Well said, Matthew!  I’ve been in several Facebook discussions with people who confuse central planning with working for the common good and confuse government social programs with charity.  You have put it better than I have managed to do, so far.

The Pope sees something more clearly than the right does: we no longer HAVE a ‘free’ market in this country. We have a plutonomy…an economy where wealth is becoming more and more concentrated in a select few. The conservative economist Nouriel Roubini has speculated that capitalism may wind up destroying itself because of this wealth transfer from the middle class to the wealthy. Those of us who ARE capitalists (including the Pope) know that this placing of profits before people DESTROYS capitalism, regardless of what the myth pushers at NRO would have us believe.

I’m not a fan of yours, and I don’t agree that the Pope is pro-capitalist per se (my own reading of this Pope is that he is, like many Europeans, an advocate of regulating capitalism rather than either the free market or state ownership), but you make fair points here.

I think it’s also worth remembering that in Europe we are further Left, generally speaking, than America is, and trying to map the Pope on an American political spectrum may not be the proper context for his economic thinking.

My guess is Apple’s Chinese employees would not only have liked to have heard Benedict’s words but have Apple follow them.

What Epstein and Stuttaford seem to have also left out is that the Pope said that there must be “ethics” in the marketplace, meaning that you just can’t have “unbridled” Capitalism. Profit is necessary, but not at any “cost” (no pun intended). The end does not justify the means. “Leave the market alone, it will take care of itself,” is a common phase echoed by Capitalists and free market advocates. Yet, the market only functions based on what we do. A Catholic radio host, Dennis O’Donovan or “Religion, Politics, and the Culture” in Miami, FL (find him on Facebook or internet: www.rpconradio.com) says that “the market has no conscience. It has the conscience that we give it.”
I believe that if you treat your workers well, you will get more profit because they will be happy to produce more because work is necessary for man. John Paul II said that “work is for man, not man for work.” And at the core of every economic system is the human being, which is what Benedict was saying. At the heart is man - not profit - and we can’t forget that.
Also, too, the free market system works best in Democratic nations because it reflects the will of the people. But, if “the people” are making bad decisions, then the market - and government systems - will see the poor results of that.

“The actual deformity present here is that the left has so abused and deformed the language of true social justice into a socialistic screed that some can no longer discern the difference between the two.”

I’m glad you touched on this because it really is a problem. I am thoroughly in agreement with the CATHOLIC principles of social justice but it took me a lot of research on the subject to figure out the distinction between what the Church actually teaches and the hijacked version. It was a substantial barrier to my conversion, as I have encountered quite a number of Catholics that advocate quite forcefully for government control of just about everything. The biggest problem with that is that it replaces God with government (as opposed to the more extreme views of something like Objectivism that replaces God with self). Ideally, people would voluntarily put other people first. Realistically, some folks won’t. And only then is it appropriate for the government to step in, and at the lowest level possible to affect the necessary change. But we should all be mindful that the larger the government gets, the more concentrated ALL power gets. Punitive regulation runs everyone out of a market except those who can afford to comply. So on both extremes you run into the problem of concentrated power and wealth. It seems to me that there is a delicate balance that must be struck between the two extremes and that also seems to be what the Church teaches. Balance. Moderation. I just wish those voices were loud enough to drown out those who have hijacked the mantle of social justice so that the faithful could have a much clearer idea of what we believe in regards to social justice and individual rights.

bob, the amassing of wealth in the richest 1% shouldn’t be a concern. Yes, they have more money than ever before. Yes, they have a greater chunk of available wealth. However, there isn’t a fixed amount of wealth available. So while the ultra-rich have a larger chunk of the pie, the entire pie has gotten bigger. (Well, it contracted quite a bit in the last 4 years, but that’s the fault of both corrupt businessmen and corrupt politicians.)
I look at my own piece of the pie and see more and more of it taken away from me by taxes and fees. I’m not concerned about the ultra-rich trying to get some of my pie…they get it by selling me goods and services that I need/want. But the government, it just takes and takes and takes more, providing many important services, but wasting so much that it’s sickening.

Many P.

Right on, brother! I, too, was “infected” with a hijacked version of Catholic social justice. I think a lot of that was started in Central America with that exteme Marxist version of Christain social justice called “Liberation Theology,” which is totally rooted in “hatred for the rich.” We see a version of this TODAY in America among the American black communities where they are being fed a brand of this called “Black Liberation Theology” (i.e. Reverend Wright in Chicago, Obama’s old “pastor”). And that CANNOT be good for anybody and certainly not good as a founding principle for ANY economic system.

And I, too, did some research and was pleasantly surpised to learn the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity. Sadly, though, there are other priests and Catholic leaders/politicians who also “subscribe” to this version of social justice, which does an INJUSTICE to Jesus. I think we should re-phrase this false brand and calle it “Social INjustice” instead of the current social justice. Pope Benedict warned the youth this past weekend at World Youth Day to not fall for a “counterfeit Jesus”. I think this radical Jesus the left is pushing qualifies for this heading…

The ultra rich take from EVERYONE’S pie when they manipulate the system to decrease their share and unload it on everyone else. That’s why taxes and fees go up on the rest of us while some can pay little or none. Without any Government at all, there would simply be the Haves and the Have Nots.  Do you want roads? Do you want disaster assistance? Do you want Public Schools? etc., etc.???

The ultra rich aren’t benevolent enough to worry about you.  It’s all about them. When it stops being all about them, we’ll all be better off.

