An arm of the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops organization has come out against the Republican efforts to cut welfare. The story is this. The administrative Board of the U.S. Catholic Conference claims that if the government does not continue subsidies for unwed mothers, they will have more abortions. The theory is that the mothers will realize they can't support their kids-to-be, but keep getting pregnant anyway.
At issue are two points of reform:
The Republicans -- and a good many Democrats -- want to overturn both policies on the grounds that they subsidize the practice of having children out of wedlock, thereby encouraging more of it.
Without acknowledging the reasoning, the bishops regard illegitimacy as "a problem." But their problem -- as is often the case -- is that they pay little attention to two other critical factors: human nature and economics.
They'd do well to do so -- and to their own pope. In recent encyclicals he has urged Catholic leaders to acknowledge both factors more fully. From reading his words, it's clear that he particularly has the U.S. Catholic Conference in mind. This organization through the years has tended to run from any cogent grasp of capitalism. It is still running.
The Pope, in a radical departure for this line of leadership, has on several occasions praised capitalism and its underlying morality. He has urged Catholics to acknowledge that self-interest is a natural part of human behavior and, in the context of rational ethical standards, is not a bad thing. He has praised the ability of capitalism to bring out the best in human endeavor and has warned against relying on socialist schemes -- which current welfare policies in the U.S. certainly are to one degree or another.
But if the latest position of the bishops is any indication, this pope's message hasn't reached their ears. If they had heard it, what might their response have been to the welfare revisions?
First, they would have acknowledged their long-term responsibilities toward those whose welfare they claim to uphold. You get what you pay for in life. Paying people to do anything will encourage them to do it more, and will encourage more people to do it. Paying moms to have kids out of wedlock will get you more kids out of wedlock. What a shocker. Conversely -- and equally shocking -- not paying them will get you fewer. If illegitimacy is undesirable, don't pay people to produce it.
The bishops should also be doing more of what other churches are: pushing harder for private volunteer programs to teach young people the virtues of waiting to have children when they are ready for them, not just physiologically or monetarily, but psychologically.
This is more difficult for the Catholic bishops than for other churches, because the Catholics oppose birth control. Even so, it is a worthy mission. Abstinence is out of fashion, but it is not unteachable nor unlearnable.
A large part of promiscuity is a self-control problem. As all of us know, often from acid experience, young emotions can urge us to do many things not in our long-term self-interest. But that, after all, is the point of teaching self-control at an early age: to set aside our emotions as guides to action when it's critical to do so. This is not inborn. It's a learned skill. There's no reason why the bishops can't put heavier emphasis on it.
And whatever happened to the concept of church charities for unwed mothers? When did the bishops decide that this little job should mainly be Uncle Sam's? By the Church's own standards, the Bible doesn't say, "Get government to do it!" It advocates private initiatives, including those led by the church.
The advantage of letting private charities handle the problem is that they have a stronger interest in solving it.
The general public doesn't realize it, but Uncle Sam's bureaucrats now treat unwed mothers and other welfare cases as "clients." This attitude encourages the bureaucrats to hold onto their clients and to regard them not as people to help, but as peasants in their empires. More peasants mean more power. The proof that a dynamic like this exists is shown in studies comparing private and government programs to remove people from welfare.
The private programs -- including Catholic Charities itself (is there a bishop memory-hole here?) -- are faster with a higher ratio of success. The private programs' aim is not to serve a client base, but to create self-sufficiency; world's apart in intentions.
Finally, the bishops need to take a more positive attitude. Who says the outcome of the welfare reform must be a rise in abortions? There's another case to be made. As the incentive of money-for-kids drops, so will the number of non-wedlock pregnancies. The poor and the young aren't as stupid as the bishops seem to think. They'll go where the money is and won't go where it isn't. That's not an infallible rule. But it's a documented economic fact of life and human nature. The bishops should pay more attention to it. Their pope has. At least he's given them a basis by which to rethink their pro-government presumptions.