What to make of the dishonest steward?

Readings: Amos 8:4-7; Psalm 113:1-2.4-8; 1 Timothy 2:1-8; Luke 16:1-13

The parable of the unjust steward is one of Saint Luke's trickier passages. In the end, did the steward who was fired for squandering his master's wealth do right by his master or not? More precisely, did he do right at all? Drilling down, does he in anyway give us an example to emulate? After all, a 50% or even a 20% discount is pretty steep to settle duly incurred debts, even in a barter economy.

The reading I proposing below cuts against the grain more than a bit. It's interesting to engage in this kind of re-reading when it comes to ambiguous passages of Sacred Scripture. Admittedly, what follows is more of a theological reading than a strictly exegetical one.

It seems to me that the ambiguity of this passage arises from the figure of the master who had fired his steward for not acting shrewdly but expresses his pleasure after the same steward settles accounts with two of the master's debtors. How much does the master know about the details of these deals? There is nothing cut-and-dry about this pericope.

Nonetheless, the steward was commended by the same master who fired him for acting prudently in the settling the master's debts prior to his dismissal. This despite the fact that the steward was clearly acting in his own best interests, not necessarily those of his master. By giving big discounts to his soon-to-be former master's debtors, he hoped to procure employment or at least garner favor with these debtors.

This leaves open the question as to whether the master on whose behalf he was acting truly understood what this shady guy was really up to. It also leaves open the question about whether this dishonest man secured subsequent employment. I mean, who would hire a guy like that? Perhaps he wound up begging or digging ditches after all!

It doesn't seem to me that Jesus is encouraging his followers to act like this steward, even in worldly matters. Christians don't tout being wily, conniving, dishonest, and self-serving. Rather, the Lord encourages trustworthiness even in worldly affairs: "If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth?" (Luke 16:11). It seems pretty clear that the steward served mammon while trying to make it look like he was serving his master. In this parable, the master is not directly analagous to God but I'll get to that in a moment.

Dishonest wealth, that is, worldly wealth, will fail you. If not before, it will fail you at death. Why? Because, as the tired cliche puts it, "You can't take it with you." But you can take with you honesty and trustworthiness. Living sub specie aeternitatis should enable the Christian to see that while being dishonest might pay now, it doesn't in the end. As the witness of many righteous people demonstrates, it is possible to serve God even when handling mammon, which we all must do to some extent.

Jesus' observation that worldly people are more adept at worldly affairs than His followers are is not an obvious exhortation to act like them either in worldy matters or matters pertaining to eternal life. Therefore, it is not an argument that undercuts what I am asserting, even if it is the tired way people have heard it preached about. It could just as easily mean the opposite.

Besides, wouldn't an exhortation to act like the shady steward be out of joint with the other teachings on money and wealth that we find in the Gospel According to Saint Luke, not mention the overall tone and tenor of Jesus' teaching on these matters? Do ends justify means? There is a lot at stake in this morally.

A two-verse extension of our reading from Luke, I think, helps us see things more clearly. As a result of the teaching set forth in our Gospel, money-loving Pharisees, Luke writes, "sneered" at Jesus. He responds to their sneering by saying, "You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15). I think it a legitimate exegetical move to read back and assert something like, "While the master may not have been aware of the details of the deals his dishonest steward was cutting, you can't fool God."

That is my take and I am sticking to it. I think my take is also reinforced by the Old Testament reading from the Book of the Prophet Amos. Bear in mind that for the Sunday readings during Ordinary Time, the Church makes a great effort to harmonize the Gospel and Old Testament reading. The dishonest steward bears a remarkable resemblance to those the prophet lambasts. The main difference being, those Amos righteously castigates defraud the poor, while the steward defrauds his seemingly wealthy master.

Maybe we can harmonize this difference by saying that by being dishonest, defrauding, and finanically abusing others, especially the poor, we betray our master; God, to whom belongs everything that is. Yet, in His unfathomable goodness, the only begotton Son of the Father, as our reading from 1 Timothy reminds us, "gave himself as ransom for all" (1 Timothy 2:6). Because of this, even dishonest stewards can have hope.

"Either way it's okay..."

Friendships are interesting. No two are the same. These relationships are so varied, which is what makes them kind of amazing. At least for me, friendships are difficult to sustain over time. This often isn't the result of a lack of effort. Friendships are, in a word, fragile.

A lot of my Friday posts have become quite personal, which is something new for me. I hardly see my life as instructive for me, let alone anyone else. But my reason for "getting" personal is what I would describe as confessional, not pedagogical. This is somewhat reminiscent of "A dream and making sense of reality" from last December.

"I was going to text you tomorrow," replies a friend who months ago stopped texting (texting to stay in touch- part of the problem, no doubt). This is followed by, "Can I get back you later?" "Yeah sure," knowing this won't happen. After several of these kinds of exchanges it becomes apparent that this person really doesn't want to communicate anymore. A final text- "As you wish," thus offloading the issue back onto you.

Considered from a distance, it's a predictable trajectory. There's the the inevitable question, "What happened?" Honestly, it's usually not a question worth asking.

It's all okay. Almost nothing lasts forever. The world is a transitory place. I need to work on being grateful (graceful) for whatever fruit friendships bear while they last. I admit, this is very hard for me. I tend to hold on to things, to cling to them really, especially people and things I am fond of. Most of the time, the fruit of holding on too tightly is bitterness and resentment, being in a state of loss.

"Oh well" is a phrase I use a lot these days. I mean it when I say it both to myself and to others. Security is found in what lasts. Last night, I watched a short video by Ralph Martin. It's not about his recent firing from Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit. The title of his video is "Who Will Remember Us?" Watching this gave me solace.

Ralph's video made me think that perhaps I should replace "Oh well" with "It's alright." But a sincerely meant "It's alright." A lot of life, including spiritual life, is making peace with reality, being okay with what happens good, bad, or indifferent. Reality is rarely if ever how/what I want it to be. What's more no one else cares that reality doesn't bend to my desires. Even more, they don't have to and it's probably better that they don't. Getting to that sincerely felt "It's alright" is a struggle.

Martin is the founder and president of Renewal Ministries. Renewal is a Catholic charismatic organization. One overlooked feature of the charismatic renewal is the kind of simple teaching Martin's video contains. This amounts to an emphasis of not losing sight of the purpose of my life. Keeping my end ever in mind is what enables me to navigate my way through. I am reminded this morning of the medieval morality play The Summoning of Everyman (the link is to God's speech at the beginning of the play).

On a tangential note, in the end, Beatrices usually turn out to be Dulcineas.

It's August, if you can believe it! 1 August is the Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Ligori, who is a Doctor of the Church. He is primarily known for his teaching about the complexities of morality. Yesterday it was announced that Saint John Henry Newman is going to be made a Doctor of the Church. Without Newman, I would not be Catholic. Somewhere Muriel Spark, too, is smiling.

I would like to post a performance of Elgar's musical setting of Newman's "Dream of Gerontius" but a traditio lasting more than ninety minutes kind of violates the medium. So, as a tribute to my inabilty to take a more mature view of the transitoriness of life's vicissitude, I am going with Billy Joel's "Leave Me Alone." I choose it a bit tongue in cheek.

"Swim out past the breakers..."