Maryanne,

You can’t punish the rich, you can only inspire them to give. We need the rich because the rich help create jobs, which is good for the economy. Greed is not exclusive to the rich: there are plenty of “greedy” poor people, too. In the “hood,” you see A LOT of people with fancy cars, the latest technological devices, the latest fashion items of clothing. They make poverty in this country look very desirable. Jesus spoke plenty about how the rich should utilize their wealth and how difficult it would be for “a rich man” to enter heaven. Remember, too, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus? Jesus never advocated for taking from the rich - or punishing them. Remember the rich man that came to Jesus asking what he must to “to inheret eternal life?” The parable concludes: “And he went away sad…”

“WHO is the TRUTH?”, is the question Pontius Pilate ought to have asked of Jesus Christ, had Pilate any understanding of the Sovereign Person, the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
  Before Pilate, Jesus Christ affirmed God’s “endowed sovereign authority constituted through the sovereign personhood of men, the laws of nature and nature’s God, and through Divine Providence”, employed by the state to function in the interests of the general welfare, the common good; God’s authority to function in the interests of the will of the people.  “You would not have this authority if it had not been given to you from above.”
The Servant of the Servants of God, Pope Benedict XVI invited all people in the world to unity in the Word of God, Jesus Christ, and gathered us as one, in Madrid Spain, World Youth Day 2011. Pope Benedict XVI, as the “Vicar of Christ”, called all people to vocation in the service of God and heaven, and man and earth as priests, nuns and consecrated laity.
It is estimated, because count was impossible, that over two million persons answered the “call” to holiness. And wasn’t the face of the Vicar of Christ radiant?
Some, whose hearts are far from God, criticized the “call” to vocation from the Primacy of Peter as destructive and counterproductive, expensive and unnecessary. Some economists, in their constant pull of our economy into the abysmal pit of SENSELESS COUNTING, instead of the purposeful encountering of Jesus Christ and establishing the Kingdom of God on earth begrudge the youth their virginity and innocence, the endowed right to exercise their freedom and acknowledge the Person of God, and to claim the public square as the domain of each and every free man. The Kingdom of God on earth is to fulfill man’s destiny beginning right here and now.
It is their own free will choice to criticize, reject the blessings of liberty and Divine Providence. Are they right?  Of course, they are right in their very small way, as the saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day. The economy is broken as men’s souls are broken and senseless counting of the braking without repairing the souls of men will give us feckless counting, despair and the devil’s delight.
Pope Benedict XVI has given us the design of repair. The Vicar of Christ on earth has given us The Way.
“WHO is like unto God”.  “Rendered unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.”

What is being missed here is that big business is just as bad for people as big government. Big government likes socialism because it allows those in power to control the lives of the people for their own benefit. Conversely, Big Business wants a “free market” so that they can lower their costs and raise their profits. History shows us that if allowed a corporation will lower wages, pay in company dollars and degrade the safety of their work environment so long as it increases their profit margin. Both Big Government and Big Business are about greed. At least with Big Government everyone is a shareholder.

What the Pope is doing is simply pointing out the errors of both systems and upholding the dignity of humanity. In America we live under the lie that their are only two options: Left and Right, or Reps and Dems. The fact is that neither side really cares about the dignity of the human person, but about the interests of their biggest monetary supports (Big Business and cultural restructuring special interest groups). Socialism is not the answer, but neither is an unfettered “free market”.

What can we do instead? Read Chesterton’s “Outline of Sanity” and Belloc’s “Servile State” for starters. The biggest impact that we can make on society is not in the voting booth, but how we live our lives. Support small and local business; volunteer at a soup kitchen; get involved with your local municipal politics; Real change begins with the basic unit of society: the family.

“free market” on the back of slaves? Give us freedom and a “free market” of good will.

If paying a “fair” share is punishment, then so be it. If you read it, there is no statement in which I advocate punishing the rich. I object to gaming the system. I do advocate being less selfish, especially when there is a lot of wealth.  How much do people really need? You can’t take it with you. anyway.

It’s pretty sad if the wealthy have to be “inspired” to give or give only when there’s a tax benefit.  How about anonymous donations simply because it’s the right thing to do?
 
Just yesterday, the Priest at Mass spoke of a woman who said she would sponsor up to three children’s education at a school in his home country at $400.00 each.  However, he was taken back when she reneged on the offer because he didn’t know what a tax write off was and couldn’t provide the necessary information.

Want to cite the Bible?  Read the gospel for yesterday regarding Jesus and hypocrites Matthew 23:23-26.

Yes,there are greedy people in all walks of life, it doesn’t make it right. We can all cite the bible to make our points, some people believe in an eye for and eye.  Jesus wants us to turn the other cheek.

Maryanne,

I agree that taxes should be lowered, too. The gaming system needs to be fixed. However, we will always have taxes. And no matter what we do, there will always be corruption and greed. Lowering taxes will somewhat at least give the government less of our money. But, it’s only a relief of the problem, not a solition to the problem. As Warren Buffet said, the rich don’t pay “enough” taxes. And they’re still rich. Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knight of Columbus, said it best: “We will always give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. But we will NEVER give to Caesar what BELONGS TO GOD.”

