that he doesn't mean to accuse Ryan of choosing individualism as a creed over community, but that Ryan's promotion of Ayn Rand to his staff and others is "an alternative universe of which he is a member.... What I call an excessive attitude of individualism is doing a great deal of harm to us as a society because we are forgetting society values," said Umhoefer.

"What I wish for Paul -- he is so smart and so articulate and has made this whole budget, which he can defend on his own view ... of how the economy and politics work. I wish he wouldn't bring in the Catholic church. He doesn't need to if his economic and political argument are strong, and I'm sure he believes that they are."

It's too bad Ayn Rand is dead, because then we could get quotes from her saying how Ryan is a "compromiser" who betrayed the absolute principles of Objectivism. Then we'd see how Ryan is neither Catholic nor Randroid, nor anything else at his core except a hyper-ambitious suck-up to the rich and powerful.


By Jonathan Rosenblum
August 15, 2012 | PR Watch

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