When I decided to reinvigorate this little piece of cyber space late last year I could never have predicted all the excitement 2025 would bring. What a year so far! We've experienced the good, the bad, and the very ugly. But in the face of this, there is reason for hope. Solidarity seems to be springing up tace not just the challenges but the crises we are living. As Pope Francis noted earlier this year, while speaking in his beloved basilica of Saint Mary Major, where he was laid to rest, “Today, we are not living an epoch of change so much as an epochal change.”

In my view, the first quarter of the twenty-first century has been an awful epoch, a paradigm has emerged that badly needs to be changed. Maybe the next quarter century will be better, a time when we start asking why to technology, regulating it smartly, and rejecting stifling ideologies. Maybe it's time, to quote the late Joe Strummer, "to take the humanity back to the center of the ring..."

In the same speech cited above, Pope Francis noted: “The situations that we are living today pose new challenges which, at times, are also difficult for us to understand. Our time requires us to live problems as challenges and not as obstacles.” Above all, he reminded us, “The Lord is active and at work in our world.” The seemingly hopelessness of death overcome by unexpected resurrection.

Catholic social teaching, which is built on the pillars of human dignity, the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity, offers a lot in this regard, even for non-Catholics, non-Christians, and non-believers. This is why I found the Pope's choice of the name Leo so encouraging.

Speaking of need for change, Fr. Sam Sawyer, S.J., who serves as editor of America magazine, wrote what I think is a great opinion piece for The New York Times yesterday: "Pope Leo XIV May Be a Stern Teacher for American Catholics." I won't rehash Fr Sawyer's short piece. I will just encourage you to read it.

We can all rest easy, Pope Leo is on social media.

With everything going on, I have been "blogging" up a storm. With this, I have posted as many times already as I posted last year. Of course, last year was nearly the end of Καθολικός διάκονος. Hey, it's Easter- Resurrection time!

Καθολικός διάκονος remains for me a labor of love. Writing here is something I want to do, not something I feel I have to do. I re-started in earnest because I was poorer by not doing it. From the beginning, I felt this to be part of my diaconal vocation. It is my prayer that there are others who benefit from what I post, too.

This week's Friday traditio is one of those great '90s grungy kinda ballads" "Santa Monica" by Everclear. Why? In the words of "Bluto" Blutarsky, "Why not?"

A few thankful thoughts

Here we are. Thanksgiving 2020 in the U.S.A. What a long, strange, and perilous year it's been so far. I turned 55 a few weeks ago. It's safe to say that in all those years, I haven't experienced a year like this year.

I know for those of us who are relatively comfortable it's funny to joke about 2020 seeming like the end of the world. But for many people who aren't comfortable, life usually, perhaps always, feels unstable, precarious, scary. I think it is important to keep that in mind.

It's also sobering to consider that just in this country, more than a quarter of a million people have died as a result of being infected with the sars-cov-2 virus and contracting COVID-19. Many more people who contracted COVID-19 will suffer chronic effects from the disease. The question remains, how ready might we be when, not if, another novel virus infects the human population. Hopefully, we're much more ready than we were for this novel coronavirus, which caught the U.S. unawares and flatfooted. Of course, a lot of this has to do with responsible leadership.

Speaking of responsible leadership, here's a link to a video President-elect Biden and his wife, Jill, did to deliver a Thanksgiving message of hope to a greiving nation: click here.

Obviously, finding effective ways to get the spread of sars-cov-2 under control while keeping the economy afloat will be his first order of business once he takes office. An important part of his requires securing another stimulus package. In my view, any stimulus package needs to be aimed at putting money directly into the hands of people who need it and to help small business owners. Putting money directly into the hands of people, who will spend it for life's necessities, is the best way to stimulate the economy.

Despite my family being afflicted with COVID-19 back in March, I am grateful for many things this year. Even though my wife continues to suffer some lingering respiatory effects, which are the result of getting COVID-19 after having had a nasty case of pneumonia more than 10 years ago, I am thankful we all recovered intact.

I am also grateful for the gift of faith. I am thankful for my wife and 6 children. I am thankful for many friends and especially for a few close friends, people who know virtually everything about me and yet, by some miracle, still love me. I am thankful for my diaconate, which privileges me to serve others in various ways. I am grateful for the ministry of overseeing the deacons and the formation of new deacons with which my bishop entrusted me this year. I am grateful for a decent job and good work colleagues. I am thankful that I live in a beautiful city, a place called Bountiful.

Today I am not interested in tracing the history of the first Thanksgiving or even going back a revisiting President Roosevelt's designation of the penultimate (I get to use it again!) Thursday in November as the fixed of the holiday, which was later overruled by Congress several years later, putting it back on the ultimate Thursday of November. I am grateful that our nation sets a day aside specifically to give thanks to God Almighty. I am also grateful that nobody is compelled to give thanks to God or even to give thanks. But, as Brother David Steindl-Rast observed: "Look closely and you will find that people are happy because they are grateful. The opposite of gratefulness is just taking everything for granted."

So, today let's not take everything, or anything, for granted. Let us also be mindful of those who have not. Since today is a civic holiday, albeit one with religious overtones, as Americans, let's commit ourselves to forming an ever-more-perfect union. In light of the current divisions, this is going to take a lot of intentional work.

As a Christian, I am put in mind of these words from the Preface for the Eucharistic Prayer for last Sunday's celebration of the Solemnity of Christ the King:

For you anointed your Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, with the oil of gladness as eternal Priest and King of all creation, so that, by offering himself on the altar of the Cross as a spotless sacrifice to bring us peace, he might accomplish the mysteries of human redemption and, making all created things subject to his rule, he might present to the immensity of your majesty an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love, and peace

I am also grateful for the opportunity the global pandemic has given nations to re-set their economies vis-à-vis human equity and the environment.

As Pope Francis has tirelessly pointed out, we have opportunities for positive change, to establish a new and better normal. On this Thanksgiving, I pray for our national, state, and local leaders that we can, to borrow the motto of President-elect Biden's Transition: "Build Back Better."

Havel & St. Pio: Life, faith, and prayer

At least in my mind, which is an odd place no doubt, some things, some people seem completely incongruent. This incongruency is often dissolved by juxtaposing (like "penultimate," how can I ever pass up the opportunity to use "juxtaposing"?) two seemingly incongruent people, things, ways of thinking. What gave rise to these deep diaconal thoughts? Reading yesterday from two books: Summer Meditations by Václav Havel and the poorly translated (from Italian), but still well worthwhile, The "Padre", Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, Charismatic Priest. In my reading I noticed not so much a convergence, but a certain continuity. This post is nothing more than an attempt at making a connection.

I will begin with passage from Havel that struck me. He wrote Summer Meditations in the summer of 1991 after he had been duly elected as president of what was then still Czechoslovakia. The book consists of five meditations. Yesterday I began reading the third meditation: "What I Believe."

Václav Havel

The attempt to unite all economic entities under the authority of a single monstrous owner, the state, and to subject all economic life to one central voice of reason that deems itself more clever than life itself, is an attempt against life itself. It is an extreme expression of the hubris of modern man, who thinks that he understands the world completely - that he is at the apex of creation and is therefore competent to run the whole world; who claims that his own brain is the highest form of organized matter, and has not noticed that there is a structure infinitely more complex, of which he himself is merely a tiny part: that is, nature, the universe, the order of Being

Havel goes on to point out that "Communist economics was born of an arrogant, utopian rationality that elevated itself above all else." Capitalism, so called, runs the same danger, even as it does not seek to organize everything under the state. Multi-national corporations merit analysis under the rubric of an economy for people, not people for the economy. Elevating theory, what is abstract, over what is real, or concrete, such "pseudo-scientific" utopias, according to Havel, lose a sense "of the enigma of life, and lack humility before the mysterious order of Being," which leads to the "turning away from moral imperatives 'from above' and thus from human conscience."

