For months, Janesville Congressman and now Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan has spoken passionately about how Catholic social teaching helped shape his budget priorities. And for months, leaders within his own denomination have ripped him.
A committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops blasted his federal budget approach for “unjustified and wrong” cuts to the poor. A busload of nuns motored through nine states, including Wisconsin, contending his fiscal priorities are “immoral” and would “devastate the soul of our nation.” But in Ryan’s own Catholic diocese, the reception has been much more nuanced, even flattering at times.