Note also recent stories of Vatican support for certain OWS values, if not for all persons participating.

This is so well written and accurate that I’m ashamed to even post a supportive comment for fear of diminishing the content. On the other hand, it deserves acknowledgment.

Kudos.

Only reference to biblical prophecy can adequately account for it.

I do the liturgy of the hours everyday.  Reading over a dozen psalms a day always ends up with one or two reminding me of just this.

Actually, when I dug into the stories, I found the, to be somewhat more complex than Mr. Shea implies, and not quite so cut and dry. For instance, the rich man who “pays for” the dead people he hit with a car is not oly making the widows happy, he’s being transferred to Illinois to face a parole violation. So that story ain’t over yet. Whereas the guy getting 15 years for a hot dog is, if 8 follow & read the links correctly, actually guilty & wanted for quite a few things, including stealing an 18-wheeler.

Now, I don’t doubt that justice is perverted, but this rant is neither helpful nor enlightening, and doesn’t seem to make any thought or reflection deeper than reading headlines. I expect better from the author.

It reminds me of GK Chesterton in “What’s Wrong With the World”:

A little while ago certain doctors and other persons permitted by modern law to dictate to their shabbier fellow-citizens, sent out an order that all little girls should have their hair cut short. I mean, of course, all little girls whose parents were poor. Many very unhealthy habits are common among rich little girls, but it will be long before any doctors interfere forcibly with them. Now, the case for this particular interference was this, that the poor are pressed down from above into such stinking and suffocating underworlds of squalor, that poor people must not be allowed to have hair, because in their case it must mean lice in the hair. Therefore, the doctors propose to abolish the hair. It never seems to have occurred to them to abolish the lice. Yet it could be done. As is common in most modern discussions the unmentionable thing is the pivot of the whole discussion. It is obvious to any Christian man (that is, to any man with a free soul) that any coercion applied to a cabman’s daughter ought, if possible, to be applied to a Cabinet Minister’s daughter. I will not ask why the doctors do not, as a matter of fact apply their rule to a Cabinet Minister’s daughter. I will not ask, because I know. They do not because they dare not. But what is the excuse they would urge, what is the plausible argument they would use, for thus cutting and clipping poor children and not rich? Their argument would be that the disease is more likely to be in the hair of poor people than of rich. And why? Because the poor children are forced (against all the instincts of the highly domestic working classes) to crowd together in close rooms under a wildly inefficient system of public instruction; and because in one out of the forty children there may be offense. And why? Because the poor man is so ground down by the great rents of the great ground landlords that his wife often has to work as well as he. Therefore she has no time to look after the children, therefore one in forty of them is dirty. Because the workingman has these two persons on top of him, the landlord sitting (literally) on his stomach, and the schoolmaster sitting (literally) on his head, the workingman must allow his little girl’s hair, first to be neglected from poverty, next to be poisoned by promiscuity, and, lastly, to be abolished by hygiene. He, perhaps, was proud of his little girl’s hair. But he does not count.

@Jack Perry,
If Mark discusses corporatist/governmental “synergy” and provides supporting data for it, that constitutes a “rant”?

Not in my book.

Tom R

If Mark had restricted himself to denouncing corporatist/government “synergy” and left it at that, I would not have felt it necessary to write what I did. I happen to agree with some of those issues, even if I feel things are a little more complex there than Mark lets on.

Apparently, however, you didn’t read everything Mark wrote—or you didn’t follow the links. I encourage you to do so.

You see, I draw the line at trying to turn a repeat offender thief into a Jean Valjean. I likewise find it outrageous that Mark found unworthy of mention the fact that the rich kid who’s supposedly buying his way out of jail is, in fact, going to jail, and has further court appearances.

I suspect that it’s almost certainly easier for the poor in this country to get fair representation now than it was back when we were a, ah, “Christian” nation. Of course, if you’d like to live in the USA of the turn of the 20th century, with corrupt cops, robber barons pulling the strings of the financial system, etc., then by all means be my guest. & if you think you can find any period where the justice system was demonstrably more equitable than it is now, then make the argument—but be prepared to have counterexamples listed and shown. The world is complex, and we do not see many details, let alone the human heart.

Yep.  The hot dog guy was a repeat offender.  However, he would have had to repeat his offense hundreds of thousands of times before stealing as much as the people who got off scot free for their (repeated) theft of millions of dollars did.  All they needed to do was promise not to do it again.  And I notice you never mentioned the guy who got 15 years for taking a hundred bucks because he was hungry and then turning himself in.

If you are really want to try to advance the thesis that justice in the US is impartial, you have a big job ahead of you, Jack.

Mark,

(1) I do NOT advance the thesis that justice in the US is impartial. I’m not even sure it’s better than it was a century ago, but I think it is—ESPECIALLY for the poor.

(2) If you had a clear point to your rant, I might be able to make a better counterpoint. The link to “Marianism” is pretty weak, reminding me of priests who take an excuse to turn something into their favorite homily topic (abortion, social justice, supporting the Knights of Columbus, whatever).

(3) I might address the guy who you claim got 15 years for taking a hundred bucks. if you link to that story. Within that paragraph, there are two links: TWO, neither of which links to a guy who got 15 years for stealing $100 and turning himself in. One is to the spoiled rich kid who is likely to see the bars from the inside out after all. The other is to the guy who bought a hot dog with counterfeit money, who turned out to be wanted for all kinds of things (including stealing the semi). I suspect you failed ot put in a link—or else put in the wrong link. As I say, this rant doesn’t seem up to your usual quality.

