Archbishop Chaput Closes Fortnight: What We Must Render Unto God and Unto Caesar

Catholic Online ^ | 7/5/12 | Deacon Keith Fournier

[Campion]

Where are the official positions of the Catholic church if not in the USCCB?

Official Catholic teaching comes through (a) the Pope, (b) the bishops teaching in union with him; and (c) [secondarily] the documents promulgated under the Pope's authority by the Vatican offices which report to him.

National bishop's conferences, like the USCCB, aren't authoritative teaching organs. They can express opinions of course, but those opinions aren't binding on anyone's conscience. The "chain of command" in the Church goes directly from an individual bishop to the Pope, not through the national bishop's conference.

National bishop's conferences have some authority, but it's primarily over administrative and liturgical issues (e.g., making sure that the Mass is said the same way throughout the US), not doctrinal ones.

[from occupied ga]

those two excerpts

No tootsie roll it isn't two excerpts it's the WHOLE DOCUMENT. If you can show me where catholic social teaching urges removing welfare or forcing people to work or face the consequences, then I'll change my mind. Again you are deliberately missing the point. Catholic "social teaching" is simply a somewhat watered down rehash of marxism along the lines of FDR's phoney baloney "Freedom from want.". No one is EVER free from want because you always want something. And yes I disagree with it - emphatically. EVERY SINGLE TIME IT HAS BEEN TRIED marxism/socialism ie redistirbutionism as urged by "Catholic social teaching" has resulted in increasing poverty and want. To paraphrase Dr. Thomas Sowell, every time you give something to a welfare recipient you reenforce the idea in his mind that he is indeed owed something and he will demand more.

[from occupied ga]

Yes thank you for that repetition of dogma. NOW. Tell me where the average catholic is going to find this when the USCCB is pumping out it's mildly altered repetition of the democratic party's political platform, and the parish prists are taking up the chant.