Nuns on a Boat Still Morally Adrift

Addie Darling
September 28, 2012

Sister Simone is back, but this time, she’s traded the highway for waterways. Yet, because Sister Simone and the rest of her Nuns on a Bus are adrift in a sea of ethical confusion, the threats that target the weakest members on the margins of society receive no attention from these women religious..

On Monday, Sister Simone Campbell, Executive Director of the NETWORK lobby, spearhead of the “Nuns on a Bus” tour, and speaker at this August’s Democratic National Convention stepped onto the Staten Island Ferry to speak out against a local Congressman running for election, Michael Grimm, and his support of the Ryan Budget, which was passed by the House of Representatives.

According to a statement by Campbell, “Representative Grimm’s support of the Ryan-Romney budget hurts our nation because it cuts vital funding for safety-net programs. This does great harm to struggling families, and being pro-life includes saving their lives as well.” Additionally, Sr. Simone, in a rally before boarding the ferry in Manhattan, stated that the Ryan budget “clearly fails the moral test.”

Sister Simone’s judgment of this situation goes overboard: for her to claim that the budget (and Grimm’s support of it) is immoral oversimplifies the Catholic understanding of the relationship between solidarity with the poor and charity, and has flagrant disregard for Church teaching on morality and authority. First, Campbell’s accusation that the budget “cuts vital funding for safety-net programs” is disingenuous: according to various projections and analyses, only the growth of these programs is limited, not the size of them, government safety nets are still funded, though their administration changes, and social security remains unchanged. This is a prudential matter for economists and lawmakers to prudently compare to other factors, such as the debt, and current economic growth rates. Thus, in a Catholic understanding, the decision between the Obama and Ryan budgets is a matter of practicality, not of morality, as the plans do not propose anything inherently immoral, and are rather about judgments of prudence.

Campbell is also mistaken in equating government programs with Christian charity. While, in the understanding of the Church, we Christians are indeed morally obligated to help the poor, the sick, and the needy, principles of subsidiarity require that charity is enacted primarily through the actions of individuals and the Church who can treat the poor as individuals with dignity. According to the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church:

The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to certain forms of centralization, bureaucratization, and welfare assistance and to the unjustified and excessive presence of the State in public mechanisms…. In order for the principle of subsidiarity to be put into practice there is a corresponding need for: respect and effective promotion of the human person and the family; …he encouragement of private initiative so that every social entity remains at the service of the common good, … appropriate methods for making citizens more responsible in actively “being a part” of the political and social reality of their country.

Furthermore, according to Pope Benedict in Caritas in Veritate, this principle of subsidiarity has a reciprocal relationship with solidarity with the poor, and indeed justice itself cannot exist without it:

Solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone, and it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State. While in the past it was possible to argue that justice had to come first and gratuitousness could follow afterwards, as a complement, today it is clear that without gratuitousness, there can be no justice in the first place. […] Unfortunately, too much confidence was placed in those institutions, as if they were able to deliver the desired objective automatically. In reality, institutions by themselves are not enough, because integral human development is primarily a vocation, and therefore it involves a free assumption of responsibility in solidarity on the part of everyone.

Therefore, while the scaling back financial growth for these programs is lamentable, it is a matter of prudence rather than the morals Sr. Campbell claims it to be. No one is suggesting that we do not have an obligation to help the poor and needy, but, as the bishops have stated, “reasonable minds can come to different conclusions about more effective ways” to making sure that the week and needy are protected. 

Now, the Ryan Budget may not be the best solution, but Campbell sails into rough theological waters in making the pronouncement that the Ryan Budget is an affront to Church teaching and that her alternative, “The Faithful Budget,” (or other similar plans) is the only conscionable alternative. Though she claims to be upholding the Church in proclaiming, “We stand with our bishops in opposing the Ryan Budget,” (referencing criticisms by Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, CA and Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, IA,) she ignores statements in by other Bishops, including Ryan’s own Bishop Thomas Paprocki and the president of the USCCB, Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan, among others, stating that the proposed budget is faithful to Catholic principles. As stated by Bishop Paprocki, it is, “incorrect to reject the Ryan budget out of hand as not in keeping with the Church’s teaching on the economy and the role of government. Catholic social teaching is broad enough to include a variety of approaches to these complex issues, most of which are . . . a matter of prudential judgment, about which reasonable people — including reasonable Catholics — can disagree.”

The ignorance of valid prudential disagreements and disregard for the statements of Bishop Paprocki and Cardinal Dolan are not the only instances where Sister Simone has dismissed moral teaching or ecclesiastical authority. As noted in an earlier article, when pressed on the issue of abortion, Campbellreplied that commentary on the clear moral issue of abortion was “above my pay grade,” and any commentary on the subject is “not our mission.”

Furthermore, she has criticized the USCCB’s unified and fiercely non-partisan stance against the HHS mandate’s infringement on religious liberty (as well as other infringements passed by Republican state legislatures) as “a scandal,” and little more than a political ploy- meanwhile she speaks at the DNC and campaigns against Republican candidates. As Rep. Grimm, the focus of her latest criticisms noted, Campbell is “putting a lot of effort into such a partisan matter, instead of taking to the streets in opposition to issues like NYC schools giving the morning after pill to teenagers, potentially without their parents’ knowledge. For teenagers to be taught that abortion is an acceptable form of birth control is as disgusting and reprehensible as gender-select abortion, and furthermore shows the moral breakdown of our society.”

Yet, because Sister Simone and the rest of her Nuns on a Bus are adrift in a sea of ethical confusion, these moral threats that target the weakest members of society that are on the outermost margins of society receive no attention from these women religious.