The old bosses of city and county halls of yore and goo-goo’s idea of civic gore, were by far more qualified and even more honest than today’s bunch of hucksters who, like one of their heroes, the very uneleclted, not to mention UNELECTABLE, Grover Norquist and all of the RIGHTIST bunch’s ideal paragons of civil virtue, the Brothers Koch.
  What a sad sight for even sadder and more tired eyes; the likes of so many craven Republicans and some Democrats who’ve sold their souls to the likes of Norquist.
  Whatever the goo-goos loved to toss at the old pols in the cigar-filled rooms, TREASON was never on their list of mortal sins because it didn’t have to be.
  Just one Republican Congressman, Frank Wolf of Northern Virginia had the comprehensive fortitude to take Norquist on during a “floor speech.” Just one lonely GOP congressman. He’s gonna git primaried next year. And Grover says the “taxpayer,” not himself, is doing to do the punishing. Right, and Grover is just a kindly civic-minded provider of information to the public so it can make the “right decision.” As in rightward or rightist(?) Grover?
  More pathetic is the absence of any recorded speech against Norquist in the Senate, which,though technically speaking, is under Democratic control. No thanks to the “filibuster” and “super-majority” rule requring 60 votes even to get a debate started on some issues involving taxation ... Grover’s chief no-no ... that the GOP has masterfully manipulated for its selfish purpose of fulfilling KY’s Sen. Mitch McConnell’s dream Holy Grail-like dream of defeating Obama (regardless of the consequences THAT’LL bring in train) we in effect have a legislative equivalent to that version of government Grover wants so he can finally watch it glug its way into the oblibvion of one’s town sewer system, or possibly even of a delight to Norquist e/a, one’s private septic tank.
  At least Norquist is intelligent enough to seek first ye shrinking of government enough to watcheth drown in the tub rather than facing the prospect of yes, even having to pay for the clean up of a massively privatized national-sized septic system exploding right outside his office doors.
  No thanks to the intransigently treasonous cowardice of Norquist’s grovellers within the GOP who told their nation that the private tax avoidance interests of BILLIONAIRES and MILLIONAIRES came before and above all other Constitutional obligations—spelled out in the Preamble, no less—$500B, er, HALF A TRILLION in necessary DEFENSE SPENDING PROGRAMS/NEEDS will automatically slashed. A deal’s a deal, right?
  The party that once used to wave the “bloody shirt” of treason and secession against the Democrats, is now but itself no more than a collection of smallish-selfish-minded bribees of fat-cats who are calling the shots and managed to finally get what they wanted originally last Summer.
  And is it just me, or is it a coincidence that the Russians are rattling their sabers once again as we’re taking out a $500B machete to our legs. At this rate, the old $600 toilet seat looks like a steal.
  See, all it takes is one, JUST ONE, a “majority of ONE,” Republican or Blue Dog Dem, to demonstrate enough backbone and other strengthening inner qualities to get up and do to the Kochs, Wall Street, the Heritage/Cato/AEI think tanks and Faux News ... and most importantly, Don Grover, the Capo di Capo of the District. Hey, even Don Grover admits he only runs a “non-profit” (LOL!) ... which allows him to side-skirt travel restrictions for Members of Congress/Lobbyists ... so why worry about his calling out his leg-breakers.
  If signing a STUPID old pledge which they had no idea would’ve or could’ve been used so stongly in the courts of twisted public opinion and mangled truth, would any of these pols who initially went along with what they thought was no more than a DC-lobbyist’s publicity gimmick ... is all Don Grover “has” on them, why is saying, “It’s lost it’s stickin’ power” so hard?  Even if Norquist has some “goods” on these once-oath-happy pols, what the heck’s so hard about calling the Capitol Hill Security, and especially Eric Holder up Pennysylvania Ave, to drop a dime on Norquist for extortion?
  Some of these oath-takers have even attended Ivy schools, even law schools! Which makes this matter all the more baffling. If they can’t recognized a private citizen’s ideological shakedown on behalf of and in cahoots with Mitch McConnell as having enough potential to create the complete breakdown of our three-branch political system, we truly will fulfill Lincoln’s worst prediction. The nation won’t be overtaken from outside, but destroy itself with but a whimper marking the “event.”
  Hope you enjoy those tax breaks rich folks? Who’s going to cover your sorry backs after the “last best hope on earth” vanished due to your treasonous display of gross display of intransigent selfishness.

Mark,

Maybe you meant to link to this story, or one similar?

Sorry Jack, but the truth is that the only rant here is the one coming from your comments.  The “He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty” citation has all to do with the topic at hand.

1. Perhaps better, but still lousy, Jack.
2. I’m surprised you can’t see the obvious link to the Magnificat.  But it’s been a long time since American Christianity was able to perceive clearly what the Church calls the preferential option for the poor.  We tend to have drunk pretty deeply of the Protestant work ethic and the notion that riches are a reward for virtue and thrift (with the converse sly belief that the poor have it coming to them).  Mary’s frank and naked exaltation of the poor and her stark denunciation of the rich (“the rich has has sent away *empty*”) is not language that is native to us.  We put up with it because Mary said it and it “churchy” talk.  But if you put it in the mouth of anybody else, it tends to get shouted down as the rhetoric of “class warfare”.

3. I fixed the link, which itself has another instructive comparison of how rich and poor thieves are dealt with.

Mark, I wonder if you made some unwarranted assumptions.  First, why do you believe that because we oppose OWS we support “the 1%”?  Second, I don’t see OWS talking about widows and orphans but what they think the rich own them because they have money.  My other concern is it seems OWS wants to use the power of the government to achieve this “justice”.  We need to try to convince the rich to convert and become compassionate.  I hear the OWS crowd chanting more give me mine than retelling the parable of Lazarus and the rich man.

Mary’s words should be taken at face value.  They are completely consistent with the entire prophetic tradition, and with the teaching of her son. 

The discussion between Jesus, his apostles and the rich young man recorded in Matt Ch. 19 confirms the common understanding that the rich were favored by God, and the poor cursed; and that Jesus came to overturn this universal assumption with his blood.

He tells his contemporaneous hypocrites: “In this way you prove your sonship of those who killed the prophets.  They killed them and you erect their memorials.”  The message is clear enough.  But we in our disbelief heap piles of stone on the parts of it we find “unreasonable,” difficult to follow, or just plain damning. 

There’s a long bitter strain in salvation history of God sending prophetic proclamations such as this to his people.  “Some they rejected, others they stoned, others they killed…”  Deny this strain and you deny Christ. 

But of course, when he returns will he find any faith on earth?

