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Pontifications

Is the pope’s new encyclical on economics and social justice the proverbial tree falling in the unpopulated forest? That’s the question I pose in my follow-up at PoliticsDaily on what, if any, impact Caritas Veritatis might have. An excerpt: This is the first papal encyclical in 18 years dedicated to the church’s social justice teachings,…

At Mirror of Justice, Rick Garnett has a good critique of my “Pope is a Liberal” piece: No doubt, the Pope’s views on many questions regarding the organization and regulation of the economy put him well to the “left” of the American political center.  But, the suggestion that the overall vision of society and the person presented…

That’s the question I pose, and try to answer, in this essay at PoliticsDaily: But what is clear, whether one reads every word or just excerpts, is that the pope is a liberal, at least in American political terms. He says this is not a document proposing “technical solutions,” and stresses the greed and sin…

The folks at CNS put together an awesome “word cloud” of Caritas in Veritate to get to the heart of the matter. Sometimes a graphic is worth a thousand words, or in the case of this encyclical, 30,000.

Here, in an easily searched version. Analysis and excerpts to come. ENCYCLICAL LETTERCARITAS IN VERITATEOF THE SUPREME PONTIFFBENEDICT XVITO THE BISHOPSPRIESTS AND DEACONSMEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUSTHE LAY FAITHFULAND ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILLON INTEGRAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENTIN CHARITY AND TRUTH  INTRODUCTION 1. Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and…

The Vatican City State reported a deficit of $22 million for 2008 as a consequence of the “global economic-financial crisis,” RNS reports. Maybe Obama can offer a stimulus package when he meets the Holy Father on Friday? Or will tomorrow’s encyclical address this problem? The Vatican’s annual profit and loss statements showed that the 108-acre…

Paul Baumann, editor of Commonweal and participant at last week’s Roosevelt (that’d be TR) Room confab with the current POTUS in the White House, weighs in with the real deal on what went down in his essay, “Yes, Mr. President”: It is necessary to report that although Obama is supposed to be 6’2?, he’s actually…

The editor of America, Drew Christiansen, SJ, has a knockdown post on last week’s meeting between Obama and select members of the Catholic press (and one WaPo religion writer). It’s a particular examen of the profession and the church rather than Obama. Father Christiansen is rightly (to my biased mind) laudatory of daily wordsmiths like Pat Zapor…

Speaking of priests-as-monks…Boston radio station WBUR has this grim news for the priests there: BOSTON — The Boston Archdiocese has admitted that, within two years, it won’t have the money to pay for the care and housing of its elderly and sick priests, unless major changes are made to those benefits. An outside study says…

Pope Benedict has to his credit always been brutally frank about his disgust over sexually abusive clergy, and in his talks for this year for the Priest he has made the personal holiness of clergy a touchstone. Remember his Way of the Cross meditations for Good Friday in March 2005, less than a month before his election? “How much filth…
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