Havel is insistent that what he generically calls "the market economy," which he is pretty careful to distinguish from "capitalism," which he viewed suspiciously as an ideology on par with communism, best "corresponds to human nature." He argues because the market economy is obviously in tune with human nature it does not and cannot be reduced to "a world view, a philosophy, or an ideology." "Even less," he continued, "does [the market economy] contain the meaning of life."

A chemically pure theory is incompatible and practically unrealizable. Life is - and probably will always be - more than just an illustration of what science knows about it. There is no such thing as a "pure system", anywhere. Social life is not a machine built to any set of plans known to us - which is why new theories are constantly being fashioned: the flow of life, which is always taking us by surprise, is the only permanent challenge to the human spirit to strive for new achievements

While agreeing that scientific analysis should be used by policymakers, Havel insisted two things must always be kept in mind when doing so:

In the first place, scientific knowledge can serve life, but life is certainly not here merely to confirm someone's scientific discoveries and thus serve science. And in the second place, science may be a remarkable product and instrument of the human spirit, but it is not in itself a guarantee of a humane outcome. A familiar example: science can lead people to discover atomic energy, but it cannot guarantee that they will not blow each other up

October, as both my readers know, is a month dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. St. Pio of Pietrelcina taught: "Hold on tightly to the Rosary. Be very grateful to the Madonna because it was she who gave us Jesus. Love our Lady and make her loved; always recite the Rosary and recite it as often as possible." Padre Pio never tired of urging and exhorting everyone, no matter his/her state of life, to pray always. To a group of priests who visited him in June 1955, he urged them to pray, telling them prayer is "the only way to save the world." To a group of young male students he said, "Young men, study, but most of all pray! Prayer alone can save souls."

Padre Pio in the confessional

Prayer is the way we engage the mystery of Being. Through prayer we learn the point of existence. Prayer enables, empowers, our humanity. Through prayer we develop an immunity to ideology and develop resistance to "chemically pure" theories by remaining humble "before the mysterious order of Being," which is but another name for God. We should have the utmost veneration for she through whom the Mystery became flesh.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

Is late-modern Western society the realm of the undead?

In his short book The Burnout Society, Korean-born German philosopher Byung-Chul Han makes his case that late-modern, or "post-modern," Western society suffers from a surfeit of both sameness (homongenization) and positivity. "The violence of positivity," Han observes, "does not deprive, it saturates; it does not exclude, it exhausts, which is why it proves inaccessible to unmediated perception" (7).

In his chapter on the "Vita Activa," in which he seeks to show that, like Foucault's disciplinary society and the immunological paradigm, late modern Western society has gone beyond Arendt's attempt, made in her book The Human Condition, to rehabilitate and expand the vita activa (the active life). Before even beginning his own critique, he notes that to prioritize the vita activa over the vita contemplativa (the contemplative life) is to start off down a dead end path, just as dead an end as if one tried it the other way around.

In an endnote to this chapter the Han notes: "Counter to what Arendt claims, the Christian tradition does not attach importance exclusively to vita contemplativa." He then cites Pope St Gregory the Great:

One must know, if a good course of life requires that one pass from the active to the contemplative life, then it is often useful when the soul returns from the contemplative to the active life in such a way that the flame of contemplation lighted in the heart confers its entire perfection on activity. Thus, the active life must lead to contemplation, but contemplation must proceed from what we have observed within and calls us back to activity

I do not have the citation from the works of Pope St Gregory for this passage because Han cites Alois M. Haas' chapter "Die Beurteilung der Vita contemplativa und activa in der Dominikanermystik des 14. Jaharhundrets," from the 1985 book Arbeit Muße Meditations as his source.

According to Han, Arendt insisted that modern work, which, when she wrote, was still largely industrial, turns people into animal laborans. On Arendt's terms, becoming such meant a loss of individuality. But Han doesn't buy this: "If one abandoned one's individuality and dissolved into the life process of the species entirely one would at least have the serenity of an animal" (18). But far from having "the serenity of an animal," the late-modern person, Han notes, "is hyperactive and hyperneurotic" (18). He asks, Why does such "hectic nervousness" prevail?

Image credit: ISTOCK

It seems to me that the direct answer to the question as to why hectic nervousness characterizes people in Western societies today, an answer that Han circles around but never arrives at directly, at least not in this chapter, is a loss of a sense of transcendence: "The modern loss of faith does not concern just God or the hereafter. It involves reality itself and makes human life radically fleeting. Life has never been [I think a better word- it is a translation from German- would be "seemed"] as fleeting as it is today... Nothing promises duration or substance" (18).

While there are certainly historical dynamics in play in the Christian Tradition that prevent us from drawing exclusively with straight lines, the handing on through time of what is substantial (made substantial, that is, embodied/incarnated, by the Church through time, thus making the Church a single subject, recognizable in every age), which Catholics identify as the deposit of the faith, which, I think, can be said to be at one and the same time the Church's memory, will, and understanding, seeks to orient us to what is ultimate, or, in the words of Don Giussani, "to free us from the fascination with appearances, with the ephemeral." It seems to many (myself included) that the ecclesial crisis of our day is making Christian doctrine as fleeting as everything else. In my view, the effect of this, should it succeed, will be to make religion in general and Christianity in particular even less relevant than it is now.

"Given this lack of Being," Han observes, "nervousness and unease arise" (18). For human beings, he continues, it is not enough to belong to a species and work "for the sake of its kind" to achieve temporal aims and perpetuate itself. As a result, "the late-modern I [Ich is translated as "ego] stands utterly alone" (18).

"Even religions, as thanatotechnics [great word] that would remove the fear of death and produce a feeling of duration," Han opines, "have run their course" (18). Reading this made me consider more carefully Roger Rediger's proselytizing of Houellebecq's François in Submission. What appealed to François were the this-worldly aspects of Islam. Reflecting on René Guénon's conversion to Islam, François reasons-

why had Guénon, for example, converted to Islam? he was above all a man of science, and he had chosen Islam on scientific grounds, both for its conceptual economy and to avoid certain marginal, irrational doctrines such as the real presence of Christ in the eucharist (225)

To suggest either than Christ's real presence in the Eucharist is either marginal or irrational is just plain wrong. It is central and, while, being authentically a theological mystery, it cannot be known by the unaided light of natural reason, but is not at odds with reason.

It seems that Western societies today at least remain, to borrow from Flannery O'Connor, "God-haunted." But I think Han is quite right to note, "The denarrativization," what the late Fr Richard John Neuhaus, borrowing from certain post-modern theorists, might call the loss of our meta-narrative, "of the world is reinforcing the feeling of fleetingness. It makes life bare" (18). The net effect of this, according to Han, is that it renders every person expendable, but not entirely expendable, that is, people who can be killed absolutely, but renders us "undead, so to speak" (19).

While Han never writes in this chapter about the need for a transcendent turn, he does end it by pointing out our very human need for contemplation. I don't think that regaining an ability to contemplate can have any effect except to restore our sense of transcendence, the religious sense. Our religious sense is not simply "part" of being human, but precisely what constitutes us human beings made in the imago Dei.