Scripture also says this; Jesus defending the right of a rich man: “Take what is yours and go…am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?  Are you envious…?”  Mathew 20, excerpts v 14, 15.

That’s suppose to be “Matthew”

While I am in 100% agreement with you regarding your assessment of the rich and corporations, I would not go so far as to condone or support the OWS movement. They are movement driven by communists and marxists, who as we have seen in past history, are more than willing to take advantage of legitimate grievances. I truly fear that the OWS movement will result in out of control violence and anarchy, which will do more harm to the poor than the rich ever could.
On a related note, what is poverty? Not having everything a rich person has? Not being able to live in a mansion AND have your illegal drugs? Not being able to get as big a flat screen tv as your next door neighbor? From what I have seen, most of these protests are not about “I can’t get a decent meal each day.” They are about an unholy avarice for the things of the rich. There are more then enough sources for food, clothing, and shelter for those truly in need, not to mention government assistance. Instead of people thanking God for all they do have, then tend to moan and groan about all they don’t have. And last time I read the Bible, I did not see any reference to Mary and Joseph carrying signs around the town of Bethlehem protesting that they were poor and that they should have just as good shelter as anybody else in the town.
There are truly poor people in the world, and it would be nice to see the Occupiers helping them out, instead of demanding more for themselves.

Still, Jesus is not defending the rights of a rich man with this scripture, but the prerogatives of God.  It’s good to remember that all earthly wealth is fleeting, illusory.  To sin gravely in service to mammon is not only damning, it is also supremely fatuous.

I believe this was a pretty superficial approach to the issue, but I’ll give Shea credit for at least attempting it. One finds the same dynamic in virtually every organization, including our beloved church. Everyone listed by Shea can still go to heaven, or hell, including Shea. In the end, God, not Shea, will judge each of us according to our works.

Mark,

1. In my first comment, I wrote, “Now, I don’t doubt that justice is perverted”. In my second, to another commenter, I wrote, “I happen to agree with [Mark on] some of those issues.”

That isn’t enough for you? I have to say “Amen” to every word in order to be worthy of respect? You have to make a public show of doubting my sincerity? Do you realize how that makes you look?

2. Don’t infer too much just because I criticize the writing in this one article. I read a lot of what you write, & usually don’t feel compelled to comment. But this one really could have used less venting and more reasoning.

Even now, you’re jumping on the judgment train. You have no idea how I answered my son’s question this morning on the flat tax, nor the circumstances that formed my opinion roughly two decades ago on the death penalty, nor how I’ve lived my life with consideration for the poor, regardless of so-called “merit”. You have no idea how often I’ve prayed the Magnificat at Vespers, or how I’ve try to let it form my life.

But, hey, you know the depths of the human heart, don’t you? You know what I believe, and how it affects my actions, and why I believe it, don’t you? All because I took you to task for writing something beneath your usual level.

3. Thank you for the link on the homeless man. I really had no idea what you meant, since the other link was to the hot dog thief, so I assumed you meant him—not unreasonable, since there are some similarities in the story ($100 bill, $120 counterfeit; 15 year sentence, 15 years until probation). But I was certainly confused what you meant.

I guess this latter explanation will merit me another “perhaps better, but still lousy” from your point of view. Would that you were half as charitable to those who question you as they are to you.

I have read this newsletter for some time now and only with this last column did I realize the full nature of your purpose.  I have struggled for many years trying to live up to the recommendations I find in Matthew 25 and embarrassed at how easily the religious community is fooled with the Republican Party’s gaming of the abortion issue to gain political support. Your incest diagram of government and industry shows only democrats.  I note that several held positions with both parties - but only their democratic affiliation is shown.  The Republican Party’s record on social issues - for the poor - for the immigrant - for everyone except the rich is abominable! Recently a republican candidate for president said concerning the demonstrators: “Tell them to take a bath - and get a job” (Typical of the conservative).  The last time someone said something like this it was “Let them eat cake” If history repeats, I’d be happy to man the guillotine.  As an independent voter I always vote my conscience - don’t try to sway me with such transparent bias.  It has the opposite affect.

@Fred Baldwin: Excellent post, but I have a few questions ... not the points you made, but on how we best deal with our compassion-challenged one-IQers, oops, that was their socioeconomic IQ. Why dull good metal on thick necks? Let ‘em work at Wallyworld as greeters for the rest of their natural lives. As for eating cake, “nope” on that too, brother. Who knows, they might think they’re entitled to one of Buddy “The Cake Boss’” very pricey decorative cakes. There’s gotta be a dumpster with stale old Twinkies somewhere. Gotta be!

I’m not for the “evilcorps” to be paid off by any means.

But nor am I for paying other people’s tuition when I had to pay for my own.

Mark, you’re not suggesting that we pay for tuition for those who choose not to work, are you?

“INCEST”?  Mark.  Seriously?  Corruption and cronyism weren’t bad enough terms?  Do you know any victims of incest?  Angry rants have their place but this is the kind of stuff that actually makes a person lose respect for your work…you are so prone to hyperbole.  You go too far.

