Bitcoin and the Subsidiarity of the Catholic Church

Bitcoin and the Subsidiarity of the Catholic Church
by Bill Ulivieri

There's a great deal of confusion surrounding the global currency known as Bitcoin. Bitcoin apparently has been complicit in every major crime since its inception in 2008. It’s been accused of money laundering, funding terrorism, sex trafficking, and other nefarious misdeeds.

Plans for Central Bank Digital

Currencies (CBDC’s) are now being rolled out using Bitcoin’s immutable blockchain technology to ramp up surveillance on financial transactions and potentially restrict freedoms based on a person’s “good citizen” score. While many of these articles contain truth, historically the currency that reigns supreme over all these nefarious actions is the US Dollar. Money is morally inert, but how humans direct its use is what provides its moral value. Morally, bitcoins are not intrinsically evil.

I maintain that Bitcoin is the greatest form of Catholic money ever invented. It is the only currency that fully embodies the Church’s social teaching on Subsidiarity.

Subsidiarity

The Principle of Subsidiarity is a common in Catholicism, and the key tenet in Catholic social justice. What it means is that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization, which can be done as well or better by a smaller and simpler organization. A bottom-up decentralized approach is greatly encouraged, rather than a top down hierarchical and centralized approach. Social justice is the helping hand which lift our brothers and sisters gently and charitably, rather than using coercion and striking with an iron hand. If a person was inclined to search the internet or Vatican archives, they would be hard pressed to find a Church document illuminating how currency devaluations are a hidden tax ravaging the standard of living of the poor and middle class.

Saint John Paul II came close when he expressed concern that governments were more preoccupied with “inflation and military security”, than the condition of millions of people caught in an endless cycle of poverty, malnutrition, hunger, illiteracy, lack of education, and persistent unemployment. One reason governments are preoccupied with inflation is because unbridled money creation is the tool used to fund endless military conflicts financed by currency debasement.

Pope Benedict XVI did a wonderful job amid The Great Recession meltdown in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate stating “Human costs always include economic costs, and economic dysfunctions always involve human costs”.

Rather than offering a fraternal correction towards governments, the Church continues to look favorably upon government; the antithesis of the Principle of Subsidiarity for solutions to alleviate poverty and fails to see how its inflationary policies and central bank money printers are partially responsible for generational illiteracy, unemployment, poverty, and reduced life expectancy.

The problem with the current fiat financial system is the rapacious habit of borrowing from the future and spending today which destroys the value of a nation’s currency.

Inflation creates shortages in food, manufacturing, and energy. In the last 18 months since the US government injected trillions into the economy, banks, hedge funds, and politically well-connected firms get first dibs to spend, invest and speculate thereby outsourcing inflation and shortages on the poor.

In other words, as hard as they try, as well meaning as they may be, central bank fiscal policies perpetuate the vicious cycle of poverty by printing more and more devalued currency.

Since the introduction of Bitcoin, a decentralized global computer and payment network, its proponents herald it as the Money of the People.

Some of Bitcoin’s properties are,

·         Censorship resistant

·         Borderless

·         Store of value

·         Deflationary as opposed to an inflationary supply

Bitcoin basically consists of two parts.
1. A global, interconnected, free market, decentralized, secure payment network (railroad tracks); and,
2. the bitcoin currency which transmits monetary value. (railcar of passengers)

Recently, El Salvador voted by a supermajority of their Congress, to approve Bitcoin as legal tender. This provides immediate benefits. The fees and service charges associated with remittances to El Salvador are estimated at $400 million annually may have come to an end. The cost savings will stay in the pocket and purse of family and friends without being scraped by intermediaries like banks, credit unions, and the customer service desk at big box stores. These intermediaries have provided an incredible service for decades, but there is a new kid in town, who will perform this function for practically free.

It offers Salvadorians an option to own digital property not influenced by the whimsical desires of politicians as affluent nations export inflation around the globe. The Central African Republic and  Panama are next as smartphone apps permitting bitcoin transactions has been introduced in countries suffering from 52% annual inflation and suffocating poverty affecting millions. 

For the first time in history, we have the greatest free market, entrepreneurial, self-sovereign, inflation proof, bottom up, global (Catholic) form of secure money with a fixed supply issuance. With Bitcoin operating on a decentralized, independent, distributed network there is no centralized, politically connected bureaucratic entity which can create, control, or distribute bitcoins.

Bitcoin doesn't care about your age, sex, nationality, status, caste, gender, political belief, country of residence, refugee status, race, creed, or color. Bitcoin doesn’t care if you’re Russian, Ukrainian or a Canadian truck driver. Bitcoin is the first global monetary system available to anyone, available anywhere on the planet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and is therefore the most inclusive, Catholic form of money. 

Can I get an Amen?