Written by Arthur Brooks, quoted in the article.

And Langone has an estimated net worth of $2.1 billion according to Forbes.

The Pope's words should make these two book a week-long Confession.

To hell with them. When we disagreed with John Paul II or Benedict we were told to shut up or leave the church, oftentimes these same rich people were the ones saying that. So I think they should go off and pound sand if the Pope's words offend them.

He's not one to be easily dismissed or manipulated.

Last edited Fri Jan 3, 2014, 10:03 PM - Edit history (1)

Christ was a logician. As Christ logically taught we have only one master: it is God or Mammon. This principle is even taught in some business schools, in that, they acknowledge one can not concentrate on two demands at once. One will be primary.

No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. -- Matthew vi. 23.

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This is not the first time we have encountered the threat of not funding work on New York's cathedral. These Catholic churches in this country of the pre-WWII eras were built by the pennies of the poor, and by the labor of the poor themselves. This threat of the rich not to ante up, in one respect, acknowledges the only worth they have to the rest of the community is their wealth. In another, it is a form of extortion, do the things and say the things we want you to do, or we keep the gold.

When people of a modest means complain to a bishop about how they are treated by the church, the bishop doesn't usually kiss their boo-boos. Here in Cleveland, we have an obnoxious, mean-spirited tyrant. Many of us are not surprised by the mistreatment of us by the world, but we expect better from Mother Church. We damn well are not keen on the idea of the church for the rich, and another for the poor.

I remember an old joke: a miserable miser dies and meets St. Peter outside the gate, and Peter as porter of heaven, is also bookkeeper. Peter looks at the account ledger, and says, "it does not look like you did much good for your fellow man while on earth". The miserable miser says, "I gave a bum two dollars once". Peter reaches in his pocket for a $2 bill, and says, "Here is your two bucks. Go to Hell".

The rich tend to say things like this (from the CNBC story)

Brooks, also a practicing Catholic who has read the pope's exhortation in its original Spanish, said that "taken as a whole, the exhortation is good and right and beautiful. But it's limited in its understanding of economics from the American context." He noted that Francis "is not an economist and not an American."

In other words, he's not talking about me and my worship of money. Well, Mr. Brooks, he IS talking to you. It's like the old story about the country church somewhere in the South. The pastor is preaching in the great hellfire and brimstone tradition and he's condemning all sorts of behavior as sinful. "Men, if you want to be right with God, you are going to have to quit smoking cigars." A little old lady in the congregation yells "Amen!" "You are going to have to stop smoking cigarettes." Again, she shouts "Amen!" "You are going to have stop running around with women." "Amen!" "You are going to have give up that demon whiskey." "Amen!" Then he says, "And you are going to have to give up dipping snuff." The little old lady says, "Well, Preacher, now you've done it. You've stopped preaching and started meddling."

Langone's behavior would seem to put the lie to that claim, IMHO.