@Kate: You’ve made a very nervous writer out of me. Just when I was beginning to think (and thank God) there could only be one Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin, you’ve demonstrated that the Right really believes in cloning after all. Since, (again, I’m thanking Him) the Right doesn’t believe in cloning, the only explanation for your “findings” re: the ideological drifts and origins of OWS has to be the arch-heroes of both Coulter and Malkin, especially the former: No less than “Tail Gunner Joe” McCarthy himself!
  I can just see you standing on a Manhattan sidewalk, after pulling a rumpled list of pencil-scratched “names” of known and suspected REDS hanging out with and manipulating OWS into a full-scale Bolshie mob.
  REDS hangin’ out in the Financial Sector of Manhattan! What’s this world coming to? Oh oh, I’ve got it, a follow up interview with dem REDS by no less than the ever fair n’ balanced Sean “Red-Hunter” Hannity.
  LOL…if Kate’s not getting her “facts” from the likes of Hannity and that JOKE of a network, the proverbial clown-car of the media, aka LUPINE “news” ... she’s probably soaking in every “fact” coming over the internet from Heritage, Cato, AEI, and that ever so infallible Accuracy in Media run by one of the most arch-arch-arch conservative Catholics on the planet, Clif Kincade, who’s styled himself as more Catholic than the Pope himself.
  Kate, take it from a guy who actually trailed real Communist sympathizers straight to Moscow during the Cold War when they were coming up with “nuclear free” towns and “sister cities.” There’s nothing to it, just follow the money trail and log of telephone calls. It’s a snap. But while you’re at it, would you please check to be sure the Koch brothers aren’t still collecting any residuals left over from Uncle Joe’s bank account from which good ol’ Joe paid Dave n’ Charlie Koch’s father, Fred Koch boodles n’ boodles of o’ blood bucks before the old man had a guilt trip and later went on to be one of the “Framers” or was it “Founding Fathers” of the John Birch Society.
  Guilt trip or not, the sons used their hard earned inheritances to crush all competition, and forms of dissent, especially liberal politicians and u-u-unions, ohhhhhh, one of their most despised bogeymen. Hmmm, crushing competition and dissent. Sounds familiar now, doesn’t it Kate? And you say OWS is the Red Menance? LOL a few billion times over.

It seems absurd to criticize a piece like this on the grounds of factual veracity.  It’s equally absurd to draw out an argument for factional contentions.  After all, who cares what color uniform the captain of the titannic was wearing?  The realities these rough-hewn arguments elicit are real, enduring and recognizable to all.  We’re seeing myth in the making.

The takeaway is not about stupid divisions occuring amongst nameless antipathetical nabobs.  History is full of that kind of thing.  The headline should read “civilization eats itself from the leg up,” or “nameless man defends his killer,” or “solution to worlds ills misfiled, forgotten.”

We’re stuck on the trees, brothers.

Please remember that my enemy’s enemy is not necessarily my friend; he mey, in fact, be another enemy.

P.S. In the course of my Register and other blog browsing I noticed you have virtually the same article posted a week ago, but had the good sense to leave out the above language.  What changed?

@Matt B

“Still, Jesus is not defending the rights of a rich man with this scripture, but the prerogatives of God”

Jesus makes a parable using the obvious, that the wealthy owner has a right to do as he wants with his wealth.  His asking those three questions affirms the correctness of that “right” and “mobs” or others have no standing in what he does.  In fact, he questions “mobs” and others acting indignant towards what the wealthy owner can do with his own money - if they are not being “envious.”  He says to one of them he is not “cheating” anyone.  So, I would say Jesus is defending the rights of the wealthy here and is critical of the thinking and behavior of “mobs” and others as being “envious.”  I would add “covetousness” is also something motivating “mobs” and others critical of those with wealth and what they can do with it.

@Mark Shaw

“It our place as Catholics to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

Oh, it is our “place as Catholics to…afflict the comfortable?”  I missed that in my 8 years of Catholic education and reading the Catechism.  Please direct me to your source of this “Catholic” responsibility teaching.

still, I was just reading Luke Ch. 20 where, just after Jesus cleanses the temple, the poobahs come down in force to interrogate him.  By all estimations, these are the wealthy, influential and sanctimonious: the “comfortable.”  Does the Lord kowtow to these “respectable ones?”  Read it for yourself.

Also, if you think I’m advocating some kind of mob rule, you’re mistaken.  The kingdom of God is no anarchy.  God’s rule is reasoned, just, pacific.  In fact, all human attempts to emulate or circumvent this rule are hapless and dejected.  The only right answer is for holy men to rule in the Spirit of Christ - and to extend this reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus into the hearts of all men.

But back to the task at hand.  Even in an economic sense, “riches” are a kind of cancer.  The Lord himself proclaimed that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  And since then, pharasaical exegetes have been trying to explain that saying away.  Do you think the Lord meant it, or was it just intended as rhetorical window dressing?

Your idea of a wealthy landowner “having rights” over his wealth also flies in the face of several commonly acknowledged themes of scripture, which are unique to the preaching of Christ.  One is the idea of stewardship.  Everything belongs to God, and we’re just holding it for him.  Moreover, we hold all our property in trust for others, not for self-aggrandizement. 

Another is self-abnegation: “leave everything and follow me.”  This was the tripping point for the rich young man.  He was ready to follow all the commandments, but upon hearing of this last measure of perfection “he went away sad.”

It’s not that I don’t sympathize with your view.  It’s just that it’s very narrow, pretty played out, and not working in the real world.  And after close examination - not very interesting.  Like Ted Turner talking about the need for hand-held aspirators in the third world.

@Matt B

“Does the Lord kowtow to these ‘respectable ones?’”

Seems to me the chief priest and scribes are who he’s dealing with in Luke 20, not the wealthy per se as in his parable in Mt 20.

I agree a lot of what you wrote, Mark, but I have a tough time signing up to support the OWS crowd.  I think Kate has it right.  This quote from St. Paul comes to mind and might shed some light on why I have a very hard time “supporting” them:

“You know how you should take us as your model: we were not undisciplined when we were with you, nor did we ever accept food from anyone without paying for it; no, we worked with unsparing energy, night and day, so as not to be a burden on any of you.  This was not because we had no right to be, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to imitate. We urged you when we were with you not to let anyone eat who refused to work. Now we hear that there are some of you who are living lives without any discipline, doing no work themselves but interfering with other people’s.  In the Lord Jesus Christ, we urge and call on people of this kind to go on quietly working and earning the food that they eat.” 2 Thesalonians 3: 7-12

Yes we need to support the poor and disadvantaged and fight corruption and greed but does that mean we have to do it with gov’t control, destroying our freedom, and in violation on the Church’s teaching on subsidiarity?  When the Gov’t takes, takes and takes some more that just breeds discontent and furthers class warfare.  There will always be the rich and there will always be the poor, but that isn’t the point is it?  The point is how rich or poor is our spirit, our love of Jesus and His Church?  The answer is prayer and fasting for the conversion of the unbelievers.  The greater our faith, the more we are willing to give of our time and our talents to help those truly in need.  Do we really want to live in a society that through gov’t control stifles our gifts and talents, as happens in socialist/communist states, to supposed “help” the poor, but only makes them slaves to the state?  Don’t we want to support and nurture those gifts and talents for the benefit of mankind?  You can’t do that without freedom, which includes the freedom to sin.  Let us not forget that God will provide!  We just have to remember that it may not be what we “want”.

