Jefferson Review

"Your Liberty is Our Interest"

Home /  Archives / Search / Links / Quotes / Book Reviews / Advertise /Contact us / Subscribe / Calendar

Catholic Church Gets a Taste of Its Own Medicine –

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

The Louisville Archdiocese owns the Tonini buildings, adjacent to St. Martin of Tours, and has applied for a permit to tear down the buildings in order to make a parking lot to serve the church.  However, the city has designated the buildings as landmarks and has prohibited the church from tearing them down.  Now, the church is suing the city, saying that the city is violating the church’s right to control its property.  While my sympathies are with the church and with the rights of all property owners to control their own property, I find it amusing that the Catholic church is objecting to the government’s controlling its property, since, for many years, it has been a leader in promoting the violation of other people’s property rights.  The Catholic church has been a big supporter of the welfare state, which forcibly redistributes property, and has been more than willing to sacrifice the property rights of various individuals, supposedly for the good of “society as a whole”.  So, when the city of Louisville chooses to violate the church’s property rights, for the good of “the community”, the church simply is getting a taste of its own medicine.

Those who live by the sword die by the sword.  Just as Protestants in the late 1800’s promoted government control over education in order to straighten out the heathen Catholic immigrants, only to be appalled to find that, by the late 1900’s, the government schools were teaching their children atheism, now the Catholics are also finding that their support for government takings of private property is coming back to bite them.  When will people figure out that, if they want their property and beliefs to be respected, they have to accord the same respect to others?

Weather (Louisville) / Mapquest / Search / White Pages / Business Search / CNN / Dictionary / E-card / MSN