Houellebecq defines distributism well

Convergence, what Jung might call "synchronicity," is what I experienced this morning reading a post by Pater Edmund, who composes what, at least in my estimation, is a very good Catholic blog, Sancrucensis. The convergence that struck me was reading this post after posting about the Republican effort to abolish the estate tax for wealthy people.

The post is Pater Edmund's provisonal "take" on Michel Houellebecq's latest novel Soumission, which is currently being translated into English. His "take" is specifically on on Houellebecq's invocation of the economics of distributism, sometimes called "distributivism," in an imagined French government led by an Islamist, Mohammed Ben Abbes.

Houellebecq describes "distributivism" very well, indeed (thank you to Pater Edmund for his English translation):

an economic philosophy that had been developed in England at the start of the 20th century by thinkers such as Gilbert Keith Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. It wanted to take a ‘third way’ between captialism and communism (which it understood as state capitalism). It’s basic idea was the overcoming of the division between capital and labor. The normal form of economic life was to be the family business. If certain branches of production required large scale organization, then everything was to be done to ensure that the workers were co-owners of their company, and co-responsible for its management. […] An essential element of political philosophy introduced by Chesterton and Belloc was the principle of subsidiarity. According to this principle, no association (whether social, economic or political) should have charge of a function that could be assigned to a smaller association. Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, provided a definition of this principle: "Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do"

In my view, it is precisely this principle of subsidiarity, which requires solidarity (i.e., people working together in pursuit of the common good- it is not libertarian), a far cry from individualism, that we have lost and would do well to retrieve. It is not an overstatement to note that from the beginning of modern Catholic social teaching, which is usually said to begin with Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, to Pope Francis' Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, distributism, which maintains the connection between and balancing effects of solidarity and subsidiarity, is the method espoused.

Being organized into parishes ought to help us in such a retrieval. What I have in mind here is something along the lines of what my friend, one of the best young Catholic thinkers writing today, Artur Rosman, suggested last fall in his post "Synod14: The Church Needs to Replace the Family." Don't be put off by the provocative title. His proposal is not for radical social engineering, but sets forth a concrete proposal for how the Church might respond to the very real needs of our time and place, while fostering koinonia.

I don't mind saying, unapologetically, that I am a distributist. I believe today it is possible to do very many things, from electrical power generation to food production and distribution, along distributist lines. Don't only buy locally, but produce locally as well.

Republicans repeal the so-called "death tax"

As both of my readers know, I am far less political these days than I was formerly. This is because politics are provisional, ephemeral even, and I prefer to focus on what is lasting and real. Nonetheless, from time-to-time something happens that I can't help but weigh in on. Such is the case for the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives today voting to repeal the so-called "death tax."

It seems that the Republicans have successfully convinced many people that everyone who dies and leaves an estate has some heinously high tax levied against the estate they leave. So, if you leave $5, the federal government takes 40%, or $2, thus impacting millions of people in the U.S. This impression is untrue.

So, before we get all happy-clappy about the "brave" House Republicans voting to repeal the so-called "death tax," let's look at what they repealed.

According to the IRS, in 2015, if you leave an estate of $5,430,000.00 or less, you currently incur no federal estate tax. If you leave an estate of more than $5,430,000.00 to your spouse or a federally-recognized charity, you still pay no federal estate tax. For a married couple, the amount is double, that is, $10,860,000.00.

So, if you leave an estate of more than $5,430,000.00 to someone other than your spouse, or a federally-recognized charity, then there is a tax levied on the amount over the figure above on a scale determined by how much is gifted to each beneficiary up to 40%. By golly they're brave! Standing up for the little people!

Suffice it to say, today's "bold" political act has zero impact on the vast majority of people in the U.S., except less tax revenue of an estimated $269 billion over ten years, or, enough to completely fund food stamps for more than three years. To give you some idea, the government estimates that the repealed "death tax" will apply to 0.2% of people who will die this year.

All this nonsense about doing it to protect family farms is disingenuous in the extreme. I think an amendment to the existing law could easily be crafted to preserve family farms, especially when calculated in terms of property (i.e., land that is cultivated or business assets for family-owned firms). What is disingenuous is that the Republicans have sought for years, via other legislation, to put family-owned farms out-of-business, favoring agri-business instead.

Given all the fuss Republicans make about providing public assistance to people who work, sometimes more than one job, for a living, why are they so concerned to perpetuate wealth and privilege while opposing a living wage? In light of all this, please tell me again about this "conservatism" you espouse.

Trust me, I am no great fan of the Democrats either. What brought on this post? A statement issued by one of our representatives from Utah, Mia Love, who is not my representative (my rep, Chris Stewart, also voted for this):

Today, I voted to repeal the federal estate tax or "death tax". This tax has devastating effects on families in our country. When a loved one dies, the spouse and children are forced to cough up 40% of everything they have. This often results in a family declaring bankruptcy just to pay the taxes.

This nation was not built by penalizing hard working Americans who have spent their lifetime working to provide and save for their families. It was built on the idea that you could come to the United States and work hard to make a better life for your children. Taxing away that opportunity for future generations is not what the founding fathers envisioned and is not what our country stands for

I would be curious, based on the truth about the federal estate tax, according to Representative Love, what does our country stand for? Does this repeal foster the meritocracy she seems to (contradictorily) espouse in her statement? Most importantly, Reps Love and Stewart, in Congress, for whom do you stand?

My bishop and the Rosman/Rocha Immigration Manifesto

Last Sunday, 6 April, just before the 11:00 AM Mass at The Cathedral of the Madeleine, where I am privileged to serve, I had the pleasure of welcoming my bishop, John Wester, back from his excursion earlier in the week to the southern Arizona desert. It was a trip he took with Cardinal O'Malley and eight other of his brother bishops to the border. As he shared some of the criticism he had received, much of it quite harsh, it occurred to me that immigration is about people before it is about politics. It is about politics because it is about people.

In my on-line browsing this week I spotted something in my Twitter feed from my friend Artur Rosman, who I believe to be one our brightest young Catholic thinkers, about immigration. Co-authored with Sam Rocha, I am happy to say that in their Immigration Manifesto, I have finally found an immigration position I can support.

At the level of what might be called "political theory," I especially applaud this:

This is why the Catholics need to look beyond national loyalties on this issue and many others. In 1960, when John F. Kennedy promised the Southern Baptists that he wasn’t going to be taking orders from Rome, he was telling them that he wouldn’t take the Vatican hardline on supporting the Civil Rights movement. Where has this gotten Catholics in American public life? Nowhere

In economic terms, especially given my distributist leanings, calling out this reality was refreshing:

The more important point is that, besides the covert and hidden ways we collectively profit from undocumented labor, there is the economic principle that is invoked on both sides of the U.S. political establishment: global capitalism. The idea, made concrete in NAFTA and countless political speeches and policies, by which goods and capital can move as freely as possible across borders, with little to no restraint, whereas people and their families are glued to their geopolitical and temporal conditions, is a perverse and inverted reversal

Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City takes a picture of a discarded backpack in the Arizona desert (photo by Nancy Wiechec for CNS)

Manifestos call for action. My posting this is my way of sharing this with my local Church as well as affixing my name to it. As Artur and Sam insist:

The United States must stop living in a scapegoating lie. Let’s face up to it: Our most basic services (food, farming, building) are provided by people from other countries, especially Mexico. The laws under which illegal immigrants live are fundamentally unjust. They are skewed toward corporations that take advantage of a labor force that’s legally captive. The corporations also collude in propagating laws that are designed to keep that labor force legally captive. We then have the temerity to impute the label illegal to these people whom we clearly need

Getting back to the bishops' trek to the border, I have long wondered if (and if not, why not) the Mexican bishops are actively redressing their government for the kind of political and economic reforms that would result in fewer people taking this life-threatening risk.

