Paul Ryan shocked the gentle souls at Georgetown University when he traveled up to their campus last Thursday and said: "We believe that Social Security legislation, now billed as a great victory for the poor and for the worker, is a great defeat for Christianity. It is an acceptance of the idea of force and compulsion." The Wisconsin Republican went on to lament that "we in our generation have more and more come to consider the state as bountiful Uncle Sam," and that citizens justify what they get from the state by saying, "We got it coming to us."  Sure sounds like Mr. Ryan was channeling Ayn Rand.  Except for one thing. The words are not Mr. Ryan's. They come from a 1945 column by Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker, in which she complained about how state intervention limits personal freedom and responsibility. Day's skepticism about government was reflected in her nickname for it: "Holy Mother State."  How far we have traveled since then. As the protests surrounding Mr. Ryan's appearance confirm, the Catholic left long ago jettisoned any worries about the size or scope of government (except for national defense). So the Sermon on the Mount now becomes a call for a single-payer system of universal health insurance.  House Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.) during a speech at Georgetown University on Thursday.  In this worldview, those who believe otherwise—i.e., those who argue that you best help the poor by breaking down barriers to ownership and opportunity—are not simply mistaken. They are selfish and uncaring. It's the same meme President Obama played to when he recently characterized the GOP's approach as "you're on your own economics."  Mr. Ryan believes otherwise. At Georgetown he delivered a spirited defense of his budget. He did so notwithstanding attacks by various Catholic bishops and a letter from 90 Georgetown professors decrying his "continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan that decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick, and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest few."  Now, even a Georgetown professor ought to understand that, for the most part, we're not talking about "cuts" at all; we're talking about the rate of increase in spending. Under Mr. Obama, the increased spending would go to 4.5% a year. Mr. Ryan's "radical" reform proposes to keep it to 3%.  Of course, what drives Mr. Ryan's religious critics bonkers is not his numbers. It's his claim that his policies reflect Catholic principles. At Georgetown he summarized one of the differences he has with the protesting professors this way: "I do not believe that the preferential option for the poor means a preferential option for big government."  Editorial page editor Paul Gigot on Rep. Paul Ryan's speech last week at Georgetown and the attacks on his budget plan by university professors.  For a certain kind of Catholic, this is anathema. They assume only one possible interpretation of Catholic social teaching: their own. So when a Republican House budget chairman dares suggest that his approach to taxes and spending also rests on a moral foundation, the cry goes up: Partisanship! Social Darwinism! War on the Poor!  Now, let us stipulate that those of us who incline to Mr. Ryan's application of Catholic social teaching—not least Mr. Ryan himself—do not assert we enjoy any monopoly. Plainly others applying the same principles can and do reach very different conclusions. When that happens, the obvious thing to do would be to have an honest conversation about which path has proved better at achieving its goals.  That's just what Mr. Ryan asked for at Georgetown. He put it this way: "If there were ever a time for serious but respectful discussion, among Catholics as well as those who don't share our faith, that time is now."  Alas, a "serious but respectful discussion" is the last thing Mr. Ryan's critics want. For one thing, the critics don't have a real alternative: Democrats haven't passed a budget in years precisely so they won't have to defend their spending philosophy.  More to the point, a "serious but respectful discussion" would have to concede something Mr. Ryan's religious opponents are loath to do: that conservative Republicans advancing market-oriented answers are as serious about their moral case as liberal Democrats are about theirs.  Thus we are left with the familiar pattern. Conservatives assert that liberals have a naïve faith in government, and that this leads them to advocate policies that ending up doing more harm than good. The liberal argument—in tone as well as substance—was well captured by the 50-foot banner greeting Mr. Ryan at Georgetown: "Were you there when they crucified the poor?"  Let's be clear. Dorothy Day would never have embraced Paul Ryan. Still, she had a sense that has been completely lost among religious liberals today: an appreciation for the high price we all pay, poor as well as rich, when we rely on government to be our neighbor's keeper.  A version of this article appeared May 1, 2012, on page A13 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Paul Ryan's Cross to Bear.
In The Wall Street Journal, Main Street columnist William McGurn writes about the House budget chairman's challenge to the religious left.