As far as the passage of the hypocrites goes, the “hypocrites” were religious. Not all of the rich in this country ARE religious. And until they disover Jesus, who is the REAL solution to the problem, then the problem will just continue. Pope Benedict and John Paul II both continuously reflected that the solition to every problem in this society is Jesus. God entrusts those who have been given wealth with an enormous responsibilty. For those who have discovered Jesus, we realize that we have to be good ADMINISTRATORS of his blessings - not just our material blessings. We are also called to look out for the spiritual needs of our neighbors, hence the Church’s Spiritual Works of Mercy. Money only takes care of our physical needs. The Church calls us to look out for the WHOLE person. And as far as I can see, the poorest in this country are not just those suffering from material poverty, but those with abundance because they don’t have Jesus. Mother Theresa said it best, also, when she said that Ameirca was “the poorest county in the world” not because of its material wealth - obviously - but because of its spiritual poverty. So, we have a lot of work to do.

Many of the rich are poor emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. They suffer from depression, loneliness, addiction, family problems, etc… So, I don’t envy them at all. Unfortunaltey, much of the social justice here in this country and aboad is rooted in envy. And the problem the rich - and those who aspire to be rich - continue to have is the fact that they think that MORE money is the answer to the problem: The more money they have the better off they will be. That’s why there is such an emphasis in big business for profits at whatever cost. They obviously have the wrong prescription because having more money is not going to take away their loneliness, their depression, their addiction, etc… If anything, it’s going to make it worse. Money is not bad, as science is not bad by itself. But both money and science if not used FOR GOOD, will destoy a society.

These wealthy who are lacking in religion don’t have what we have, and therefore don’t have a well-formed conscience, which explains why some of them are not able to do “the right thing” as we see it because it takes a well-formed conscience from Jesus to give them a moral compass. Otherwise it’s just philanthopy when they give “anonymous donations.” Remember the widow and the 2 coins parable? The widow “gave more.”

As Chesterton aptly summarized: “too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.” The secular right-left/capitalist-socialist polarity looks at the fundamental problem of “serving the common good” through the wrong lens(es). The pope does understand that economics, since it fundamentally involves people, who are moral creatures, is not merely about the transacting of valuables between amoral agents at micro or macro levels. This is well within the scope of his moral authority upon which to teach and rule as Christ’s Vicar. Marx, who was rabidly antagonistic to the Church, got it wrong, stripping away from people their fundamental right to own capital. As do those bulwarks of free-market thought, the Austrians, whose only creed is ultimately, the bottom line (ever hear of anarcho-capitalism? - it’s where most true libertarians end up when they stick to the ideology.)

There is a third way - oft forgotten in our modern age. The writings of the great Jesuit priest/economist Heinrich Pesch have heavily influenced “papal economics” for years, and are found at the core of the Church’s social teaching. To Chesterton’s point, the tendency for unfettered capitalism (read: greed) to concentrate and limit the ability of workers to own capital is why we see the bastions of Big Business that dominate the industries in which they compete. The rival force which both enables and supposedly checks Big Business is of course Big Government. The Catholic Church has positive things to say about capitalism, when morality prevails (which is, where?) But by definition, as the Austrians would say, economics and morals are mutually exclusive. The market itself, in their view, provides the natural mechanism to dissuade the “bad” (or unfavorable, disadvantageous) and promote the “good” (favorable, advantageous). You hear the screed “the agreed upon price IS the moral price”. Is this true in hurricane ravaged regions when displaced families will pay astronomical rates at a nearby hotel, because the owner has shrewdly perceived the laws of supply and demand? While practical implementations of distributist/Peschian principles are found wanting in the modern economy, those pioneers who embrace the Church’s directives towards subsidiarity (small, local concentrations of governing power) and solidarity (universal charity and consideration of all peoples with whom we have fraternal bonds) are finding ways to empower Everyman to be a capitalist, that is a true owner of the means of his production. Will Big Business find this way? Will Big Governments support it? I believe this is what the Pope’s admonition to modern-day capitalists is all about.

The Pope is all about the saving of souls, which is why I agree with you Matthew, and why I also believe Pope Benedict has not read the final version of the YOUCAT that went to print. Perhaps someone at The National Catholic Register could contact Pope Benedict for an interview.

Bill R,

“...economics and morals are mutually exclusive.”

Nice post! A lobbyist friend of mine and I were having a discussion one time, and I brought up to him that you need to have ethics in business. He simply said, “There are no ethics in business.” He meant this to say that you can do whatever you want. If this is the kind of thinking among businessmen/women, it might explain the state we’re in. And he’s “Republican”. But, I don’t think this is exclusive thinking to Republicans because there are plenty of Democrats who think the same. The Dmocrats just believe that by paying higher taxes it relieves them of their guilt for being wealthy…

Maryanne, who determines what a “fair share” is? Maybe a bit easier to answer is this question: What do YOU consider to be a “fair share”?
In my opinion, you don’t seem to want to “turn the other cheek” so much as “stick it to the man”. If I made $500,000/year instead of $50,000, and paid an effective tax rate of 15% (due to deductions against a 35% rate), instead of 20% without deductions beyond the standard (thus paying $75,000 in taxes as opposed to $10,000), would I have paid my fair share? Percentage-wise, I paid less. Dollar-wise, I paid much much more.

This: http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13rerum.htm

And This: Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 19:
“[21] Jesus saith to him: If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow me. [22] And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions. [23] Then Jesus said to his disciples: Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. [24] And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. [25] And when they had heard this, the disciples wondered very much, saying: Who then can be saved?

[26] And Jesus beholding, said to them: With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible. [27] Then Peter answering, said to him: Behold we have left all things, and have followed thee: what therefore shall we have? [28] And Jesus said to them: Amen, I say to you, that you, who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of his majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel. [29] And every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting. [30] And many that are first, shall be last: and the last shall be first.”