A creed is only as persuasive the person professing it

A wonderful "old" song by Sting, "All This Time," is our Friday traditio for this last Friday of this year of grace. The release of Pope Francis' post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, earlier this week, plus the advent of the Friday dubbed "Black," is what prompted me to choose this song (well that and the fact I heard while working out on Wednesday, exercise, especially running is a great source of synthesizing thoughts for me).

The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose

This is nothing new. As evidence for proof of this assertion, I offer- Rerum novarum, Quadragesimo anno, Populorum progresso, Centesimus annus, a document that was badly distorted by several leading Catholic thinkers in the U.S. shortly after its promulgation, Caritas in veritate, which began as an update of Populorum progresso 40 years on (in the manner of Quadragesimo anno to Rerum novarum), but was delayed in order to weigh in on the 2008 global financial meltdown, and now Evangelii gaudium. There are not merely threads, but thick-gauge cables that pull these documents of the past 100+ years of papal social teaching together.

While it is true that Pope Francis' exhortation is not primarily about economics, but evangelization, it is also true that evangelization is not first and foremost about preaching, especially in our day and age. As the late Christopher Hitchens wrote in his final piece for The Atlantic, which was a review of Ian Ker's biography of G.K. Chesterton, "The Reactionary": "we are all fully familiar with the religious practitioner who can’t or doesn’t live up to the merits of his creed. There’s nothing innately paradoxical in that. Any solution, however, is a bit like the Golden Rule: the creed is only as morally strong as the person who happens to be uttering it."

Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth/
Better to be poor than a fat man in the eye of a needle/
And as these words were spoken I swore I hear/
The old man laughing/
'What good is a used up world and how could it be/
Worth having'

"Christianizing the American dream"

Shai Linne tells it straight, which is why his "Fal$e Teacher$" is the first rap song to be a Καθολικός διάκονος Friday traditio.

Health and wealth, "living your best life now," you can have it all in this life, are ever present temptations for Christians, for the Church. This is why Pope Francis, when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, following the fine tradition set by such Latin America bishops as the late Brazlian Archbishop Hélder Câmara, who turned his archepiscopal mansion into a homeless shelter and food kitchen, lived in a simple urban apartment rather than the mansion he could've inhabited. In his first meeting with journalists, which occurred the Saturday after he was selected to walk in the shoes of the fisherman, at one point he said, "How I would like a poor church for the poor."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose martyrdom I remembered on 9-10 April, gives us the antidote to what Shai correctly denounces as "selfism" in his song: "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." Of course, Bonhoeffer's words are an echo of those of our Lord, who said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me" (Matt. 16:24- emboldening and italicizing emphasis mine).

Shai Linne

In a Christian Post article about Shai's hard-hitting lyrics, James Arinaitwe, a Yale University global health fellow from Uganda, speaking at a recent forum, highlighted the same issue: "This kind of Christians in the evangelical movement preach love your neighbors as you love yourself but then the pastor is driving a BMW, a Benz and is living by the sea in a mansion while the congregation is living without healthcare or food. This is what I see in Uganda when I go home, so where did we lose that peace?"

During the 1994 Synod of Bishops that took up the consecrated religious life in the Church, I remember some bishops of the developing countries criticized Western religious orders for living such wealthy lifestyles amidst what is often grinding poverty, saying that it compromised their Gospel witness. Of course, this falls far short of the shenanigans of those Shai called out by name (Osteen, Meyer, Hinn, Paula White, etc.).

Don't be deceived by this funny biz, if you come to Jesus for money, then he's not your God, money is! Jesus is not a means to an end, the Gospel is He came to redeem us from sin, and that is the message forever I yell! If you're living your best life now you're heading for hell!

If you're interested in what has ensued since the release Linne's song, namely an exchange which began with an open letter by Paula White's son Brandon Knight to Shai. When pressed about what aspects of White's teaching were problematic, Linne produced a video with this text: "Paula White did a series called '8 Promises of the Atonement,' that at the time of my writing this, is currently featured on your ministry website. In it, she states that physical healing and financial abundance in this life are provided for in the atonement of Christ." You can read more over on the Christian Post's Jesus Musik blog. Of course, as with all of these teachers, this is but one of many examples that could've been given.

More (on) "Disruption"

A week ago I put up a post about the company Uber based on an article by Paul Carr ("Travis Shrugged"), which sought to expound the philosophy not only underlying Uber, but, at least to some extent, the business model known as "Disruption." As I stated in an update I made to my post, prompted by the feedback of a friend and brother deacon who works as an entrepreneur in the high-tech industry, I am not an expert in business theory and certainly can claim no in-depth knowledge of "Disruption," or any other business theory for that matter, though I do have more than a passing grasp of much of Peter Drucker's oeuvre. I am always looking to be better informed, especially on matters about which I write. I certainly invite my readers to assist me in this regard and to correct me when I am in error. So, I was very glad to have brought to my attention (I know, I know, the use of passive voice) an article from the website Tech Crunch concerning Uber and local limo regulations in Chicago: "As Regulators Seek To Revise Limo Rules, Uber’s On-Demand Car Service Faces Shutdown In Chicago."

The situation certainly brings up matters that are worth discussing between the city of Chicago, Uber, and limo companies in that city. I will even go one step further, judging by what the article says, the way limo services currently calculate fares seems in need of a better solution. On the other hand, it appears to me that what Uber really favors is avoiding regulation altogether. I arrive at this judgment based on the fact reported by Tech Crunch that "Uber is urging its riders to email their comments to the BACP, telling the agency to 'Remove the No Measured Rates Provision (PPV Sec. 1.10)' from its proposed regulations."

Ferrari 360 Modena Stretch Limo

The basic problem, it seems to me, is how to objectively determine distance and thus fare, assuming the rate is set, even if by negotiation, or if the limo service is free to set its own rates. What if there is a consistent problem of a variance between what the driver says s/he is owed and what the passenger says s/he owes? This strikes me as a matter that needs to be regulated. Consider if an app were invented that featured an algorithm that its purveyors claimed more accurately measured the amount of gasoline you pumped into your personal vehicle. Then let's say, for the sake of argument, that the app often came up with a different amount than the pump? I have no problem with utilizing new technologies that more accurately calculate distance, but urging people to petition to simply remove applicable regulations strikes me as a very unsatisfactory way to resolve the matter, as well as more than a bit of a verification of Carr's assertions.

On a purely personal note, while I am a supporter of free enterprise, I certainly don't trust businesses or business groups, even high-tech ones that consider themselves enlightened, to regulate themselves, or to operate with a view of the common good. Probably well before, but at least from 2008, those days ended and are over. 

UPDATED: Disruption and societal deconstruction

This morning while looking at my Facebook newsfeed (makes me sound very tech savvy, does it not?), I saw an article posted by one of my many insightful friends, Sharon. Her tumblr blog quaerere deum is really stunning. She daily demonstrates that a picture is not worth merely a million words, but can move us beyond words. When she resorts to words she posts only that which is worth reading and considering. The article she pointed me to, entitled "Travis Shrugged," by Paul Carr, is short, but no less profound for its brevity.

