PopeWatch has long been a fan of unintentional irony and he does appreciate this section of a report on a two day conference by the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace on the economic ideas of Pope Francis:
Go here to read the rest. PopeWatch suspects that if the economic ideas of Pope Francis were ever implemented the results would be every bit as open and inclusive as this closed door conference, alas. Economies that require supervision by the State, and PopeWatch does not see how the economic ideas of the Pope could be implemented without mammoth state intervention and control, tend not to be noted for transparency, inclusion or openness.
It always ends the same way: the do-gooder, who knows far better than you, how to be “charitable” with your money, with a rifle to the back of your head, near a ditch.
Mike: Absolutely correct.
“Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own. The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional do-gooders, who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means.” From The Mainspring of Human Progress by Henry Grady Weaver.
And,
David P. Goldman at Spengler: “If you corner a (CST) liberal and point to a disaster that followed upon his policy, at very most he will say–-with a tear in the eye and a quivering upper lip–-’We did the right thing.’ It’s all about having done the right thing according to the dogma of the ersatz liberal religion. (CST) liberalism has nothing whatsoever to do with policy and its real-world consequences. Instead of finding salvation on the path of tradition, (CST) liberals look for salvation in a set of right opinions–-on income distribution, or whatever.”
I would never listen to anyone from Argentina about how to fix the world’s economy. Never.
T Shaw
Ah! The politics of Virtue.
What guarantee does the man of virtue, the republican citizen, have that he is really acting for the public good. What are the guarantees against self-delusion and hypocrisy?
The only standard that the man of virtue can provide of his own moral goodness turned out ultimately to be his own self-certainty or sincerity. Sincerity thus became the essence of virtue. But herein lies the difficulty. For if sincerity is the only criterion of moral worth, then citizens must be judged not according to the outcome of their deeds but by their subjective convictions alone or the “law of the heart.”
No one was more wedded to this concept than the Jacobins; hence, their ruthless determination to tear the mask from those hypocrites who pursued their own private ends under the guise of public spiritedness – “all men who are vicious, all those who in their hearts plan to despoil the people, and all those who have despoiled them and want impunity, and those who reject liberty as a personal calamity, and those who have embraced the revolution as a livelihood and the Republic as if it were an object of prey.” (Robespierre)
While the silliness of this meeting and the Lavender Mafia goes on, the Muslims have eradicated Christianity from Mosul.
Rorate reported that the Syriac Catholic Archeparchy seat has been burned down.
Meanwhile, “Cardinal Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, made public his June 24 Message for the End of Ramadan” (copied from Rorate Coeli).
Thank you for speaking up about this, Pope Francis. The Chaldeans and Syriacs thank you, too.