@StillBelieve: Don’t know how you do it so consistently, besides behaving very Protestant-like in your proof-texting of the Catechism to defend your fawning abasement of our one-percenters and somehow coming to the conclusion Jesus was willing to cut the one-percenters of his time a wide berth. But you do it. Not saying I agree in what you’re up to (boy, wouldn’t that send you off to the ER like Fred Sanford clutching your heart saying, “I’m having the BIG ONE ...  that Steven admits I’m right when I might be in the wrong ... Sts. Peter n Jude, put in a good word for me!”
  It’s the season to be merry so you know I wouldn’t be that rough on ya. I save that for one of my brothers who thinks I’ve embraced “Bolshevism” because I believe in inheritance taxes. Even though you can’t carry it with you in an armored car ... and I heard Heavenly Air is charging extra, REAL EXTRA for added unnecessary baggage, especially if it jingles and rustles with lots of cash, bonds, stocks, stuff you won’t need after the BIG ONE. As for my brother, well, I had to remind him it wouldn’t be a bad idea to leave a nation behind. Nation’s need money to stay in business, even to defend their people according to the document most of their hard righties love to proof text besides their respective catechisms and whatever authorized versions of revised scriptures their currently using. Of course, we have THE oldest versions of both Catechisms and Scripture, but we can’t say we had all that much to say about the framing of that secular part of our national Tradition.
  Too bad we might not have anything but a hollowed out military to fulfill even the duties prescribed smack at the beginning in the Preamble of our Tradition no thanks to the billionaires who just like the pre-Christmas Eve Scrooge, had to hoard all their extra goodies. Well, let ‘em listen to Marley’s chains or Putin’s warnings about a new cold war coming up. Hope all that money our plutocrats want to hoard down here will be worth burning holes in their pockets.
  Geeesh, we can’t even THREATEN to afflict our enemies who want to make us very uncomfortable and have for a long time even before they got a taste of dog-eat-dog plutocratic/oligarchic capitalism, like y’know, the kind enjoyed by our one percent crowd.
  Wasn’t that awful grammar on my part in the last sentence. Maybe it came from listening to to many kids talking on the tube trashing the OWS crowd. Seems like the pluck’d educational henhouses, schools, are now showing the results of so many years of “why bother funding education, after all, I’ve got mine ...” ‘tudes demonstrated not by younger and middle aged folks, but aging baby boomers now entering their retirement years.
  The “where’s mine” generation that followed its far more self-sacrificing parental Greatest Generation decided to put their money into casinos and wide-bodied plasma boob tubes instead of sharing their INHERITED wealth. Yes, that kind of wealth that so many boomers—let’s call my generation what we’ve really shown ourselves to be, busters n’ bummer—worked so hard to “earn” so we can justify hoarding so much of it from our nation in its time of need.
  How can our “job creators” be counted on to create so many seasonal table waiting and bell-hopping jobs if they don’t have the extra they need to fly down to resort cities in the Sunbelt and ski resorts up north and out west? What’s a billionaire to do!
  Maybe Jesus or the Church didn’t exactly say “Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted” in so many exact words ... but I have a good hunch that he got around to saying so in a whole lot of other ways of phrasing the same message just so the comfortable would be afflicted enough to get the message.
  Now some people today will have missed the whole story of the Gospel and think that somehow Christ failed. After all, didn’t the fat cats and Herodian toadies of Caesar may Jesus “pay the ultimate price” for his offenses, especially upsetting their Temple laundering racket? Physically and legally speaking, okay. But we know Who had the last say and laugh, as He will on judgment day and just think of all those Dives wailing, moaning and whining for their second chances like Dives and his ilk did back in the days of that Old Time Religion was really applied to daily life.
  Admittedly, Jesus wasn’t a New Dealer and FDR was far from Jesus in many respects. But they shared one thing in common, they did pledge a much better new deal than what the money changers of their time were offering the common folks in more ways than I can list here. And they both welcomed the hatred of those who hated their message the most.
  Why, StillBelieve, do you want to behave like a Protestant fundie, pointing to our Catechism much the same way they dourly point to their Whatever The Latest Authorized Revised Standard Happens To Be version of the Torah the Pharisees yanked trudged out to pull the same thing on Jesus? And what did he say? He wasn’t going to do anything, just let it stay all in there. But more importantly, WHY did he say that? To give his imprimatur on the Torah that the Pharisees and high clergy mucky mucks of his time were more than happy to use as their favored revised cudgel on hand? Nahhhhh.
  Jesus was picking his battles a lot more judiciously than his pickiest proof-texting nit-pickers demonstrated any talent in doing likewise. Just like today’s fundies, they could never get past their same old tricks. But to witness a Catholic pull the fundie/Pharisee’s old trick of proof-texting to question where Jesus didn’t want to stick it to the one percenters of his time and their abasers ... that calls for some very strong coffee ... of which I need a lot of right now!
  How DO you pull it off Comrade StillBelieve?!

Just to be clear: No, I am not saying we should pay for that kid’s tuition, nor am I particularly making a comment about OWS.  I am simply noting that we habitually tend to be able to see it clearly when a poor person does or advocates something wrong, but go weak in the knees and are filled with excuses for the rich and powerful man doing the same thing.  So we focus on the OWS kid but get rather blurry about the Gannett exec making demands for rewarding his incompetence in figures that dwarf—hundreds of times over—the selfishness of the OWS kid.