Scripture from http://www.drbo.org/index.htm

Pax Christi

It may not be clear from these comments alone that the Pope advocates greater political regulation of the economy, but he has made it clear elsewhere. 

Before taking Epstein to task, I think it would have made sense to read, for example, the Pope’s second encyclical, which emphasized the importance of an expanded government role in the market.  Here’s one example of many:

“Economic life undoubtedly requires contracts, in order to regulate relations of exchange between goods of equivalent value. But it also needs just laws and forms of redistribution governed by politics, and what is more, it needs works redolent of the spirit of gift. The economy in the global era seems to privilege the former logic, that of contractual exchange, but directly or indirectly it also demonstrates its need for the other two: political logic, and the logic of the unconditional gift.”

And I think the Holy Father’s words are very sage here Kurt.

Great topic- amazing how the critics of the papacy and the Church’s social doctrines, which date to the Hebrew prophets and are rooted in the dignity of the human made in God’s image and likeness.

Interesting Matthew, you’re not the only one combating this perception amongst Christians: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/should-christians-be-socialists/2011/08/15/gIQAXlO0GJ_blog.html

I have some sympathy for both the leftists and the conservatives who get this wrong, and who think that Benedict XVI (and his predecessors) are advocating for the welfare state.

It’s not that I think the Catholic Church actually does make support for the welfare state obligatory on the Christian faithful. But I can easily see how one can get the wrong idea.

When one makes public pronouncements, one ought to make some minimal effort to avoid the most likely misunderstandings of one’s comments. This is especially true when one is in a position of great authority.

In dealing with the sin of homosexual activities, for example, the Catholic Church tends (in my experience) to be admirably careful to stipulate that, while homosexual activity is objectively disordered and willfully engaging in such activity is seriously sinful, persons who wrestle with temptation due to same-sex attraction disorder are not to be treated as a lesser class of persons but are to be accorded all the respect befitting their intrinsic dignity as persons created in the image of God.

This formulation is commendable: It makes the point that sin is sin, but avoids the misunderstandings which could lead some to shout “bigots!” and others to say “homosexual activity is sinful, so let’s go beat up a queer.”

In like manner, couldn’t the Magisterium be a little more careful to say that…,

(a.) ...we are each personally morally obligated to give of our own time, talent, and treasure to assist those in need; but,

(b.) ...this moral obligation to give of our own does not necessarily translate into a moral authorization to use the police power of the state to compel others to “give”; and,

(c.) ...although there are undeniable benefits to large-scale, government-organized, compulsory assistance to the needy, especially in times of crisis or natural disaster; nevertheless,

(d.) ...it is easily within the range of opinion permitted to the Christian faithful to argue that the (personally, socially, and politically) corruptive, divisive, and dignity-destroying side-effects of the welfare state are sufficient reason to oppose “compulsory alms” through taxpayer funded wealth transfers.

There. How hard was that?

The above statement, or something similar but better-written, is all it would take to prevent or correct innocent misunderstandings.

(Of course, it would not be adequate to prevent or correct all misunderstandings, because not all misunderstandings are innocent ones. In particular, I expect some left-progressive types would do their best to ignore such a statement, in their ongoing efforts to equate conservatives’ support for reducing entitlements to leftists’ support for legalized abortion.)

Still, the statement would be there, which would be helpful to correct innocent misunderstandings.

Pope Benedict xvi knows better than most anyone on the planet that Communism and Socialism have been the most destructive forces for religious rights of mankind. It is clear socialists work to remove God from our lives and replace him with a dictatorship government liken to God. The destructive power of socialists can be seen in America where Barack Obama has completely destroyed the country in 2 1/2 years, running up debt to unsustainable levels while bringing in homosexuality into the White House.

Socialism only divides races, divides the family, teaches children to be gay in pre-school, socialism is a sickness not a way of life.

The real problem is the Bilderberg’s,Illumanati,trilateral commission,council on foreign affairs,bohemian grove,skull and bones and all the other globalists.

Excellent Blog, Matt! Did you ever expose the shrill phoniness of one of the most ridiculous conspiracy theories spun by the far Right. One would think even the Hoover Institute and National Review would’ve shielded themselves from receiving this kind of looniness, much less publish any of it, and giving it the patina of their respective level of respectability within the Conservative Movement. Wm. F. Buckley must be spinning, no… make it gyrating ... in his grave. Maybe the earthquake specialists ought to be looking at a gravesite in southeast Connecticut instead of (hilariously and equally appropriately laughable enough) Eric Cantor’s 7th Congressional District of VA.

(Maybe a campaign donor passing on his/her way to visit the Squire of Culpepper) dropped a wallet or briefcase full of grateful donors for his efforts on their behalf to avoid paying taxes. After all, that’s what the rest of us actual living, breathing, “little people” have to pay so the big boys can play without pain.

Y’know what else is located fairly close to Cantor’s district as it edges closer to DC?: None other than “Accuracy In Media’s” headquarters. Guys, if you want to see paranoia and good ol’ fashioned Red Witch Hunts practiced by well-heeled reactionaries, just Google AIM, Pope Benedict, green movement ... add some “related ideas” of your own to those and see what appears. Unless, of course, AIM pulled what a lot of conservative pols and their pals love doing on their behalf in wikipedia, a sorta “cleansing” action.
  AIM’s boss, Cliff Kincade isn’t a big fan of Pope Benedict, or for that matter, the Vatican when it comes to the point where he believes theology meets today’s politics, especially Euro-Green politics which in Kincade & Co’s eyes are mere replacements for the Bolshies of olden days.
  Pope Benedict deserves better. So does the Vatican and the entire Magisterium.
  Hmmmm, I guess we can say maybe Kincade looks like a “c-c-c-cafeteria Catholic.”  Let the food fight begin!

