Faithful Catholics owe John Zmirak a debt of gratitude. Not only did he put the term “illiberal Catholicism” into circulation, thus giving folks such as myself a convenient self-descriptor, he continues to serve as a shining example of what happens when you blend a superficial understanding of Catholicism and Christian history with an unabashed love for liberalism and all of its works. His latest, “The Myth of Catholic Social Teaching,” attempts no nuances nor dabbles in distinctions when it comes to rejecting Catholic Social Teaching (CST). He just does it. Unfortunately Zmirak’s “reasoning” is old hat. Starting from the (correct) premise that not everything a pope says or writes carries magisterial force, he then moves to the erroneous conclusion that nothing (or practically nothing) in CST requires assent — absolute, religious, or otherwise. CST is nothing more than the private opinions of certain popes which are subject to change over time. To help bolster his claim, Zmirak points to apparent shifts in papal teachings on usury, torture, and slavery without reflecting on the context from which those teachings — or changes in teaching — emerged. Indeed, Zmirak goes so far as to claim that Dignitatis Humanae overturned the Church’s previous teaching on religious liberty, thus demonstrating — whether he knows it or not — his acceptance of the “hermeneutic of rupture” thesis. I doubt that would bother Zmirak much. He, like most Catholic liberals, depends on rupture to give his socio-political ideology a jumpstart without being inconvenienced by any incongruities which might exist between it and the Church’s teachings on faith and morals.

John C. Wright, a sci-fi novelist, has come out swinging against Distributism — or, more accurately, a certain caricature of G.K. Chesterton’s presentation of Distributism — over at his private web-log here. (Not surprisingly Joe Carter over at the Acton Power Blog has highlighted the piece.) Wright begins by highlighting two things: (1) He has studied economics “for many a year” (how many he doesn’t say, and what brand of economics is not disclosed); and (2) Chesterton’s pronouncements on Distributism are vague. With respect to the first point, it comes across as a lame attempt to assert intellectual superiority without actually going through the effort of demonstrating as much. In fact, nothing in Wright’s post shows that he has any more sophistication with economics than someone who has scanned a neoliberal tract which states, mantra-like, that the wealthy create wealth; that they deliver unprecedented value to society at large; and that any thought that the wealthy, as a class, would cooperate to maintain their position at the expense of other classes in society is absurd on its face. All of those claims are, of course, contestable. While Chesterton’s prose, hyperbolic and reactionary though it could be at times, doesn’t rise to the level of a social-scientific case against unfettered capitalism, it does marshall a powerful moral case against the miseries and degradation Chesterton witnessed first hand in early 20th C. England. Chesterton may be no economist, but it doesn’t appear as if Wright is much of one either.