The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called “the dung of the devil”. An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home.1
In Washington, money flows like a river. It rushes everywhere, sweeping along as much as it can and threatening to drown anything – or anyone – that gets in its way.
Money for campaigns and PACs. Money to hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers. Money for PR firms and trade associations. Money for think tanks to give the cover of respectability for genuinely ugly ideas.
And there’s another pot of money – the money that keeps the revolving door spinning. It’s about big bonuses that Wall Street banks pay their executives to spend a little time running our government and about the big payoffs that these banks offer when people leave government and head to Wall Street.2
I’d hate to be an American Catholic working for any lobbying firm in Washington. Or a Catholic member of the government. Or a Catholic wannabe candidate for anything in D.C.
Just sayin’.
Oh, OK. Even us non-Catholics should read his words and wonder.
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