And now a comment from the Roman Catholic magisterium, back before our broadcast was interrupted by the triumph of capitalism:

“I. The nature of the sin called usury has its proper place and origin in a loan contract. This financial contract between consenting parties demands, by its very nature, that one return to another only as much as he has received. The sin rests on the fact that sometimes the creditor desires more than he has given. Therefore he contends some gain is owed him beyond that which he loaned, but any gain which exceeds the amount he gave is illicit and usurious.

II. One cannot condone the sin of usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but rather moderate or small; neither can it be condoned by arguing that the borrower is rich; nor even by arguing that the money borrowed is not left idle, but is spent usefully, either to increase one’s fortune, to purchase new estates, or to engage in business transactions. The law governing loans consists necessarily in the equality of what is given and returned; once the equality has been established, whoever demands more than that violates the terms of the loan. Therefore if one receives interest, he must make restitution according to the commutative bond of justice; its function in human contracts is to assure equality for each one. This law is to be observed in a holy manner. If not observed exactly, reparation must be made.”

Pope Benedict XIV “Vix Pervenit” 1745

I am sure he was just misinterpreting himself.

But it also needs just laws and forms of redistribution governed by politics,

This sounds like tax laws where the super rich pay no taxes on billions of dollars

Oops, Have to ‘fess up a goof: ” ...full of grateful donors” should’ve read “full of donations from grateful donors.” Boy, would that’ve been one heavy earth crackin’ briefcase to drop! LOL. Fun just thinking about it, though! Hmmm, “earth crackin’” kinda rhymes with frackin’. Nawwww, I’ll let other conspiracy theory fans run with this. But keep us posted.

That statement by BX1V was about usury which has been conddemned from Hebrew Bible times and still is. He simply argued that the rate should be fair and just and any extra should be returned. Today the system is called interest and controlled by the Congress and usury is still controlled - the Pay-Day loan sharks are still around.
I cannot understand the comment above that this late 18th century Pope was re-interpreting himself. The papacy and Catholic Christian Church is not interested in economics in and for its own sake which is why using labels from communism or socialism or unbridled capitalism or European socialism are irrelevant. The sacredness of the human person is fundamental so no woman should be a badly paid worker for a giant corporation or a man a slave to some totalitarian system.

@Rafael: I wonder how your lobbyist friend would react if (may God forbid!) if either of you and a member of your families and circle of friends were to die as a result of a virtually unregulated pill or even vitamin-producing company? Let’s try this one for size; a child in either of your families dies from swallowing a carelessly “affixed” small piece to a toy and there wasn’t even the cautionary warning so many parents find when they buy toys for their kids about watching out for small parts? Wal-Mart imports unquestionably cheaply made nativity sets, some of which are packaged with shrink wrap containing formadahyde. The sets, by the way, sell for the whopping amounts ranging from roughly $6 to $20, and all contain small easily swallowable parts, i.e., figurines. What an irony, let’s say there were no regulations at all requiring even the implying that the packaging barely met U.S. trade and safety standards (LOL) ... and a little child happened to pick up a piece when his or her parent, older sib or guardian wasn’t watching and, the poor child choked to death.
  How about fair trade policies where so-called “free trade” pacts are drawn up with nary any say allowed by the public because as usual, these deals are pulled together by elites for the elites. The laws of these pacts supercede the U.S. Constitution and in some cases, and I might be wrong, no money is even being considered added to the benefit of any American employees who lose their jobs due to displacement.
  Can your GOP pal justify that? I guess he “can,” as you pointed out above: “... ‘There are no ethics in business.’ He meant this to say that you can do whatever you want. If this is the kind of thinking among businessmen/women, it might explain the state we’re in. And he’s ‘Republican’.”
  You rightly pointed out where the Democrats have their hands dirtied up in this atmosphere. Do they ever! That’s one reason I finally got so disgusted and decided to dis-enroll to Independent status, but my views over the past forty or so years I’ve been involved in politics, evolved from staunch conservative Democat to Democratic Socialist. If somebody reading this shakes his/her head saying, “Ugh, he’s thrown in his lot with Bernie Sanders,” ... damn straight I have!
  Your lobbyist friend’s political-party membership shouldn’t surprise anybody; not in the least given the way the Grand Old Party has turned evolution on its head to become Good Ol’ Parasites. Unlike the party of Lincoln that passed the Morrill Act and other far-reaching pieces of legislation while it was fighting the Civil War, and paid for it through taxes raised on the citizens ... something the freeloaders of the W “presidency” managed to get away with, not to mention an unaffordable package of indefensible tax hikes for the wealthy and a prescription drug program that was more of a sop to Big Pharma than any substantive program to help those who needed it the most ... only to pull off what they did this past year at the expense of the majority of taxpayers who need the many programs the GOP House cut, ranging from pre and post natal nutrition programs for young moms and babies, WIC to “Meals On Wheels” ... even food inspection programs of all thing(!) the mostly very wealthy GOP House Members and Senators shamelessly made no bones about what they saw perfectly appropriate behavior when they staged that carefully planned out and executed parliamentary coup of by and for the wealthy’s sake especially when it came to even closing loopholes that wouldn’t have set any multimillionaire or billionaire back in the least.
  Your friend did you and everybody a big favor by exposing the very lack of ethical core he and his Republican pals (and their Democratic Party enablers) have to serve as any ballast politics and government.
  The wolf’s fangs are all there for us to see and I hope the rest of the readers and commenters in this combox see them for what they are. They’re sharp and meant to shred every bit of what keeps our society together; a government based on the rule of law, not men. Ideally, this means we have a government shaped and run by men and women who respect precedence, common law, our Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Federalist Papers, history and of course, BUT NOT LEAST, our age old Religious Traditions as opposed to which oligarchy, lobbying firms and party organizations have the most money to throw around, not to mention, media organizations the power to destroy careers and reputations in a heartbeat thanks to our “smart-phone” society.
  A purist might say, “Well Rafael,  ... find new friends.” But even purists can’t beat such a rigged system when even minimal, even quaintly grudging respect for the rule of law nowadays is almost to the point where somebody like Grover Norquist—what has he ever DONE??? or contributed to the COMMON GOOD OF MOST AMERICANS?—can get away with strangling this bare necessity for maintining some semblance of civility in his proverbial excutionary drowning bathtub. And while the purist stands by ever so proudly that his shoes aren’t getting muddied by being “too close,” his and OUR government is being sold out to the best bidder for the scrap heap like many proud warships, planes and tanks that defended us during wartime. Nobody should be that kind of a purist, lest he misses out when his “friends” are baring their fangs.
  No, sometimes even the good guys, and I presume you are, Rafael because you shared this friend’s slip-up, have to play like Don Corleone (LOL) who was wise enough to keep his cool, his friends and loved ones and closest friends and allies close ... but his enemies closest.
  Otherwise we’ll never see when the fangs are bared and recognize the wolves from the sheep. Dogs aren’t called “Man’s best friend” for nothing. Dogs have loyalty and their own sense of what’s right and wrong. Wolves, on the other hand, that part of the canine family, never evolved to the level of dogs.
  Hmmm, maybe this is why today’s Republicans have such a hard time with evolution.

