Prayer needed. I would appreciate your prayers today up to 4.30pm, or so when I have the operation to help my back problem. I am in considerable pain from this and can only walk short distances as things stand. I will let you know as soon as I am back possibly tomorrow.
Fat Catholic Cats dinner. The Torygraph reported a huge dinner hosted by the Cardinal to Catholic wealthy individuals like Rocco Forte in connection with the Cardinals appeal for £ 8 million to fund extensions to the work of the "commissisons of the Bishop Conference" In connection with the dinner he made the extraordinary statement that Capitalism is now dead. But he was talking to the very top capitalists themselves ! Perhaps they will now think again about contributing to a scheme so utterly useless in my opinion. Anyway if capitalism is dead, what replaces it ? Communism, nationalise everything ????
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
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I don’t know if capitalism as such has ‘collapsed’, as the Cardinal claimed, but it has certainly taken a beating - given the events of recent months. Confidence has been shaken, trust has been betrayed, greedy and unscrupulous people have been exposed in formerly ‘sacred’ enclaves. In America, we have historically fought off the intrusiveness of government in our lives – as George III discovered to his cost.
But the recent cries of ‘Government, save us!’ - from all quarters - show that we are not immune to socialistic tendencies when the chips are down and our comfortable lives are threatened. It is not, however, the socialism of “a chicken in every pot” – rather it is the selfishness of “help me keep what’s mine”.
I suspect it is a passing thing and, when the dust finally settles (which may take some years…), we’ll find that we haven’t changed all that much. I have been an ardent reader of the works of Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts for many years. The first work of theirs I read was “The Day The Bubble Burst” on the Crash of 1929. It describes the events leading up to the Crash and gives a good sense of the atmosphere of the time and the lives of the people – from the very rich to the poorest.
There are many similarities to the world of today and recent events – unbridled optimism, greed, unscrupulous operators, vast wealth and abject poverty, euphoria and depression – but also incidents of generosity and unselfishness. Since that time we have gone through the Great Depression, numerous wars, national and international disasters, times of prosperity and want.
So, what have we learned? If we are people of faith we should recall, as the Holy Father has pointed out, that we are not to put our trust in this world or in material things, that we have no lasting home here and that all this will pass.
Our future lies in Heaven, not Earth.
My prayers are with you today, and other days, dear Father Mildew.
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