The small-government movement has created resistance to the reasonable proposals in the recent Vatican statement on financial reform. Yet, separate from the many strengths of the statement and the many problems in the way it’s been received in this country, there remains a significant hole in official Catholic social teaching on the economy.

The bishops, health care & prudence

  The fundamentalism of free-market theology

  While the Democratic Party lost interest in Catholic voters, the GOP was eager to snap them up. As Daniel Finn, who teaches economics and theology at St. John’s University, Minnesota, argues, the strategic importance of religious voters “has burgeoned to the point where a presidential campaign scorned the conventional wisdom of courting undecided, middle-of-the-road voters and triumphed instead by turning out its church-going base.” Clearly, church-going voters are useful to politicians. But, Finn asks, are politicians useful to churchgoers?