In his short piece, Carr goes some short distance towards explaining why so many people, especially fairly young, well-educated people, develop what I can only describe as a kind of solipsistic libertarianism. The broad features of this view strike me as economic Darwinism, and being societally atomic (i.e., individualistic), failing to grasp the inevitably interpersonal nature of human society and so leading to a kind of dystopia (i.e., how does letting X do A affect Y?)- a kind of socially destructive utilitarianism.

I certainly don't want to co-opt Carr for my own purposes, but reading his article, especially his description of the purpose of legislative regulation (i.e., "Laws don’t exist merely to frustrate the business ambitions of coastal hipsters: They also exist to protect the more vulnerable members of society"), brought to mind the fact, even the memory of which is rapidly fading, that at the root of Western civilization, what makes it identifiable as a single entity (i.e., "Western civilization"), is Christianity, which, among other things, affirms that we are each others keepers.

On a practical, even political level, this makes it important to identify those who hold or run for office who are willing to do the bidding of these folks, who can't have the common good in mind because, much like Heidegger's view of human nature, they don't see the common good as real, let alone binding. On their view, society is best served by everyone doing what is best for one's self and not worrying about how that might impact the other, the whole.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which, citing Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes (paragraphs 26 & 71), defines the common good as "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily," also states that "In keeping with the social nature of man, the good of each individual is necessarily related to the common good, which in turn can be defined only in reference to the human person:

"'Do not live entirely isolated, having retreated into yourselves, as if you were already justified, but gather instead to seek the common good together'" (par. 1905).

Along these lines, it is not insignificant that Rand's most famous and influential follower ever is Alan Greenspan.

Concerning altruism, Carr points out that Rand wrote "the issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence." In her ideological novel Atlas Shrugged, Rand famously wrote: "I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." It's short step from there to Gordon Geckko's insistence

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed...

In Christian theology, of course, we do not call such an approach to life altruistic, but properly "Christian," characterized by selfless love, agapé, caritas, even kenosis, or self-emptying. We are only disciples of the Carpenter from Nazareth to the extent that we live an other-centered life.

The article concludes with a recognition that responding to this emerging state-of-affairs in a truly human manner is not easy:

I’ve written before that to be truly disruptive (small ‘d’) the startups must have a moral dimension, even when that jars with the pursuit of profit. It’s just hypocritical for me to argue that on one hand while sidestepping those same ethical choices myself. And so, as of about ten minutes ago, the Uber app has taken its place in the dustbin of services I’ll just have to live without, at least while the company’s founder continues to celebrate the ugliest face of capitalism

Carr's honesty is refreshing, recognizing, as he does, how easy it is to be complicit in all of this (the digital age variant of North/South polarization). He is quite correct, at least on my view, to describe this in his subtitle as "The creepy, dangerous ideology behind Silicon Valley’s Cult of Disruption" and not just because Halloween is almost here.

UPDATE: A friend, who is also a brother deacon, someone whose intelligence and judgment I trust, and who works in the tech industry, informs me that "disruption theory" as applied to business is not necessarily underpinned by Rand's Objectivist philosophy and so does not inevitably lead to the kinds of things Carr writes about with regard to Uber. I certainly claim no extensive expertise in any kind of business theory. Nonetheless, I do find myself wondering what effect this particular business model has on things such as labor. It is important to point out that that is not really the focus of my post, which is, rather, the attraction of Objectivist philosophy in a society and culture in the throes of not only losing any memory of its Christian foundations, but losing any transcendent understanding of the human person altogether, keeping in mind that, being the personalist I am, one person is no person.

Homiletic outtakes: Economic injustice

I was able to begin preparing early for preach this Sunday. Consequently, I gathered a lot of material and made one start before deciding, with the help of a friend, to take a slightly different approach to the readings. Initially I planned to preach something close to Part II of my last homily, which I preached the Sunday before last, the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The readings for this Sunday, which will be the Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time are Wis. 7:7-11; Ps. 90:12-17; Heb. 4:12-13; Mark 10:17-30. Below is the outtake:
________________________________________________________________________________

In our Gospel two Sundays ago we heard Jesus engage in hyperbole, telling His listeners that it is better to cut off body parts that cause them to sin than for them to be cast into hell physically whole. By way of a reminder, hyperbole is a rhetorical device in which the speaker makes an extravagant statement that is not intended to be taken literally in order to make an important point. One example of hyperbole is to say to someone who has kept you waiting a long time, “I’ve been waiting for you forever!” The point being made by way of exaggeration is, “You’re late!”

On that same Sunday, I mentioned that one of the most vexing realities we face today, both nationally and globally, is the growing wealth gap, the concentration of more and more wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people. Many economists, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, who recently wrote an entire book about this issue, The Price of Inequality, seek to demonstrate how this growing inequality is destabilizing economically and, as a consequence, politically, as the international Occupy movement and other protests show. In a recent National Journal article, “Inequality and Its Perils,” economic journalist Jonathan Rauch gives several examples of the destabilizing effect of this disparity, one of which highlights how it became a major contributing cause to the global economic crisis that began almost four years ago:

Of every dollar of real income growth that was generated between 1976 and 2007… “58 cents went to the top 1 percent of households.” In other words, for decades, more than half of the increase in the country’s GDP poured into the bank accounts of the richest Americans, who needed liquid investments in which to put their additional wealth. Their appetite for new investment vehicles fueled a surge in what [one economist] calls “financial engineering”—the concoction of exotic financial instruments, which acted on the financial sector like steroids

It appears that financial instruments were devised and invested in explicitly contrary to the common good, solely for the private gain of a few, then the losses were socialized, that is, paid for by everyone. Sharing Rauch’s article with a few friends prompted a Jesuit friend to quip, “if your financial instrument causes you to sin, cut it off”!

Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a recent article for the Financial Times, memorably described the frustration expressed in and through the Occupy protests, while noting its vague and impractical nature, as figuring out “how to square the circle of public interest and protest.” In his article, Dr. Williams sees some of the answers in a document issued last year by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace that begins with this “Presupposition,” citing Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes (par. 34):

Every individual and every community shares in promoting and preserving the common good. To be faithful to their ethical and religious vocation, communities of believers should take the lead in asking whether the human family has adequate means at its disposal to achieve the global common good. The Church for her part is called to encourage in everyone without distinction, the desire to join in the “monumental amount of individual and collective effort” which men and women have made “throughout the course of the centuries ... to better the circumstances of their lives…”

_________________________________________________________________________________

Then, just today, the Economist posted an article from the current print edition, "Inequality and the world economy," which seeks to address this issue objectively and constructively.

A few thoughts on fall and the world economy

Ah, November! While October is lovely where I live, November is even lovelier, the time of deep fall, grayer skies, leaves actually tumbling from the trees and littering the ground. It is the month that begins with All Saints and All Souls, two of my favorite days of the year and that features the Solemnity of Christ the King, marking the end of yet another of grace. Very often, as with this year, November also ushers in a new year of grace on the First Sunday of Advent. Of course, the First Sunday of Advent this year will be the debut of much anticipated new translation of the Roman Missal, which is bound to be a little disorienting for everyone for awhile. I must admit to being excited about preaching on both the first and last Sundays of Advent this year.

