It certainly sounds like you hate leftists.

Anti-clericalism on the left comes from good sources and bad. Opposition to many of the good things we have was supported and championed by clerics, who too often sided with the powerful. It was and is wrong that many leftists blamed the Church rather than the usual forms of institutional corruption, but it is understandable.

And yes, I think democracy is better than Franco. He was a good Catholic.

@Michael
Har har. Something tells me that is not the reason why the left ‘distrusts’ the right and the Church. More like hates them. And it is leftist ideology that causes that.

The key question re what did happen in Europe is, once begun on that trajectory, is it inevitable that the trend continues till bankruptcy–even regardless of a demographic crisis, which I grant you.

It’s fascinating to me that so many liberals distrust the right and the Church when, as early as 1976, French Gaullists decided not to plot the overthrow of democracy.

Also “blatantly un-Christian”, as Berlusconi’s many failures of character (and policy) attest. Berlusconi’s most recent term was arguably squandered on a law designed primarily to keep him out of court (“il lodo Alfani”). Once he finally got around to economic reforms, he had wasted so much political capital that Lega Nord, a minor party whose support he needed, refused to budge one inch on things like the party leader’s wife’s pension — and other parties were so inflamed that they were having no part of it, either.

Joe DeVet What are those principles which are being recommended here? Is there a definition of the term “Christian Democrat”?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_democracy#Political_viewpoints

Which seems to consist in this: in the name of Jesus Christ, borrow from your children and grandchildren to prop up a Potemkin village of present prosperity and unearned (and unwarranted) entitlements. Vote in the party which promises the most borrowing and the most entitlements.

Principles of “Christian Democracy” did not include explicit Ponzi schemes. Many hallmarks of what people call “European social democracy” are due not to Christian Democracy, but to other parties. To be fair, many of these even looked relatively sustainable before population growth fell to unsustainable levels, and certain overzealous governments and/or judges enacted regulations that hobbled economic enterprise. Much of postwar Western Europe was a dynamic economic engine for several decades, with places like Franco’s Spain, southern Italy, and Greece being more the exception than the rule.

What are those principles which are being recommended here? Is there a definition of the term “Christian Democrat”?

I confess that if the term means anything concrete, it seems to me that it means the all-too-common Marxist interpretation of Catholic social teaching. Which seems to consist in this: in the name of Jesus Christ, borrow from your children and grandchildren to prop up a Potemkin village of present prosperity and unearned (and unwarranted) entitlements. Vote in the party which promises the most borrowing and the most entitlements.

Even now it’s rearing its ugly head in the US, in the form of the USCCB bishops’ criticism of the Ryan budget proposal. That proposal is the only responsible one which has been put forward by anyone, to redirect our own course away from the fiscal/financial death spiral we are presently in. Yet it is being condemned by the very leaders who should be the first to call their flocks to take responsibility for their lives.