Matthew A.Siekierski,
I agree to disagree on this it is pointless to go on and on. In my defense I must say, however, that I’d much rather be guilty of wanting to “stick it to the man”, as you put it, than wanting to stick it to the poor anytime.

HermitTalker states:

“That statement by BX1V was about usury which has been conddemned from Hebrew Bible times and still is. He simply argued that the rate should be fair and just and any extra should be returned.”

Remarkably, the above statement is made in the face of the following plain words of the Pope:

“One cannot condone the sin of usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but rather moderate or small; neither can it be condoned by arguing that the borrower is rich; nor even by arguing that the money borrowed is not left idle, but is spent usefully, either to increase one’s fortune, to purchase new estates, or to engage in business transactions. The law governing loans consists necessarily in the equality of what is given and returned; once the equality has been established, whoever demands more than that violates the terms of the loan. THEREFORE IF ONE RECEIVES INTEREST, he must make restitution according to the commutative bond of justice; its function in human contracts is to assure equality for each one. This law is to be observed in a holy manner. If not observed exactly, reparation must be made.” (emphasis added)
Pope Benedict XIV “Vix Pervenit” 1745

My question, Hermit, is did you actually read the words which you directly contradict, or is it merely that you find their plain and obvious meaning so threatening that you would prefer that they said the exact opposite of what they in fact say?

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/matthew-archbold/is-pope-benedict-xvi-a-commie/#ixzz1WGXw2qgo

In many respects, democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine and has in any case made a remarkable contribution to the formation of a social consciousness.

Europe and Its Discontents by Benedict XVI

This essay is not a magisterial document, but it is written by someone who understands Catholic Social Doctrine more than anyone else here and his summary should be respected as probably close to mainstream Catholicism.

If you experience shock, denial, outrage or anger on reading this, consider that your loyalty to your own self-interests, prejudices and upbringing may be stronger than your allegiance to Christ and His teaching. We are all called to full conversion.

I am sympathetic to Joe’s point, above, concerning the deep indoctrination into Austrian School assumptions which we deeply imbibe here in the USA. That being said, it strikes me as highly inappropriate to suggest we are “called to full conversion”, implicitly, to a prudential endorsement of a failed economic system merely because it is endorsed by a private theologian in a non-magisterial work. We are not in any slight way called to such a conversion. Our Catholic liberty extends to a considered rejection of the failed economic basis of the European community, which is dying (what follows is strictly one man’s poor opinion), like the rest of the New World Order, of its addiction to usury.

Capital nas changed, and its uses more diversified than in late 18th century Europe, the Pope as a human being is tied to the reality of his cultural world as most of us are. He could not in 1784 be condemning the contemporary use of interest because capital and the meaning of money have changed. He is actually sets forth principles regarding the loaning of money and interest charged which are reasonable, do not need any Divine infallible guidance. But the Natural Law and doing Justice to one another are biblically-enjoined and those principles are applied to the Social Order very powerfully since Leo X111, whose master-work Enclylical is entiled Rerum Novarum,  “Of New Things” Labor and Capital were his concerns. They were also under JP11 and still are with BXV1 whose teachings are absolutely rooted in biblical principles, the most fundamental being the sacred dignty of the person. The Popes are not intersted in promoting any economic system but do condemn unbridled capitalism, which denies human worth and also extreme socialism which does the same to the human person. One exalts Business and the other the State. Business can lobby and pay money out in large enough bucket-fulls to campaign funds that it can control even the most efficient Democratic Republics.  Greed and Power are bed-fellows.  Mentioning no names of course!!

