Yesterday, the Catholic Bishops issued a document
Choosing the Common Good which is intended to guide Catholics in the run up to the general election and beyond. Unlike its predecessors such as
Taxation for the Common Good and
The Common Good and the Catholic Church’s Social Teaching it has not hit the headlines. This is because, in contrast to the other documents, it is sober, well written, does not take the Bishops beyond their competences on technical economic matters and does not misrepresent aspects of the tradition of Catholic social teaching through a partial and selective analysis. There is nothing like the ghastly suggestion that tax is like the string that binds society together that appeared in
Taxation for the Common Good (perhaps that document should have been followed by one on regulation that could have stated that “regulation is like the red tape that binds society together”).