A Catholic Jesuit priest to told CNN this week that religious belief should not be the sole determining factor determining the basis for laws.
Father Thomas Reese, also a Jesuit noted that “Faith has motivated people to be involved in politics,” speaking of the abolitionist movement. “At the same time, theologians since Augustine and Thomas Aquinas have argued that all of the moral law should not be enacted as part of civil law. For example, both Augustine and Thomas Aquinas were in favor of legalized prostitution, because they thought it would protect good women from bad men. So each politician has to look at the moral law, look at what’s good for society, and actually also have to look at what’s possible, what can be implemented as part of law.”
Father Reese went on to note that the Church has taken issue with presidential tickets with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops condemning Ryan’s proposed budget as being “unjustified and wrong” because it would hurt the poor while protecting the wealthy. At the same time, the Catholic church has been critical of the Obama administration’s views regarding abortion and contraception.
The father went on to note that “[The Pope] sees no objection to using government to redistribute wealth. In fact, he says that’s one of the purposes of government. So we see that the Catholic church is — on abortion, is to the right of people. But when it comes to economic issues, it’s very much to the left.”
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