Free is Beautiful by Randy England uses the scriptures, the writings of the Saints, and the Catechism to show why Catholicism is essentially libertarian.
The Angelic Doctor taught that criminal punishment “belongs to those sins chiefly whereby one’s neighbor is injured. Thus," he explains, "human law prohibits murder, theft and such like."
Randy England is a writer, retired criminal defense lawyer and member of St. Peter Catholic Church in Jefferson City, Missouri. He is a former prosecutor and grew up near St. Louis, Missouri.
Saints Thomas Aquinas and Augustine taught that an unjust law is no law at all: “As Augustine says, ‘that which is not just seems to be no law at all‘: wherefore the force of a law depends on the extent of its justice. Now in human affairs, a thing is said to be just, from
The question I want to ask is: Having given us free will, did God intend that some men should sit on his throne, in his stead, and enforce his will by violence upon other men? Clearly, Jesus did not commission his Church to use compulsion to make men believe or behave, or even to pay
In Jesus’s comments on the temple tax, Jesus noted that neither he (the divine son of God), nor his followers (sons of God by adoption) were obligated to pay the tax. Then he instructed Peter to pay it anyway to avoid offending the authorities. At the time, Jesus had bigger fish to fry and had
In “Jesus and Taxes: The Temple Tax,” we examined the first of Jesus’ statements about the duty to pay taxes. In that instance, Jesus began by noting that he was not obligated to pay the tax, but then instructed St. Peter to pay the tax for both Peter and himself. This instruction to comply with
Here is my interview on the Libertarian Christian Podcast with Doug Stuart. We discussed why Christians should be libertarian / Why Romans 13 is not a necessarily an endorsement of governmental authority / How St. Paul ridiculed the emperor Nero / What should be our view of paying taxes? / “Rendering to Caesar” / What
The Gospels note two occasions where Jesus addressed the issue of paying taxes. The “Render to Caesar” narrative is best known, but it is better understood after considering Jesus’ earlier instruction regarding the payment of taxes. Unlike Jesus’ somewhat ambiguous “Render to Caesar” pronouncement, his first teaching on the subject of taxes was given with
Jesus’ relationship with the State was tumultuous, beginning with the attempted murder of the infant Christ by King Herod. It ended with his crucifixion by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate at the end of Jesus’ public ministry. In between those murderous book-ends, Jesus’ ministry offers many insights into his view of the State. At the
In the early years of the nation of Israel, after Moses died and Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan, the people were ruled by men called “judges.” The rule of the judges was minimal—one might say libertarian. The taxes (the tithe) were voluntary. The judges did not generally meddle in people’s lives. The primary roles
continued from part 3, here In part 3, Father James Sadowsky answered Murray Rothbard’s assertion that an unwanted, unborn child is a trespassing parasite upon the body of its own mother. In closing his reply to Sadoswky, Rothbard cited an analogy first proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson in “A Defense of Abortion” (1971). Rothbard wrote:
continued from part 2, here In applying the non-aggression principle to abortion, the cordial sparring of two libertarians, one pro-life and the other pro-choice, is instructive. Murray Rothbard (1926–1995) was an American economist, teacher and writer, a student of Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises and regarded by many as the foremost libertarian scholar of the
