However, regarding “poverty,” McElroy writes in his current piece:
Choices by citizens or public officials that systematically, and therefore unjustly, decrease governmental financial support for the poor clearly reject core Catholic teachings on poverty and economic justice. Policy decisions that reduce development assistance to the poorest countries reject core Catholic teachings. Tax policies that increase rather than decrease inequalities reject core Catholic teachings.
McElroy firmly concludes that “the categorical nature of Catholic teaching on economic justice is clear and binding.”
Foolish because he makes a certain tax policy as violation of “core Catholic teachings.
Foolish also because he does an apple-and-oranges equating of abortion and poverty, seeking to establish “poverty alongside abortion as the pre-eminent moral issues the Catholic community pursues at this moment in our nation’s history.”
Why? Because abortion is the direct killing of innocent people and poverty is an economic condition admitting of a variety of economic solutions.
Do bishops get economics courses in their continuing education program?
My friend Jake (not his real name) scoffs: “Continuing ed for bishops? What, you think they are professional men with standards to uphold?” (Shut up, Jake. It’s my blog, not yours.)
Blithe Spirit 
Reblogged this on Not for Attribution.
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Economic courses, not Keynesian PLEASE, are a must for anyone living in a market economy. The new Pope and fellow bishops are naive in thinking that all poverty is due to oppression. In many countries, it definitely is. In the United States and most of the West, for the able-bodied it is either temporary or a way of life due to the high level of social benefits. The first we should be able to help without bankrupting the country, the latter need to get a job or make themselves available for jobs such as lawn maintenance. As a friend said, “The grass was growing before the Mexicans came.”
I just finished “On Heaven and Earth” the dialogue between Rabbi Skorka and Card. Borgolio. I hate to say it, but in the interests of being open-hearted to his friend, the new Pope “shaved” the truths of the Faith in terms of denying Christ’s admonition to spread the Gospel because he said that the Church no longer prosetylizes. He was silent when the Rabbi said the Jews did not kill Jesus, blaming the Romans. Who demanded to have him crucified? The Jewish leaders who stirred up the people. I do not want present day Jews persecuted for Christ’s death any more than I want to be blamed for slavery, but historical truth cannot be denied.
Both men sympathyized with the Disappeared in Argentina during military rule. They want religion separate from politics, but their discussions tended to be blind to the anarchy and communist actions of the Left that led to a military takeover. They have the naive idea that if we really listen to those who oppose us that we can avoid war and violence. That assumes that the other side is of good will which is not often the case in world affairs.
They are good-hearted, high-minded men who think that everyone is like them. This is a dangerous notion in leaders. The perfidy of the Palestinian leaders, Iran announcing its intention of destroying Isreal and the United States, the Islamic Jihadists doing violence all over the world should be obvious to them; Putin murdering or jailing his opposition and the outright lies of Leftists around the world are both flagrant and dangerous to human life and freedom. Will no one in authority stand up and shout the truth? Jesus loved us, but He certainly denounced hypocrisy and wrong-doing.
Thanks for letting me rant.
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