Proverbs 21:21

Well, what did Ronald Reagan believe? It’s a question I get often. I’ve been giving a lecture titled, “What is a Reagan conservative?” I’ll be giving it again at the CPAC conference on Feb. 11 and our Center for Vision & Values conference in April. In that lecture, I lay out the core fundamentals of “Reagan conservatism.”

Some of those fundamentals have special relevance in light of the ongoing scandal known as the “Obama mandate;” that is, President Obama’s unprecedented “healthcare” decree mandating that all Americans—including Catholics and Catholic organizations—forcibly pay for contraception, sterilization, and birth-control drugs that cause abortions. Two core Reagan fundamentals stand out: 1) Reagan’s belief in the sanctity and dignity of human life; and 2) Reagan’s thoughts on the “idea” of America.

On the first, Reagan insisted that without the right to life, there can be no other rights. The right to life is the first of all freedoms, without which other freedoms literally cannot exist. “My administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land,” said Reagan in 1983. “And there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.”

For Reagan, that right to life began in the womb. It began at conception. As president, Reagan supported a Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would have inserted into the Constitution these words: “the paramount right to life is vested in each human being from the moment of fertilization without regard to age, health or condition of dependency.” He favored providing every human being—at all stages of development—protection as “persons” with the “right to life” under the 14th Amendment.

That amendment never passed. Too bad. It would have killed Obama’s mandate, or at least posed a significant challenge.

In addition, Reagan extolled America as a country based on timeless, eternal values: on universal, God-given inalienable rights. Reagan gave innumerable statements on these rights, but I’m struck by one he gave way back in June 1952 at tiny William Woods College in Missouri.

There, Reagan said that America is “less of a place than an idea,” a place that resided deep in our souls. “It is simply the idea,” said Reagan, “the basis of this country and of our religion, the idea of the dignity of man, the idea that deep within the heart of each one of us is something so God-like and precious that no individual or group has a right to impose his or its will upon the people so well as they can decide for themselves.”

Well, the Obama mandate imposes President Obama’s personal will upon all of the American people, and especially Catholics whose consciences dictate otherwise. The mandate violates something God-like and deep within the heart of religious believers who profess the dignity of man from the moment of conception—whose faith implores them not to violate that dignity. President Obama, via his fiat, has instructed certain believers not only to go against their conscience and Church’s teachings but to subsidize the transgression.

In another speech years later, in August 1983, Reagan referred to Americans’ inalienable rights as “corollaries of the great proposition, at the heart of Western civilization, that every … person is a ressacra, a sacred reality, and as such is entitled to the opportunity of fulfilling those great human potentials with which God has endowed man.”

For many Americans, their faith calls upon them to defend those persons, each one of which is a sacred reality that must be permitted to achieve the great human potential that is God’s hope for all of us.

This is what Ronald Reagan believed. The current president’s “healthcare” mandate is a flagrant rejection of these principles.

© 2012 by The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College.

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” (Luke 19:5)

The Gospels describe how Jesus called his Apostles, Zacchaeus, and many others to be his disciples (Matthew 4:18-21; Luke 19:5). A previous article, “The Call to be Disciples as Catholic Men,” described how Jesus has also called each of us as Catholic men to be his disciples. Do you believe you have been called to be a disciple of Jesus? Before answering this question, it is important to first consider the cost of being one as described by Jesus.

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:23)

“If any one comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.  . . . everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26, 27, 33)

Jesus then said to those Jews who believed in him, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)

These costs can be summarized as follows:

• A disciple must love Jesus even more than his immediate family. (Luke 14:26)
• A disciple requires self-denial, complete dedication, willing obedience, and total commitment – even unto death  (Luke 14:27)
• A disciple surrenders everything for Jesus. (Luke 14:33)
• A disciple remains true to Jesus’ words and teachings. (John 8:31)
• A disciple loves others as Jesus has loved him. (John 13:34-35)

The Catechism defines a disciple this way: “The disciple of Christ must not only keep the faith and live on it, but also profess it, confidently bear witness to it, and spread it“ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1816). Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the famous German Lutheran martyr, wrote a book called “The Cost of Discipleship.” If I had to summarize with one word how he described this cost, it would be “obedience.” In Acts 13:22, God called David “a man after my own heart.” .He called David that because “he will do everything I want him to do.” I believe this is also part of our call as Jesus’ disciples.

When we consider all these “costs” associated with being a disciple, we realize that living out this call requires each of us to be “transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2) and be “transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). This transformation is a process that is ongoing throughout our lives, and it requires an ever deepening infilling of the new wine of the Holy Spirit. However, we know that this “new wine” cannot be poured into “old wineskins.”

“No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.” (Luke 5:36-38)

As Jesus’ disciples, our Father wants each of us as Catholic men to be witnesses of his Gospel and servants of his kingdom. Becoming “new wineskins” means embracing the cross, dying to sin, and saying no to all those things that are opposed to God’s com­mandments. It means spending time every day with the Lord in prayer and Scripture. It means continually turning to the Lord, asking him to fill us with his Spirit and asking him to transform us into his image and likeness. It means frequently available ourselves of the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. As we do this, it will lead to the kind of transformation that we all long to experience, the kind of transformation that will allow us to fulfill the “cost” of being the disciple Jesus has called us to be.

