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Although the Catholics invented the practice of excommunication to deal with severe sins, other religious groups have also adopted it for their own purposes.
John Cogley was once called “the most prominent American Roman Catholic journalist of his generation.” The onetime executive editor of Commonweal also played a key role in the election of J.F.K.
Catholic life in the United States is deeply rooted in the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. But that might not mean what you think it means.
Many professionals who care for strangers are not religious workers, but they play a pivotal role in reinforcing the imago Dei, the notion that all people are made in the image of God.
Democratic capitalism is an experiment that has resulted in the greatest wealth for the greatest number. Railing against Wall St or other big entities in the economy is to beg for poverty back. Remember poverty? Outhouses, but no refrigerators?
It might help if our citizens, including churchmen, learned about democratic capitalism and how it works, do you think? How many of our ‘educated’ fellow citizens don’t know who Adam Smith is, don’t know a stock from a bond or how to value either, and have no savings. When the huckster cons the rube, whose fault is it?
The name you need to remember in the current malaise is Barney Frank. Barney and his friends, with the help of their liberal fellow-travelers, put a shotgun to the face of the mortgage industry and forced it to make unsound loans at the very heart of the system—the secured home loan. Then Barney offered to buy the loans with your money. You see, Barney knows how to help. He’s smart.
Government has a role to play by enforcing the rules. But when it enters the arena and becomes a player, we no longer have democratic capitalism. Call it socialism. Call it central planning. Call it anything. But it’s not democratic capitalism any more and it won’t work.