[what's up]

The Prophets of Israel, the Gospels, and the Fathers of the Church all condemn luxury

No,they did not condemn luxury in toto.

They only condemned luxury enjoyed at the expense of the poor. There are times in the Bible when God himself blesses beyond the essentials (condemned in the statement by Day).

Of course the Scripture assumes wages. To labor for a wage is moral. Eradication of a wage system is not Christ-centered but Marxist. To advocate a system where there would be no wage for labor is to advocate injustice which God abhors. And, no, Day doesn't says this would be voluntary. And only in utopian thinking (the thinking of anarchists) would one consider that it ever could be.

[Mrs. Don-o]

They certainly did condemn luxuy, e.g. the rich man who ---unlike Lazarus who reposes with blessed Abraham --- is sent to hell: there's not a hint that he stole the money or acquired it by fraud, or even that he spent it for vices like drugs and whores. It's that he was not compassionate to Lazarus.

And what Jesus said about camels going through the eye of the needle: even if that meant going through a small gate into the city, they'd have to be divesed of all their cargoes before they got through. It was a warning: wach out! Don't make your salvation difficult!

A valuable warning against the acquisition of riches.

And don't get me started on usury!

[Mrs. Don-o]

1) She certainly was a voluntarist. In fact, most criticism of her is that she was too darned much so, i.e. she did not coerce even those close to her, let alone those who ran far-flung CW houses as they saw fit. She was the diametrical polar opposite of a dictator. She forced austerities on nobody except herself.

2) Her authority, which she had by example only, rested in this: that there was not an ace of difference between what she believed, what she wrote or spoke, and the way she lived her life. It was nothing but the gentle personalism of traditional Catholicism: personal obligation of looking after the needs of our brother, daily practice of the Works of Mercy.

And no skin off of your nose or anybody else's.

Exceptionally good journalist (or I could say "diarist") as well. ANybody would be enriched by reading her for twenty minutes a day. She is as good as bread.