WaPo’s Stevens-Arroyo Calls for Catholics to 'Embrace a Redistribution of Wealth'

June 25th, 2010 12:14 PM

The Washington Post’s really should consider renaming Anthony Stevens-Arroyo’s column in its “On Faith” blog. “Catholic America” should be “Liberal Democrat Catholic America,” just for the sake of truth in advertising.

On June 23, left-wing hack Stevens-Arroyo again injected his politics into the ostensibly religious column. In “Common good v corp. profits,” he actually wrote that Catholics should “embrace a redistribution of wealth.”

The column sought to explain how Catholics and others should view Judge Martin Feldman’s ruling overturning the Obama moratorium on off-shore drilling. Why, the reader may ask, should this event have Catholic significance, beyond the fact that a liberal writer whose column has “Catholic” in the title was upset about it?

It doesn’t. But Stevens-Arroyo gamely offered that, “There may not be a ‘Catholic’ position about the immediate politics of off-shore drilling, but there is an on-going Catholic approach to resolving the competing interests.” Not surprisingly, that approach vindicates the left.

To Stevens-Arroyo, the issue came down to “common good,” which led him to make this puzzling statement: “While we have considerable freedom about our personal political choices in the application of principles, Catholics in America are bound to embrace a redistribution of wealth, even if it goes contrary to ranting from groups like the Tea Party or Wall Street.”

He never explained where exactly it states Catholics are bound to encourage the government to confiscate legally earned private property to give it to whomever it deems more worthy. Catholics are bound to assist others through charity, not compulsory redistribution.

This isn’t the first time Stevens-Arroyo has conflated socialism with faith. Last year he declared that “the most Catholic” part of Ted Kennedy’s funeral was the senator’s grandchildren pleading for nationalized health care.

But, not content being an arbiter of what is Catholic and what isn’t, Stevens-Arroyo set himself up as a law scholar, hypothesizing that the “Reagan-appointed judge” Feldman’s ruling could be seen as the work of an “activist court.”

He ranted that, “a judge is supposed to be limited to matters of constitutionality -- and not to impose his jobs’ policy. There can be no doubt that a presidential moratorium falls within the powers of the White House, so stopping this legitimate executive order on questions about its consequences constitutes activism.”

Even the Associated Press explained that the moratorium was overturned because the “Interior Department failed to provide adequate reasoning for the moratorium.”

Stevens-Arroyo has a history of being unable to hide his liberal viewpoints. Just last March he claimed that Fox New’s Glenn Beck was using “the same strategy of the Hitler Youth and the Polish Communist Party … ” In December he also attempted to compare Ft. Hood shooter Hidal Hassan to World War 1 hero Alvin York and General Patton.