Eric Scheske used his Wednesday column at Catholic Exchange to poke jabs at the NCAA's Indian name policy. Link. Excerpt:
It's also worth noting that the NCAA's actions aren't charitable in any way. Charity must be voluntary and self-giving. If it lacks either of those components, it's not charity. If it's self-giving on your part but not voluntary, it's a type of taxation against you. If it's voluntary on your part but not self-giving, it means someone else must do your good works. Either way, there is force or coercion involved, which is the antithesis of charity.
That's one of the reasons that the Catholic Church has always opposed socialism. Socialism's idea of everyone sharing everything drips of charity, but if not done voluntarily, such sharing is not charitable at all. Indeed, because such sharing always requires coercion, it will result in tyranny, as we witnessed firsthand from 1917 to 1991.
And this brings us back to the NCAA, a governing body that has been acting with increasing arbitrariness and caprice. It would be gross melodramatics to refer to the NCAA as a Communist dictatorship, but in its arbitrary and capricious actions, it is displaying tyrannical pretensions.
And good Christians always oppose tyranny and pretension.
