Catholic bishops rap Paul Ryan on the knuckles with a ruler (re: budget)

[meow2u3]

UPDATE: 4/24, 4:00pm: Rep. Paul Ryan's spokesman, Kevin Seifert, sent this email in response to an inquiry about the Georgetown Faculty Letter from The Huffingtonpost:

"Chairman Ryan remains grateful for Georgetown's invitation to advance a thoughtful dialogue this week on his efforts to avert a looming debt crisis that would hurt the poor the first and the worst. Ryan looks forward to affirming our shared commitment to a preferential option for the poor, which of course does not mean a preferential option for bigger government."

WASHINGTON—Joining a chorus of Catholic bishops, theologians, priests, and social justice leaders, nearly 90 Georgetown University faculty and administrators have called Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) to task for his misuse of Catholic social teaching in defending his budget, which hurts the poor. The group sent a letter to Rep. Ryan in advance of his appearance on the Catholic campus on Thursday morning to give the Whittington Lecture.

In their letter to Ryan, the scholars make clear they are not objecting to his speaking on campus, but rather his recent comments defending his budget on Christian grounds.

“Our problem with Representative Ryan is that he claims his budget is based on Catholic social teaching,” said Jesuit Father Thomas J. Reese, one of the organizers of the letter. “This is nonsense. As scholars, we want to join the Catholic bishops in pointing out that his budget has a devastating impact on programs for the poor.” Reese is a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/24/paul-ryan-challenged-by-georgetown-faculty_n_1449437.html?ref=politics&ir=Politics

Don't mess with the Jesuits, Paulie. You can't win.