I am not making this stuff up. What I am citing is official Church teaching, the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity. The Church herself teaches that big institutions are not the appropriate vehicles for caring for the least of our brothers and sisters. This has been reaffirmed in the social encyclicals since Rerum Nevarum was promulgated in 1891, through Caritas in Veritate, published just this year.

I agree that the Bishops don’t employ secular labels, but the Church does use terms to describe political philosophies. The encyclicals of Pope John Paul II used Communism, Captialism, and Socialism to describe poltiical philosophies. Since Liberalism is a term for a political philosophy, I felt it important to use it here.

If one reads the philosophy of Christian Personalism, which was defined in large part by Pope John Paul, one can easily see how a large buerocratic system *whic no one can deny that this health care system is) would be an affront to human dignity, because it takes the patient and the person out of it in favor of the collective whole (reducing costs, providing health care for all). Not to say that the insurance companies don’t do the same thing right now, but ObamaCare takes it a step further and institutionalizes the dehumanization.

I do think the Bishops have, in recent years, stopped really looking at Catholic Social Thought as taught by the Magisterium of the Church, and started instead to take their own feelings on social justice into account when reviewing government social policy (by the way, Obama used the phrase “brother’s keeper) often in the campaign, so will you accuse him of the same hubris that you accuse me of? I was merely pointing out that the command of being our “brother’s keeper” (one that I take very seriously) is not best accomplished by big government.

Finally, just a personal note. I have enjoyed sparring with you these past few weeks. Thanks for checking out (and coming back to) the site, and keep up the spirited debate!