I have to admit to feeling quite overwhelmed by everything that is happening in the world right now, especially the seemingly hopeless economic morass the world is mired in. I was prepared to start posting a lot on the disaster a Greek referendum on the EU bailout deal would've caused, especially if it had failed. I believe it was fear that the citizens of his country would not ultimately see that rejecting the EU bailout would spell economic doom, along with pressure brought to bear by Germany and France, that would have surely resulted in Greece being effectively kicked-out of the European monetary union, is what caused Greek PM George Papandreou to ultimately decide against holding a referendum. This decision will likely cost him his premiership and perhaps even his Socialist party their slim majority in Greece's parliament. It is one more indication that statesmanship is dead that Papandreou tried to hold a referendum in the first place and only withdrew it under pressure. Even as OWS raged on Jon Corzine was in his final days of being a Wall Street and political power. The former New Jersey senator and governor bankrupted his firm by taking reckless risks and European sovereign debt and likely illegally used clients' funds to shore-up his losses, while hoping things would turn around. I am just happy that MF Global is not too big fail. Yet another object lesson that we have learned very little over the past 3 years.

On other hand, I was very gratified to read Greg Erlandson's take on those who do not like last week's document by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems In the Context of Global Public Authority. Erlandson is the president and publisher of Our Sunday Visitor, which can hardly be dismissed a leading voice of the Catholic left in the United States. His editorial, Snarky attacks on Vatican financial document: The truth is that the Church is countercultural in many different ways, unsettling both left and right, seems to me spot on. In it he challenges so-called Catholic conservatives, which, at least in the United States, are by-and-large classical liberals economically-speaking. "Every one of these writers," Erlandson notes, "would consider himself both conservative and orthodox, yet there is an ideologically fueled disdain that ripples through almost all of these comments, meant to telegraph in bold letters that Catholics need not waste any time reading this document because it is wrong." This is, indeed, a false move driven by ideological concerns. As Erlandson notes, the so-called "Note" is very much in synch in Pope Benedict's most recent encyclical, Caritas in veritate. It bears noting that Caritas in veritate, promulgated in 2009, frequently references and draws from Pope Paul VI's encyclical, Populorum progresso.

 Erlandson ends his succinct editorial with these words: "Political and economic conservatives seem unsettled that such statements might not sync up readily with the conservative economic orthodoxy, and they are right. The truth is that the Church is countercultural in many different ways, unsettling both left and right. Our challenge as Catholics is to put down the cafeteria tray and both prayerfully and intellectually pay attention to the Church’s whole moral message."

Bl. Pope John Paul II for today

Today marks the Church's first observance of the liturgical memorial of Blessed Pope John Paul II. Where does one begin? I choose to remember him today in a manner that is not sentimental. After all, I can get pretty emotional watching Papa Wojtyla in his moving and dramatic moments, some of which I have captured here on my blog.I guess the best place to start is our present circumstances, that is, with the unrest caused by the current state of our national and global economy, an unrest that is manifest on both the political left and the political right. One observer stated that one looks for salvation from the market and the other from the government. The sad reality is that while we unquestionably need far-reaching economic reforms based on the fundamental axiom that the economy, such as it is, exists for people and not people for the economy, neither is the ultimate source of human happiness and fulfillment.

In his encyclical letter, Centesimus annus, promulgated in 1991, just a few years after the fall of communism, to mark the one-hundredth anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum novarum, the encyclical established the foundation of the Church's modern social teaching, John Paul II sought to lay down for us the fundamentals of morality for the economy according all the factors of reality, most importantly factoring in the structure of the human person.

It's here where we cut to the chase of the current unrest. The struggle seems to perennially be between "capitalism" and "collectivism," or socialism. Like Hilare Belloc in his still relevant book The Servile State, John Paul II seeks a middle way, which Belloc contrasts with capitalism by calling it distributism, whereas John Paul II seeks to clarify what we mean by the word "capitalism":

If by "capitalism" is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a "business economy", "market economy" or simply "free economy". But if by "capitalism" is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative (par. 42)

While on the need for a strong(er) "juridical framework," the Holy See announced that on Monday it will release a document proposing reforms of the international financial system.

As Fr. Thomas Reese observed in a blog post (to which I am indebted for this part of my own post), it is safe to say that these proposed reforms will be closer to the aims of the more moderate OSW protesters than to the Tea Party, or the more fringe elements of OSW. Undoubtedly, this document will take its cue directly from Pope Benedict's encyclical Caritas in veritate. In this too little read and commented on encyclical, very different from his first two, the Holy Father asks us to rethink our reasons for engaging in economic activity in the first place and posits a system in which profit is not the main motive, a system based on an ethics centered on the human person and concerned first with the common good. In this vein, the Holy Father notes that profit should not be an end-in-itself, but a means of achieving the common good.

Pope Benedict observed, "Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty That certainly proved true by the economic greed and reluctance that caused the recent recession" (par. 21). I would be hard-pressed to think of a more succinct way of diagnosing the cause of the meltdown of the global economy several years back and the folly of trying to re-build things on this ruined foundation.

Prescinding from my post on Cardinal Reinhard Marx, I have sought to show how unfettered capitalism, that is, in the negative sense as defined by John Paul II, is not a conservative force. I want to wrap up by returning to Centesimus annus and noting that a human being can only be "understood in a more complete way when he is situated within the sphere of culture through his language, history, and the position he takes towards the fundamental events of life, such as birth, love, work and death. At the heart of every culture lies the attitude man takes to the greatest mystery: the mystery of God. Different cultures are basically different ways of facing the question of the meaning of personal existence. When this question is eliminated, the culture and moral life of nations are corrupted. For this reason the struggle to defend work was spontaneously linked to the struggle for culture and for national rights" (par. 24). This is precisely why it is never a strictly or simply a matter of economic policy. Any system that destroys culture ultimately destroys humanity. Rampant consumerism, as much as anything, is a cause of great disharmony in the world, as some cultures actively resist being drawn into the orbit of McWorld, not wanting the Disney-fication, or, worse yet, the porn-ification, of everything and everyone. Our failure to recognize this resistance for what it is will only serve to perpetuate and exacerbate these global problems.

These issues are just as important as the other moral issues we are always going on about. It seems to me that polarization in the Church results from self-styled conservatives, who refuse to be provoked by the Church's social teaching, clashing with equally determined liberals, who care very little about things like personal sexual morality in their quest for what they call "social justice," a term that is often remains ambiguous, especially when applied to the issue de jour. Of course, these polarities can be reversed.

___________________________________________________________________

Collect for today:

O God, who are rich in mercy
and who willed that the Blessed John Paul II
should preside as Pope over your universal Church,
grant, we pray, that instructed by his teaching,
we may open our hearts to the saving grace of Christ,
the sole Redeemer of mankind.
Who lives and reigns.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx: Sage observations

Cardinal Reinhard Marx is the current archbishop of Munich und Freising, the former see of Pope Benedict XVI. At 58, His Eminence is the youngest cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. He has written a book, Das Kapital: Ein Plädoyer für den Menschen, that very badly needs to be translated into English.

