Posted on 01/31/2015 5:56:52 PM PST by marshmallow
(RNS) Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch recently made headlines by pledging nearly $900 million to help elect candidates who support their libertarian strain of economic conservatism, but the industrialists are also nearly doubling their investment in the business school of Catholic University of America, which is overseen by the U.S. bishops.
That’s despite the fact that many Catholics—including Pope Francis—say the kind of unregulated capitalism that the Kochs promote runs counter to church teaching.
The $1.75 million dollar grant from the Charles Koch Foundation, one of several nonprofits with ties to the industrialist brothers, is part of a $3 million pledge to CUA announced in January that includes $500,000 from the Busch Family Foundation and $250,000 each from three business leaders.
The donation to the Washington-based university comes just over a year after the Koch Foundation gave an initial $1 million grant that allowed CUA to launch its own School of Business and Economics. The school is run by Andrew Abela, a disciple of libertarian economics, and it is dedicated to promoting what it calls “principled entrepreneurship.”
The grant fits with the Kochs’ strategy of funding business and other programs at universities around the country. (They are also generous underwriters of numerous cultural institutions.) But from the moment the first CUA donation was announced in the fall of 2013, many Catholic theologians and others raised questions about why the only pontifical university in the country would take so much money from the Kochs.
Dozens of theologians and academics wrote to CUA president John Garvey and Abela expressing concern that “by accepting such a donation you send a confusing message to Catholic students and other faithful Catholics that the Koch brothers’ anti-government, Tea Party ideology has the blessing of a university sanctioned by Catholic bishops.”
They renewed that criticism last....
(Excerpt) Read more at uscatholic.org ...
Ever see a headline, “The controversial Warren Buffett” or “controversial George Soros”?
They don’t HAVE to accept the cash...but I’m betting you a doughnut that they WILL!
The pope knows nothing about economics. The pope is one of many Christian leaders who thing good deeds by the government should count....but they don’t. They are not done in the name of Jesus.....they might as well be done in the name of ISIS.
These moral weaklings don’t undertand every time government expands social welfare programs, it expands at the expense of the church. Then they wonder why so many people thing Christianity in particular and religion in general is irrelevent.
There is a cognitive dissonance with supporting with your capitalist earnings a university that will almost certainly teach and promote socialism.
I appreciate the RCs when they are right on the issues but economics is NOT one of them, not in their apparent world view.
I will elaborate on my point by saying that my husband got his BS in Economics at a Catholic university (University of San Francisco). As he defended work over welfare his professor told him in front of the whole class that he was, and I quote, “Just a redneck who hates the poor.”
He was, unusually for him, speechless to be so insulted. Particularly because we have been below the poverty time for most of our adult lives.
I don’t know, Koch brothers.
As an alumni of the university, you couldn’t be any more wrong.
CUA is a rather conservative school, the faculty is about split 50/50 in partisan identity. That’s something you’ll NEVER find in a state school.
They have a ban on speakers who support abortion, and recently even reverted back to same sex dorms only.
I’m glad the Kochs gave them the money, their Economics Department was rather underdeveloped.
All this is is a subsidy of the left.
Maybe the "goats" at the last judgment (Matt. 25) can take comfort. When the King accuses them of not having helped the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, and the prisoners, they can say, "we paid taxes and the government did it for us."
Actually the Politics Department chairman when I attended is a rather major Traditionalist Conservative academic. Rather ironic since he’s Swedish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_G._Ryn
Personally I’d rather see them REJECT the money, and then have the Cooks send it to Ted Cruz.
“The school is run by Andrew Abela, a disciple of libertarian economics, and it is dedicated to promoting what it calls “principled entrepreneurship.””
That’s great news.
Interesting. Thanks! Bob
You don’t like Carl Menger (The founder of the Austrian School, and a Catholic)?
You realize that while there are certain fundamentals laid down by Catholicism with regards to justice and economics (e.g. a right to private property), within these fundamentals all sorts of views are possible? I’m Catholic, my first degree is in economics, and I back hard money—and can make a fairly reasonable case for it not only from an economic standpoint but from a justice standpoint (my third degree, and the one that I’m actually using, is theology, but I can best argue this issue from the perspective of my second degree, which is philosophy).
Look up “Koch Industries, Wichita.”
50/50...no, 75/25 in the wrong direction.
The most recent vote on President Garvey bears this out. The faculty by and large have run from the Catholic identity. Long past time for the Bishops to take a firm hand.
That’s a shame, they used to be a pretty good school. I’d hate for it to turn into another Georgetown.
Good to hear. I guess Catholic universities differ in their teaching.
But the overall direction of the RC teaching seems to be socialist in nature. They see it as kinder, I suppose, more Christ-like, but I think they are wrong. Capitalism enriches people the most and is kindest to the poor, as well as fairest in terms of opportunity for all.
My EXACT thoughts!
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