“Lord Jesus, I want to be your disciple, no matter what the cost. I believe this is your call for my life, and I say yes to this call. Your grace is sufficient to transform me and make me faithful to this call. Your grace is sufficient for me to deny myself, take up my cross, and follow you. I want to be a witness to your Gospel and a servant of your kingdom.”

Many thanks to The Word Among Us (www.wau.org) for allowing me to adapt meditations in their monthly devotional magazine. Used with permission.

Questions for Reflection/Discussion by Catholic Men

1. Several Scriptures are quoted in this article. Take some time to meditate and reflect on them. In light of the title of this article, what do you think God is trying to reveal to you through them?
2. The article states that Jesus “calls each of us as Catholic men to be his disciples.” How would you describe your own call to be a disciple?
3. The article lists several Scriptures in which Jesus describes what it means to be his disciple. What do these Scriptures tell you about the cost of being a disciple?
4. The article also describes the need for us as Catholic men to be transformed if we are to fulfill the costs of being Jesus’ disciple. How would you describe this process of transformation, especially in your own life?
5. What are some areas of your life that the Lord wants to change from old wineskins to new wineskins, so he can fill you even more with the new wine of his Holy Spirit?
6. Take some time now to pray for the grace to not only say yes to Jesus’ call to be his disciple, but also for the grace to live it out. Use the prayer at the end of the article as the starting point.

Thomas Carlyle, a 19th-century Scottish essayist, coined the phrase “the dismal science.” Carlyle was reacting to grim predictions made by the classical economists David Ricardo (1772-1823) and Thomas Malthus (1766-1834). Ricardo posited an “iron law of wages” that sentenced laborers to a life of poverty at the margin of survival. Malthus became the intellectual forbear of today’s gloomy environmentalists by asserting that the human population tended to increase geometrically while the means of sustenance would grow only arithmetically, thereby, like Ricardo, condemning humankind to a poor, tenuous life.

Yes, those theories were dismal. Thankfully, though, they were utterly demolished by subsequent events. In country after country, populations and standards of living have multiplied since the days of Ricardo and Malthus. The classical economists failed to foresee such future phenomena as widespread middle-class affluence and people being defined as “poor” despite having cars, air conditioners, and cell phones (not to mention indoor plumbing, a reliable supply of clean water, and other conveniences that most people lacked in 1800).

Let’s not be too harsh in judging Ricardo and Malthus for their lack of foresight. Who, in 1800, could have foreseen the marvelous growth of productivity and wealth that would transform the world over the next two centuries? To do so would have been to envision a state of affairs without precedent, entirely outside their scope of experience.

What was “dismal” to Carlyle was not economic science, but economic error. Would it be fair to dub aeronautics a “dismal science” on the basis of the many failed attempts at manned flight in the pre-Wright brothers era?

The fact is that “economics,” as a distinct science, was still in its embryonic stage when Carlyle wrote. Economics had not emerged as a distinct field of study, and there were no “economists.” Adam Smith was a professor of moral philosophy. Ricardo was a businessman, investor, and politician. Malthus was a preacher. The first chair in “political economy” (notice: NOT even “economics” yet) wasn’t established until 1825 at Oxford University.

The classical economists contributed greatly to our understanding of markets, the coordinating function of prices (the “invisible hand”), the division of labor, the need for freedom, and a very light hand for government—but they still hadn’t discovered the foundational principles of economics. They were still in the thrall of such persistent errors as “the labor theory of value.”

“Economics” as a modern science wasn’t “born” until the 1870s, when the neoclassical school emerged as a result of finally figuring out what “value” was. There is no “economic science” without understanding value any more than you can have chemical science without understanding valences or valid arithmetic without zero.

Since Carl Menger’s brilliant discovery and articulation of the “subjective theory of value” in 1871, economic science has flourished, culminating logically in Ludwig von Mises’ general theory of human action, called praxeology. Mises used the science of economics/praxeology to prove a priori that socialism literally could not be viable, and that if the goal of a wealthy society is one’s goal, then private property, limited government, and free markets are the means to achieve that goal. In the decades since Mises explained how the world works, history has confirmed the validity of his theories.

Mises’ economic science has unlocked the secrets of wealth creation. We know which policies work and which are counterproductive. We now have the economic knowledge to unlock humankind’s potential for eliminating chronic poverty and coexisting and collaborating in a world characterized by peace and abundance.

Why, then, is there so much “dismal” news on the economic front today? Because political agendas and powerful special interests trample economic principles for their own selfish purposes, thereby thwarting the amazing economic potential that economic science makes available to us.

Since 1995, the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal have published an Index of Economic Freedom, an examination of 10 political conditions that affect wealth creation. More freedom, as measured by this index, correlates significantly with economic growth. The recently released 2012 edition shows that the United States has fallen to the 10th-freest economy in the world. It is no coincidence that our economic growth has stagnated as economic activity has become less free.

This bad news has a silver lining: We know what we need to do to return to prosperity. Economic science will work in our favor—if only we adhere to its inexorable principles and get the oppressive burden of Big Government and failed political ideologies off our backs.

The dismal clouds on today’s horizon are a toxic mixture of moral corruption, political power-grabbing, and economic error. Economic truth is the sunlight that illuminates the way to a bright and glorious future. Thank God for this cheerful science.