Back in 2009, after the publication of his book, Cardinal Marx did an interview with the Italian magazine 30 Giorni. This interview reinforces several aspects of a post I did a week ago Saturday on Church teaching derived mainly from JPII's Centesimus Annus and Benedict's most recent encyclical, Caritas in veritate. I have no doubt that Cardinal Marx contributed to and consulted on the latter encylical. I was struck by how relevant his insights from a little more than two years ago are to what is happening today (i.e., the Wall Street occupation and the spreading of this protest against those who opportunistically move capital with no regard for the common good, the passing of Steve Jobs, the insistence of many in the U.S. on fairer taxation policies, resisting the regressive schemes being proposed)

Recalling the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Cardinal Marx said,

I remember Bush senior saying that after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism there was the possibility of building a new world order. John Paul II, back in 1991, in Centesimus Annus, warned that radical capitalist ideology would not open the path to the future. And that what was wanted was a morally alert market economy, oriented towards global welfare. In fact, that radical capitalist ideology has become the social model. The narrow view has prevailed that leaves to the market the monopoly on all human relationships. And this has led the world into a dead end. If you look back now, at the thinking, and slogans of twenty years ago, that stressed the emergence of a new social order after the end of communism, one can say with certainty that the first attempt has failed

Speaking of Karl Marx, His Eminence said that he "some of his analyses" allow us to understand the dynamics of the present moment (2009= after the beginning of the global crisis). Cardinal Marx notes as an example of one thing the other Marx's analysis enables us to grasp is "the globalization of capital" and concomitant "reduction of labor to commodity on a global scale." He states clearly that Marx's "remedy" was incorrect because he was incorrect about the nature of the human person, conceiving of human beings materially. In addition to "being at odds with the vision of Christian anthropology," Karl Marx's materialist conception the human person, according to Cardinal Marx, "does not correspond with the datum of reality." His Eminence goes on to note that this same critique can be applied that "other materialistic image" of human beings, "the triumphant one conveyed by capitalist ideology, whereby the only real man in terms of the existent is homo oeconomicus, man as a function of economic processes, and the rest is an incidental and redundant trifle."

Reinhard Cardinal Marx

Speaking of the neo-conservatives, he makes it very clear that "the Church is not against the modern world, freedom, democracy, pluralism." However, in not opposing these historical phenomena we must resist the temptation to reduce "Christianity to religious ideology propping the market economy." "On some issues such as the defense of life and the family," he continues, "the so-called neo-cons, are fully in line with the Church. But I don’t understand how one can define oneself neo-conservative and put all one’s trust in the capitalist model." He then follows with something I think most people in the U.S. might find incomprehensible: "Capitalism is dynamic, it’s not conservative, it’s very progressive. It doesn’t conserve social and cultural situations as it found them, it changes them and often distorts them by introducing new paradigms and clichés. Whereas one often sees this kind of pact linking those who nurture traditional values of conservation with capitalism. But the two things don’t go well together."

Regarding the cultural and societal situation Christians find themselves in today, he wisely observes that "we won’t get through it with catchwords about the wickedness of society, or the alleged errors made by the Pope, or priestly celibacy and other secondary issues. All these things serve only to hide and evade the only important question. That is, what does it mean to be Christians today. What does it mean that following Jesus today..." (underlining emphasis mine). Along with Pope Benedict, Cardinal Marx, holds that "the liturgy will decide the fate of the Church. If the Mass is not celebrated well, all our talk, our pronouncements, our encyclicals are of no use."

He concludes the interview by commenting on his episcopal motto- Ubi Spiritus Domini, ibi libertas ("Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty"):

I’ve always been annoyed by the fact that freedom is considered counter to the preaching of the Church. And that many people think Church and freedom are incompatible. It’s a key phrase of St Paul’s. The question of what freedom means will be crucial in the time ahead...

...Freedom means choosing good in freedom. And the same thing is valid in the Church. The freest phrase that a man can utter is "I love you". And when one says it, one depends in some way on the object of one’s love. This is true in marriage, in the priestly life, it’s true for every baptized person who answers Jesus’ question: "Do you love me?" with "Lord, you know that I love you". And even in the Church, it is through that love that one can live in freedom

Prelates like Reinhard Marx, who I have mentioned before, in 2007 and in 2010, when he was created a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, give me great hope and help me to see clearly and concretely that the Spirit is at work in the Church throughout the world at every level.

Some thoughts prompted by St. Francis

The liturgical memorial of St. Francis seems a great time to briefly reflect on ecology, which deals with the relationship of human beings to our natural environment. There is a lot of ink spilled over the vexing issue of global warming. On one side we have what we can certainly call alarmists and on the opposite end we have those who adamantly deny that human activity is having a deleterious effect on the world. Both these positions strike me as ideological and not grounded in reality.

The truth is our activities undoubtedly effect our environment. We know that carbon emissions create pollution, which contaminates air, ground, and water. We also know the environment can absorb a fair amount of what is generated, but we have an interest in reducing output. Our extensive use of chemicals is very problematic, too. It seems that even when it comes to our yards and gardens, instead of cultivating the earth, we launch a chemical attack against nature.

Just what the long term effects of pollution are is difficult to know, the data we collect must be analyzed stringently and objectively. In any case, we are better off reducing pollution, reducing our dependency on non-renewable fossil fuels, and fostering less-polluting and renewable sources of energy. Of course, this must be done in a sensible manner and not in the well-intentioned but ineffective way it was attempted in Spain, which unfortunately became something of a model for the Obama Administration and resulted in serious missteps like Solyndra. In other words, with John McCain, the perhaps overblown spectre of global warming aside, I can't help but think that we all benefit in both the long and short run from less pollution, cleaner air, soil, and water.

I am very happy that the Vatican is carbon neutral. I think this is a wonderful achievement, something for the Church to be proud of. We work hard at our house to use less and less energy, to recycle what we can, and to consume less across-the-board. It’s difficult, but that’s no reason to stop trying. St. Francis understood ecology, that is, his proper relationship to creation, which is one of stewardship, not domination.

Food plays perhaps the biggest role in ecology, what we eat, how it is produced, how much we eat. There is a reason that gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. What is often forgotten is that the seven deadly sins have contrary virtues. I like the idea of virtue being contrary because in a fallen world to seek to acquire virtue is to go against the grain. The virtue contrary to gluttony is temperance. If gluttony means to overindulge, then temperance, which for Christians has always included certain forms of temporary, but recurring, abstinence, is about self-control and moderation.

In this political season when people are being deceptively turned against their own interests and the common good by the forces of greed, by those who insist that limitless acquisition is a virtue, we can all bear being reminded that the virtue that contradicts the deadly sin of greed is liberality, or generosity. Greed is the immoderate desire for earthly goods, whereas liberality, or generosity, focuses not on moderating one’s desires for earthly goods (See "temperance" above), but is concerned with a willingness to give what one has freely and without request for compensation or commendation. Writing on this subject always brings to my mind the powerful beginning of number twenty-one of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Populorum Progesso:

"He who has the goods of this world and sees his brother in need and closes his heart to him, how does the love of God abide in him?" Everyone knows that the Fathers of the Church laid down the duty of the rich toward the poor in no uncertain terms. As St. Ambrose put it: "You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich." These words indicate that the right to private property is not absolute and unconditional.

No one may appropriate surplus goods solely for his own private use when others lack the bare necessities of life

Those who ignore these teachings of the magisterium and who selectively prefer other teachings are like those who strain at gnats while swallowing camels. After the Gospel passages we have been reading these past Sundays, can there be any doubt about this?