@HermitTalker: If you won’t “name names,” may I, starting with the top two on my list of “usual suspects”? LOL!
  Let’s see now, oh yes, David and Charles Koch. George Soros and Warren Buffett aren’t even in Kochs’ catagory.
  My favorite baddie of ‘em all is this Grover Norquist who’s managed to hornswaggle so many of these ever-quick-to-challenge-a-liberal’s-patriotism…into publicly swearing to serve Norquists’ no-taxes, no-prisoners form of “politics” that would make former East Germany’s Walter Ulbricht and Eric Honnecker proud.
  Naming names is half the fun: watching the “named” sweat and cringe in fear of the public’s wrath more than Norquist’s is even more fun.

What is lacking in our culture is GOOD WILL. GOOD WILL is a commodity that in a business has a price tag. If a businessman has cultivated GOOD WILL among his customers, his business prospers, if he is mean, greedy stingy, a swindler and cheater, how far do you think his business will go? It is the same for governments. Another word bandied about but totally misunderstood is CHARITY. The joy of giving, the peace of receving can only become comprehensible with the acknowledgement of the full dignity of the human person and who God created and endowed the person to be. This relates to GOOD WILL on a supernatural level, something individuals who reject God, along with God’s definition of CHARITY, while using the words to draw others into their form of slavery, cannot and will not endure.

Th nature of money has changed, Hermit? Why, this is an astonishing assertion. It is remarkable that yu have failed to demonstrate it. In truth,m the nature of money has changed not a whit, and the Pope has told you that usury (the charging of interest on a loan) is mortally sinful. I am, frankly,m uninterested in your contrary opinion, since it has wrought a global catastrophe which, I would expect, you are prepared to deny, just as you deny the plain words of a Pope. When the New World Order collapses (very soon now), please recall that it was the rejection of Catholic teaching on usury which brought the catastrophe about.

You are correct in that is what he said then but like a lot of statements it is culturally time-conditioned which was my fault for not saying up front. Money has changed in that the meaning of money has changed, gold and other precious metals are more extensively used in trading.and the issuance of bonds by governments and corporations, in general, commercial bonds. Money has an exchange value an holds its value overtime but its meaning has been broadened.
  The sins are excessive interest and gambling with other people’s money in a loosely governed stock market and other markets, and Governments asleep at the wheel when regulators and banks were controlled by corporate greed and hubris. That all combined to bring about the crash. Greed and excessive priden and power - hubris -destroy the person, the instituion and strikes at the heart of the Common Good.
My field is the Humanities with special emphasis on the nexus between Government systems, religious institutions in the development of civilisation from Babylon through today. Sorry I was not more precise, I am perhaps more aware of how statements and positions are culturally conditioned in Roman Catholic Christian Magisterial circles which does not interfere with the key and core Natural Law and biblical teachings and are nuanced as the Holy Spirit guides the culture and especially to the Church which we believe gets His special assistance according to Jesus’ promises

Hermit’s position evolves:

Hermit Now: “You are correct in that is what he said then…”

Hermit Then:“He simply argued that the rate should be fair and just and any extra should be returned.”

>>First off, Hermit, I commend you for admitting that your initial post utterly misrepresented the Pope’s words.

Hermit digs the hole deeper: “but like a lot of statements it is culturally time-conditioned which was my fault for not saying up front”

>> It is your fault for now saying down back. You, like many Catholics of both the neoconservative and modernist persuasions, arrogate to yourself the right to dismiss the authentic magisterium as “time conditioned”, when it is in fact you who are time conditioned. You have decided to believe in a mystical magical “change in the nature of money” rather than confront the stark fact that you reject the Pope’s teaching on usury, which is also the teaching of Scripture, of the Fathers, and of the Councils.

You are not alone, but the end-phase collapse of the usury-based global banking system might possibly have been expected to cause you a moment’s reflection before recycling your talking points.

Hermit: “Money has changed in that the meaning of money has changed”

>> This is bit of handwaving folderol. You assert what you have twice now failed to even attempt to demonstrate. There is an excellent reason for this. The “meaning of money” has not, in fact, changed.

H: “gold and other precious metals are more extensively used in trading”

>> Precisely the opposite is true. The point is meaningless in any case. Money has often taken the form of gold. Of silver. Of beads. Of paper. Of bonds. Of notes. All through history. The forms are variable, the nature is not.

H: Money has an exchange value an holds its value overtime but its meaning has been broadened.

>> Money in various forms holds, loses, and increases its value over time. Its meaning has not changed at all, it has merely elaborated its unchanging meaning in a multiplicity of forms. The Church recognized early on (in fact, from the very beginning) the temptation to create fictitious wealth out of thin air through the charging of interest on a loan of money. This the Church condemned as “usury”. We are all about to have an opportunity to mourn our failure to interiorize this truth.

Hermit tap dances his way back to his original, false, exposition of the magisterium’s teaching: The sins are excessive interest

>> False. As the Pope is now going to tell you for the third time, the sin is any interest whatsoever. Interest *is* the sin. That is what the Pope says. He does not say something else-

“One cannot condone the sin of usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but rather moderate or small; ...... THEREFORE IF ONE RECEIVES INTEREST, he must make restitution according to the commutative bond of justice…. This law is to be observed in a holy manner. If not observed exactly, reparation must be made.” (emphasis added)
Pope Benedict XIV “Vix Pervenit” 1745

I completely sympathizer with the cognitive dissonance you are undergoing, Hermit. You have been sold on the notion that the Church was wrong, and the usurers, those geniuses of new meanings of money (another word for this would be “counterfeiters”), were right.