Still believe:  That you seem never to have noticed the New Testament’s comfort of the afflicted and affliction of the comfortable is a living demonstration of my point.  It is Jesus Christ, not Karl Marx, who says ““Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 “Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. “Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh. 22* “Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man! 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets. 24* * “But woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 “Woe to you that are full now, for you shall hunger. “Woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. 26 “Woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets. (Luke 6:20-26)  It is Jesus Christ, not Marx, who tells the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man.  It is James who says, “Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, 10* and the rich in his humiliation, because like the flower of the grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits” and “Is it not the rich who oppress you, is it not they who drag you into court? 7 Is it not they who blaspheme that honorable name which was invoked over you?” and “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure * for the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned, you have killed the righteous man; he does not resist you.”

It is the New Testament that tells the story of the rich young ruler and which draws from it the stark lesson that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of heaven.  Whatever else these teachings are, they are not designed to tell the rich “You’re doing great!” nor to kick the poor while they are down.  They are not “class warfare” as Talk Radio has instructed people like still believe to immediately hear.  But they most certainly are part of our Tradition and need to be reckoned with.

http://www.edc-online.org/index.php/en/eoc.html

The group linked to above is sponsored by Focolare. For many years, they have worked hard to implement Vatican teaching in regards to economic development and are succeeding. They haven’t wasted time & energy on Scripture wars or inciting class warfare. They’ve simply gone about the business of creating jobs and equitable living conditions across the globe. How refreshing!

Today’s robber barons are a weak and very timid lot when they have to resort to relying on the likes of Limbaugh to do any whining on their part about the overwhelming majority of Americans more openly pronounced disgust with such ostentatious displays of callous behavior towards the less fortunate.
  In the good old days long before there were public relations hacks, political correctness and other goo-goo related codes, the wealthy just didn’t give a rat’s fannytail what the poor thought of them so long as they had better not think of going near them. There were those who had money, preferably not the newly rich, then there were the newly rich sans class, then there were the rest of the lot we call the human race. Those were the people they thought well of ... when it came to legally mugging them in every legal way.
  Give our one percent crowd time, Mark, and before long after listening to more Hannity, Coulter, Malkin, and O’Reilly ... will all forget in one way or another their shared humanity and resort to their old ways. Think of Tolkein’s Orcs in Brooks Brothers suits.

Rather than criticize Mark I think we should all come to the agreement that until the U.S.A’s justice system comes to a formal agreement on the existence and damage of sin, and forms a rehabilitation program that revolves around admitting all guilt before God through the Sacrament of Reconciliation there will never be a perfect justice system. Also, those who don’t turn to repentance and penance before God are doomed no matter how “safe” they think they are. If these unrepentant sinners manage to not condemn themselves then certainly they will pay off everything in purgatory. I imagine purgatory is far more severe than anything our justice system can put them through.

Mr. Shea,

You are comparing apples and oranges. The bum who robbed the bank “approached the teller with one of his hands under his jacket and told her that it was a robbery.” This was a threat to the teller that implied that she would be killed if she didn’t do what he said. It’s called armed robbery. It should be attempted murder, in my opinion. 15 years is just about right, when you take into account the injustice of parole, in our society.
Did the CEO, whom you cite, threaten anyone when he defrauded his victims? Umm, no, he did not. The fact the you see some kind of moral equivalence between the two crimes, and, therefor, that some injustice has been committed, says much about you.
Also, have you ever heard of Bernie Madoff? How about Jack Abramoff? I believe they were covered quite well by the media. And went to jail, as well.
Enough of the phony moral outrage, okay?

Steven: Spoken like a true Useful Idiot. Did you notice that Mr. Shea’s “incest” chart was made up almost entirely of members of the democrat party? Keep on defending all of those dirty, smelly, defecating, raping, hippy prostesters, will ya’? They will all be hung around the democrats necks in 2012!

@Nick:Nothing like tar brushing the whole lot of Occupy Wall St. crowd with a wide brush. Is this favored tactic of yours something you borrowed from conservative media? If so, then how do you explain Tucker Carlson’s willingness to shill for Jack Abramoff. (See one of my last posts in the combox about Joe Paterno.)
  I guess if Ann Coulter’s also willing to shill for Joe McCarthy, anything’s possible in Rightwingwackoland.

Steven,

The T.E.A. Party protesters were falsely accused of many deeds by liberals and the L.S.M. (Lame Stream Media, for those of you in Rio Linda.) Everything that I wrote about those dirty, smelly, defecating, raping, hippy protesters happens to actually be true. Guess you haven’t been keeping up on current events, huh?

Also, what did Miss Coulter get wrong about Senator McCarthy? And, what did the late Catholic Senator ever get wrong about the commie infiltration of our government? You seem to be very ignorant of this history, I’m afraid.

What can I say Nick? You seem so impenetrably and invincibly ignorant. So much so that you’re even sure of your own “infallibility.”

Thank you, Mark. We must always remember the words of St. Augustine, “Charity is no substitute for justice.”

Steven, I’ve got a word for you too: brevity is the proof of wit.

Steven,

Apparently, you can’t say much. Was that supposed to be a rebuttal?
You can’t even answer simple questions, like most liberals.

Rod H:

I actually discussed that passage 1 Thessalonians 3 here.  It is not St. Paul’s commentary on welfare, but a piece of housekeeping for those *within* the Church.  With respect to our duty to those *outside* the Church, Jesus has some very un-Republican-Talk-Radio counsel.  He includes absolutely no caveats about distinguishing between the Worthy and the Unworthy in our giving.  He simply says “Give to every one who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again.”  I have no more idea what to do about that than most people do, but it is what he says.  The perpetual appeal to the text of St. Paul as sort of commentary on American welfare policy is a total misreading of the text.  It’s counsel for how Christians are to behave, not on how the state should be treating poor people.

Nick, Steve:

“LIBERAL!”  “CONSERVATIVE!”

Duly noted. You have marked your territory like good ideologues. If you can’t contribute to the conversation beyond shouting the same dull tribal labels, then take it to private email.

