Replies

I see Oliver's Army is up and around today. The Pope's message is a plea for capitalism with a human face, nothing more -- and I agree with him. Any "progress" that considers people to be "human resources" instead of human beings isn't progress at all. The free market produces more wealth for more people than any other economic system every conceived, but to say that there should be no restrictions on economic activity is to deny the existence of the common good -- a very unchristian (and inhuman) idea.

Just ignore the Jack Chick fans. Chick is a marketing genius and a powerful propagandist, but a theologian he ain't, and neither are his disciples. Don't worry -- the Church survived Arianism, Dontasim, Caesaropapism. Monophytism, Iconoclasm, Waldensianism, Catharism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, Jansenism, Darwinism, Socialism, Fascism and Modernism -- it'll survive Protestantism, too. Five hundred years from now, when there are 200,000 Protestant "denominations" out there, each with its own version of the Gospel -- the good old Catholic Church will still be there, going to bat for the sanctity and dignity of human life and swinging for the bleachers.

The Pope's message is a plea for capitalism with a human face,

No, the Pope's message is a convoluted mess of jibberish and buzzwords involving some vague notion called "globalization". You may have interpreted all that to mean "capitalism with a human face", and I congratulate you on that skillful reading, but it's not clear how your interpretation relates to the original text, which again is about "globalization".

Whatever the heck that is.

The free market produces more wealth for more people than any other economic system every conceived, but to say that there should be no restrictions on economic activity is..

Who's saying that? Is that what you think "globalization" is - no restrictions on economic activity? Is that what you think the Pope thinks "globalization" is? Are you sure?