You, and they, are a bit slow on the uptake, but reality is now imposing an important, if painful, lesson in this regard.

Stay tuned.

Usury is still condemned.Taking interest that is fair when the money borrowed can make money otherwise is not. See the Catechism of The Catholic Church. Professor John Noonan, a practical Catholic, and professor of Law explains the reason for the change in teaching as money’s use changed in time and investment opportunities grew.

Hermit keeps digging: “Taking interest that is fair when the money borrowed can make money otherwise is not.”

>> The above sentence is gibberish, but certainly its first clause is false:

““One cannot condone the sin of usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but rather moderate or small; ...... THEREFORE IF ONE RECEIVES INTEREST, he must make restitution according to the commutative bond of justice…. This law is to be observed in a holy manner. If not observed exactly, reparation must be made.” (emphasis added)
Pope Benedict XIV “Vix Pervenit” 1745

That is the fourth time you have explicitly rejected the plain teaching of a Pope here, Hermit, and the process is a fascinating insight into the habits of “thought” of elements of the modern Church.

H: “See the Catechism of The Catholic Church”.

>> Yes, let’s. Note first that you do not provide the citation. I will rectify this oversight for you. CCC #2269:

“Those whose usurious and avaricious dealings lead to the hunger and death of their brethren in the human family indirectly commit homicide, which is imputable to them.”

That is the only time the word usury appears in the Catechism.

Nothing about new meanings of money, nothing about acceptable rates of usury.

If only Fr. Noonan were the magisterium, Hermit, how happy you should be.

Since he is not, instead you are ten posts into a debacle.

But a useful debacle, all the same.

See the Catechism of The Catholic Church.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/matthew-archbold/is-pope-benedict-xvi-a-commie/#ixzz1WRr6DpAW

NOONAN is a lay professor, may be dead since I studied his material. The distinction between usury and regulated interest taking is accepted today in official Catholic teaching.

“Accepted”? Hermit. Now there’s a delicious insight. The magisterium is not constituted by Hermit’s blithe assertion that a given teaching is “accepted”.

The magisterium consists in its teachings, which, in the case of usury, you reject.

You are far from alone, Hermit.

You are also wrong.

@Maryanne: Interesting statement here; “...You can’t punish the rich, you can only inspire them to give. We need the rich because the rich help create jobs, which is good for the economy.”
  I know very well how to inspire TRAITORS, and that’s to use whatever means we have at our disposal, be they legal or persuasive through the media. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/25/60minutes/main20046867.shtml
  How many jobs are the big tax cheats creating by shifting their boodle to Switzerland and using sham tax havens like the Caymans and other favorite dumping grounds for the wealthy parasites sucking off the profits made off the sweating backs of the fewer and fewer workers we have left in our manufacturing sector.
  As Abraham Lincoln wisely noted, labor precedes capital. It is the workers, who have money in their pockets earned from working here in the US who go to stores here and buy things, which in turn provide sales tax receipts for the states, which in turn returns a portion back to cities in towns which are better able to prevent cutting services and/or raising property taxes, and we all know what that does to the public’s capacity to purchase items.
  Oh, but if we just trust what the Brothers Koch, the Americans for Prosperity, the Business Roundtable and that Benedict Arnold outfit called the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, everything will be alright and the money will somehow flow back and we’ll all be singing “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
  When parasitic GOP elephants fly ... that’s when you’ll see progress occur again if we follow Maryanne’s trusting logic.
  If these so-called “job creators” are so beneficiently interested in creating more jobs, these wonderful “human corporations,” as our “friend” Mitt Romney likes to put it, were as genuinely concerned about creating jobs instead of lining their own damn pockets, THEY WOULD’VE CREATED THE JOBS instead of playing along this scheme to wreck the economy solely for the purpose of driving Barack Obama out of office. As for somebody like Romney, what a job creator he was. When he was MA’s governor, the Commonwealth was 47th in job creation. Funny how his successor Deval Patrick’s administration has created new jobs, and the budget is in the black, even after raising taxes! Goes to show that pampering the already pampered doesn’t pay off. Does it?
  It’s time to have our money returned and put these TRAITORS who dare to package themselves as “job creators” in the jug.

Been A few days Mr Delano. I found the same paragraph in the Catechism as you did referring to “usuriousness” tied specifically to the harm it does to allowing people to die overseas by its use, the Government and Bank equivalent of “Loan sharking” on the streets. There is not a single paragraph in any contemporary papal encyclical OR in the Catechism CC to condemn the noraml practice of charging interest. “USURY” is excessive charge and BX1V in 1785 was writing about money as it was used and considered then.
You may be familiar with similar practices in the USA and with our overseas loans. Farmers there were pushed to borrow on land values that dropped very low decades later.  That caused chaos. Same when loans were made for example to Latin America. I am quite familiar with their situation. The Governments were forced to pay interest on the loans OR feed their people. The economy soured and the loan charges were exorbitant. The Jubilee 2000 project and other efforts got relief from a lot of the debt. We are more familiar with the Bank-Mortgage -Government oversight failure of 2008- crooks and gamblers who destroyed jobs and lives and foreclosed homes while they got away and now taxpapers are stuck with bills they cannot afford and States and Cities are bust. Greed versus common sense charges and moderate salaries not million-dollar bonusues for the crooks