“That is why I don’t see the change in the law as the whole issue.”
Straw man. Read what I actually wrote:
“Law and culture shape each other.”
It goes in both directions.
“We went from a religion that valued life, to one that values money.”
Although the culture may value money above most else, my religion does not. Not that there aren't plenty of Catholics who don't value money most, but it can hardly be said that that is an authentic expression of Catholic faith. Rather, it is a defect in the practice of their faith, to the degree that they practice it at all.
As well, although lay Catholics have many flaws (when my sons are here, we spend much time together lamenting the problems of both our hierarchy and our laity), but among the devout Catholics that I've personally met and known (and I am a cradle Catholic who has never not been involved with my church), overvaluing money has not been a common problem that I've encountered. In fact, the opposite has often been the case, in that many Catholics have really messed up economic ideas based on how little they appreciate money and how difficult it is to earn it, especially in great gobs.
As to what changed in the culture generally, it was in some ways a good thing that changed. As issues of class status, of station, of nobility and aristocracy, of position, of all the ways by which people are snobby toward each other, as all these ways receded in importance, one of the last surviving ways to distinguish oneself from the others, one of the last bastions of ego, has been money.
You can trace this desire to be better than the next guy to something we call Original Sin.
sitetest
But that still begs the question.
We in the Church seem to be very focused on the law of the State. Be it in “social Justice”, abortion, marriage, etc.
How did the early church, which had no recourse to the law, swim against the culture? How did they win in the events leading up to Constantine?
If the argument is that the only reason the Church succeeded is that after Constantine it became advantageous to be Christian, than the Church has a larger issue.