Mr. Shea,
Is this your attempt to stay above it all? You failed.
And, I’m no ideologue. I’m a Catholic, with no qualifiers. I believe everything that the Church teaches. Even though I don’t know everything that the Church teaches.
This is what makes me a conservative, in today’s political lingo. Because I believe in the sanctity of life, the immorality of counterfeit marriage, and that the state has no right to force people, even rich people, to practice Christian charity, including helping the poor. This is not the proper role for the state, because it is not equipped to do so justly, nor, is this why states exist.
Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition never asked the faithful to demand from Caesar more taxation to help the poor. It was always the responsibility of the individual and the ekklesia to help the less fortunate.
Also, I did contribute to the conversation. Have you no answers, or rebuttal, to any of my questions, in my other comment?

cool piece!

I usually dislike much of what Mr. Shea happens to say.  I find him rather unsophisticated and EWTN-ish.  (Same thing, right?)  particularly his comments on Traditional Catholicism.  But it seems to me that if he had paid more attention to being Catholic the way Catholics have always been Catholic (until very recently) then he may have avoided falling into certain pits in his discussion of this most serious topic.  I found myself agreeing with much of what he wrote.  But then he has to and pit Wall Street against the WSO crowd.  They are both cut from the same perverse cloth.

written in haste… OWS…. not WSO. ha.

Judging from all the comments here, this was a rant. A rant of the worst kind. It was political. It is also written “be very careful of those who would divide, ” and this rant most certainly dose exactly that. It is also written, “let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” The problems described here, in my humble view, are much to complex to be addressed with this kind of rant, all it dose is divide. Pax.

Mark, I couldn’t agree more! Now, back to a more constructive space, ... my woodworking shop! Have a great rest of the Thanksgiving Weekend. You deserved it! S,

“You will hear everlastingly, in all discussions about newspapers, companies, aristocracies, or party politics, this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man.” -Chesterton

Posted by Rod H. on Saturday, Nov 26, 2011 9:28 AM (EST):
“Do we really want to live in a society that through gov’t control stifles our gifts and talents, as happens in socialist/communist states, to supposed “help” the poor, but only makes them slaves to the state?  Don’t we want to support and nurture those gifts and talents for the benefit of mankind?  You can’t do that without freedom, which includes the freedom to sin.”

Hmm. We don’t want laws to keep the wealthy from destroying the economy and the environment, but we do want laws to keep women from getting abortions and to prevent same sex couples from getting married. Yes, that’s what Jesus was all about—maximizing your assets and making sure the wealthy have the freedom to sin.

Overall I find this pretty good stuff. But I take issue with the following from the last paragraph - if not the content, the tone:

“That God has scattered the proud in their conceit and lifted up the lowly, that he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty is not Marxism, but Marianism and found in the Magnificat.”

Let God scatter and lift, fill and send away. That isn’t Marxism. When people do that, it is. I would hate to see someone draw a similar comparison to the holocaust of the Jews and say “that isn’t Arian supremacy or genocide, that’s Christian and found in the New Testament.”

Andrew Ellis, Thank you for that. My thoughts exactly. I wasn`t in the mood to comment. I have never been in favor of cherry picking, be it scripture,quotes or lines from Caritas In Veritate. With a little effort any one who clothes themselves in academic intellectualism can find something to support any agenda your trying to put forward. I still think it rates as a rant. Pax

@ Andrew Ellis

Yes, Mark’s TONE encourages holocaust’s and death camps.  Get Real. 

The only thing Mark has ever spoke about on this blog is upholding the dignity of the human person, including really crappy human beings like terrorists and financiers.

Andrew:

Huh?  The New Testament advocates genocide how?  You lost me.

I guess Tom Monaghan is condemned to an eternity in the lake of fire, huh?
Bob Hope must already be there.
So much for “Thou shall not covet thy neighbors’ goods.”

cowalker, you’ve lumped together quite a heap of no-no’s, as if they all belong together.  Being rich, having an abortion, and “same sex couples getting married” all seem to be equally dishonest to you.  But is that so?

Being rich and presumably dishonest, is a perversion of being providential.  There’s nothing wrong with having a strong balance sheet, except if you connive to make it appear so.  And in that case you could say that inner corruption vitiates whatever financial strength appears to be.  That’s the case with our economy: it’s paper thin.

With “gay marriage” the virtuous aspect of this vice is “chaste friendship.”  This friendship is much to be desired.  The perversion of it is therefore so much more of an abomination.

It’s hard to find any corresponding virtue in an abortion.  It’s all about compromise and expediency.  However, you can find a virtue in accumulating riches, and in friendship, which corresponds to the degeneracy of a vice.

“For man this is impossible, but all things are possible with God.”

Nick:

Could you document for me where I wrote anything like the hysterical fantasy you are indulging?  The original post had a fairly simple thesis: justice should be impartial and judge rich and poor alike.  Somehow, in your fevered imagination you manage to hear me saying that rich people are damned and covetousness is good.

You are doing a fine job of illustrating my point about the “preferential option for the rich” that Calvinised Americans (including Catholics) tend to buy into.  But you aren’t laying a glove on a word I said in the piece.  Saying “A rich corp should not get a pass for wanting to treat a baby like merchandise while a poor mother is regarded with shock for doing the same thing” is not covetousness.  It’s justice. Babies arew not merchandise for rich or poor. If a man steals a hundred bucks in desperation and hunger and then turns himself in, a sane society has pity and has him work off the hundred bucks.  When he steals hundreds of millions of dollars and suffers no penalty at all, a society that rewards this is insane.  This used to be Catholic common sense.

But Mark, there is a preferential option for the rich, always has been.  If the poor didn’t provide suitable doormats for the affluent and cunning, they’d be completely eradicated.  If you’re talking about justice, I’d have to ask you: are you talking about the justice of Isaiah the Prophet, or the justice of Warren the Burger?

That’s why this piece is neither news nor commenetary, but rather an ice sculpture formed by the wicked winter wind and a driving precipitation.  The hardy folk marvel next day, as the sun makes the masterpiece melt.

Mr. Shea,

My last comment was directed to the overall tone of this thread by all of those who engage in class warfare, not at your essay, directly. I addressed your original post a couple of days ago, and you chose not to respond to what I wrote, until tonight.

Again, the man who stole the hundred dollars threatened the life of the teller. What about her right not to have her life threatened? How does a sane society deal with the victim of such a crime? Violent crimes and white-collar crimes have never been treated as the same thing.

