After Sr. Simone Campbell degrading appearance with the anti-Catholic Jon Stewart show – such gravitas! – she has gone on with Bill O’Reilly of FNC.
He doesn’t let her get away with everything.
I believe Campbell wants to help the poor, but she is wrong about how to help them. Also, when I hear her speak, I never come away with the sense of charity which Benedict XVI described in Deus caritas est.
A good refutation of her washed up notions about the economy on O’Reilly would be Fr. Robert Sirico’s recent book. My review HERE.
Fr. Robert Sirico of Acton Institute has produced a new book entitled Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy.
Hardback HERE, Kindle HERE. (UK HERE). And if you don’t have a Kindle yet, consider getting one. I love mine.
One of Fr. Sirico’s great strengths is his ability to write with clarity and concision which enables me, decidedly not an economist, to follow easily what he is talking about.
Speaking of the free market, refresh your coffee supply now with Mystic Monk Coffee!
I’m pretty sure this link will give one the video clip.
Just amazing stuff.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/index.html#/v/1783876538001/nuns-call-on-romney-to-spend-a-day-with-the-poor/?playlist_id=86923
Sr. Simone is an attorney and the executive director of ‘Network’, an organization of like-
minded sisters that lobbies the government in support of their vision of social justice.
‘Network’s laundry list of social justice concerns includes immigration reform, food security,
wage equity, fair trade, economic development in Iraq, etc.
Conspicuous in its absence from the laundry list is any mention of abortion. While I’m sure
the sisters at ‘Network’ have their hands full endorsing Obamacare, it does seem to be a
peculiar omission that in 40 years they haven’t gotten around to lobbying for pro-life causes.
I’ve also got to admit I’m curious about Sr. Simone’s own busy day. She is an attorney, a poet,
and the Executive Director of ‘Network’ and spends quite a bit of time both in front of cameras
and in DC, lobbying. She found the time to take a ride on that bus– but when was the last time
she took a day to spend with the poor?
Interestingly, I saw Sister Simone last week on C-SPAN testifying before the Democratic Party Platform committee. They wanted her input on how their party should address social problems.
I got nauseous.
At this point Cardinal Timothy Dolan might as well invite the sisters to the Al Smith Dinner too and let them speak about their common social causes. He can seat them right next to Obama, that way they’ll feel more honored than Obama will by this Catholic invitation by being right next to the Prince of Peace’s infectious presence. After all, it’s just a night off to have fun and put our Catholicism off to the side in some dusty corner Sacristy beside the Holy Presence while we all congregate in the foyer. Certainly nothing wrong with that!
Yes, yes, yes GET THAT BOOK! Father Sirico’s book is excellent. I was a theatre major not an econ major nor on an MBA track but I found the book spoke to me in language I could understand, have me info I can use as an American citizen/voter, and kept my interest throughout. DEFENDING FREE MARKETS is highly readable just as Thomas Sowell’s books are and, since I believe Thomas Sowell is a national treasure, that is the highest praise I can give Father Sirico’s book.
http://www.sacredheartmercy.org
Religious Sisters of Mercy Physicians’ Statement Concerning Appropriate
Response to Magisterial Church and A Vision of the Religious Women in Medicine
I will certainly get Fr. Sirico’s book and thanks indeed for the Kindle link, Fr. Z. Just what one needs over here, in face of the tentacles of EU statism and its bureaucratised softy-lefty scleroticism. The vastly overblown European Commission, which presides over the mess, has produced a class of “super-administrator” comparable to the palace eunuchs at the Ottoman court in its rotting-from-the-head-down days. They haven’t even been able to pass an audit of the (immense) budget for years, yet they strangle free initiative, which they despise with the hauteur of an ancien regime aristocrat.
So to have a defence of the free market written by an erudite priest will be a genuine pleasure (not to mention an education).
I am sick and tired of hearing the secular phrase “social justice” from Catholic circles. How about the corporal and spiritual works of mercy?
“If it [LCWR] can’t be reformed, then it doesn’t have a right to continue,” — Cardinal Raymond Burke