Who is this man who stole hundreds of millions of dollars and paid no penalty at all? Also, I never asserted that fraud shouldn’t be punished. It is up to the government to prove that the perpetrator of fraud is guilty of his crimes. If they are found not guilty, then the prosecutor didn’t do his job well enough.

Was it not an injustice when John Gotti was acquitted several times? Who was the bigger threat to society, Gotti, or Helmsley and Milken? Sometimes the guilty go free. That’s life.

Most people who say, “Stick it to the rich,” do so because they covet what the rich have, not because of some sense of justice. They’re the same kind of people who have no problem “sticking it” to big insurance companies, because, “they rip me off with the high cost of their premiums.” Or, those who, when they get too much change back from a cashier at Sears or Best Buy, don’t return it, because they are “rich corp[s]” (as you put it).

Being rich is not evil, in and of itself. Just like television is not evil, in and of itself. It is what people do with their riches, or t.v.‘s, that can be good or evil.
God Bless!

A poor man gets to heaven and is greeted by St. Peter, who lets him in, introduces him to a few saints and angels, and then gives him directions to his heavenly abode with a wave and a pat on the back.

The poor man (now a saint) wanders around for a few minutes, when a blast of trumpets sound, cheering is heard and a big commotion ensues at the gate of heaven.

He asks a nearby angel, what is the cause for the big celebration, and is told: Mr. Rich Man has just arrived in heaven.

Mr. Poor Man is stunned by this.  “I got nearly no greeting, just a pat on the back from St. Peter; but this Rich Man gets trumpets and crowds and a big celebration.  You mean even in heaven, the rich are treated better?!

The angel replied, “No, it’s just that we see so few rich people in heaven, that we have to rejoice when even one makes it in.”

Not bad Matt B… not bad at all.  I really hate to say this… but maybe (?) there is still HOPE for you. [wink]

The sinful are always at war, with the world and with themselves.  “Let no house prevail save this bitter house of death which hate inhabits most uncomfortably.”

For anyone still reading these comments, and interested in the actual Catholic view on solidarity and subsidiarity, check out this excellent article, from Shameless Popery:

http://catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-to-understand-catholic-social.html

Really?  You’re going to censor a quote from a pope?  Pathetic.

The score is in: Roberts, Craig; Trolls, 1.

The Vatican has officially disavowed your comment, and removed this putative “Pope” from the authoritative list of infallible successors to Peter.  All due to your association with the aforesaid “Pontiff.”  You should be ashamed of such blatant lifting out of context, mischaracterizing dogma, and brickbatting sacerdotal statements.

I’m not going to forget this.

“The great mistake made in regard to the matter now under consideration is to take up with the notion that class is naturally hostile to class, and that the wealthy and the working men are intended by nature to live in mutual conflict. So irrational and so false is this view that the direct contrary is the truth. Just as the symmetry of the human frame is the result of the suitable arrangement of the different parts of the body, so in a State is it ordained by nature that these two classes should dwell in harmony and agreement, so as to maintain the balance of the body politic. Each needs the other: capital cannot do without labor, nor labor without capital. Mutual agreement results in the beauty of good order, while perpetual conflict necessarily produces confusion and savage barbarity. Now, in preventing such strife as this, and in uprooting it, the efficacy of Christian institutions is marvellous and manifold. First of all, there is no intermediary more powerful than religion (whereof the Church is the interpreter and guardian) in drawing the rich and the working class together, by reminding each of its duties to the other, and especially of the obligations of justice.”

He was writing about the Garden of Eden.  It’s changed since then.  Read “Lady Chatterly’s Lover.”

Avarice is avarice, whether a man steals $3,000,000,000 or $30 (of course excepting the man whose family is literally starving and he has no other choice but to steal to feed them).  The way to change it is not by selfish clamoring against the few uber rich.  To change the world, we must change the spirit in our own hearts from “I want” and “I deserve” to “I have” and “I give.”  Forced charity (through government manipulation) is not charity, and as Mr. Shea demonstrates, the left hand washes the right (meaning, big business and big government are in bed together, and switching the holder of the money bags will make absolutely no difference to the poor).  If you think the world is unfair, then look at yourself, see how many gifts you have been given, and give from the generosity of your own heart.  If we all did this, there would be many less poor people in the world (insert ending of “It’s a Wonderful Life”).

You have it wrong, Marie.  The rich/poor distinction has been entirely misplayed by writers and thinkers since Marx and his materialist comrades.  In fact, that’s one of the Lord’s most scandalous gospel messages: the rich are really poor, and the poor are really rich - in a spiritual way.  (“The first shall be last and the last shall be first.”)  The “rich” owe it not to the poor, but to themselves to be good stewards.  They learn not to rely on their riches, but on God (which the poor know by necessity).  Philanthropy is really self-help.

Actually, it looks like all those in the corporate/govt. were Dems.  Another reason to vote Repub.

“Preferential option” also seems not to be the term in CST.  Rather “preferential respect” is.

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/the-preferential-option-for-the-poor

Matt B, I do agree with you, and I apologize if the intent of my first post was not more clearly stated.  I don’t think forcing the rich to give anything away is the way to go.  You can’t force virtue on anyone, so if our goal as Christians is to promote growth in charity and love, then government redistribution of wealth is totally the wrong way to go.  On an individual, and then on a community level, where people make a free and conscious choice to help others:  this is how charity grows, and how we can model processes that would lead to an end of poverty.  The other problem with forced charity is that it promotes an “us and them” mentality.  This mentality is divisive and inevitably builds up resentment between the classes due to a sense of entitlement on both sides (another of Marx’s tools, one that masquerades as justice but at its root is usually only self-interested).  It is a dehumanizing perspective to both sides of the debate (the plebs and the proles), and it is in stark contrast to Christian philosophy, which teaches that all men, whether billionaires or beggars, are fundamentally children of God.
You are also right to say that spiritual poverty is much more detrimental than even physical poverty, and that material riches can make spiritual poverty extremely difficult (thus the camel through the eye of a needle analogy).