Sometimes the Church gets it exactly right ...

[Richardo]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/rita/3416103

Bishops warn not to rebuild Gulf Coast on backs of poor

Letter from Catholics implores Congress not to cut essential services to pay for recovery
By TARA DOOLEY
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Calling the task of recovering after hurricanes Katrina and Rita "an important sign of what kind of nation we are and wish to be," American Roman Catholic leaders have called on Congress to make principled, compassionate and bipartisan decisions as they rebuild the Gulf Coast.

In a letter co-signed by Galveston-Houston Archbishop Joseph A. Fiorenza, a task force of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops urged lawmakers not to divert money from the poor as they seek to fund programs for hurricane recovery.

"It would be wrong to cut essential food, housing and health care for the poor while the rest of us make no real sacrifice and, in fact, benefit from recent tax cuts," the letter states.

<snip>

The letter, dated Oct. 19, was sent to all U.S. senators and members of the House of Representatives.

:)

[Joe Chi Minh]

1. I was only reflecting today, what an extraordinary repository of

wisdom the Church has built up over the centuries.

Unfortunately, I've almost always tended to ignore the advice of older people with more experience of life than myself, whose sole motivation was to spare me the kind of difficulties and/or suffering they, themsleves, had experienced through the kind of youthful ignorance I was displaying. In fact, the same has applied to some extent to the Faith, also; I wanted to test things myself, to find out if they were indeed as wrong and/or foolish, as they were said to be - like a child pushing to discover the limits of its allowed behaviour, what it could get away with.

Perhaps my own faith is stronger, from my having found out the truth of their precepts the hard way, but in both cases, my advisors and teachers were fully vindicated. I'm firmly convinced that faith and knowledge form a continuum, a confusion of concepts. Much of the testing of the convinced Christian's faith is more a matter of what he is prepared to suffer, rather than of his belief or credence; and as such, a gauge of their generosity of spirit - surely the wedding garment, the one defining characteristic of those of us who make it to Heaven.

However, as I was saying at the beginning, I've been reflecting on what an absolutely fascinating compendium of insights of the Church Fathers and great spiritual leaders is constituted by the selection of second readings in the Office of Readings of the Prayer of the Church. Some of my favourites are from the Second Vatican Council, which speak so aptly to the condition of the modern world, with such beautiful clarity and simplicity.

Such an extraordinary depth of wisdom and so many wise teachers - and this, despite the horrendous imbalances and distortions that have been a striking and scandalous feature of the institutional Church's history. It has to be divine! I think it was the point made by Hilaire Belloc, i.e. precisely because the Church, as represented by such extraordinary wisdom had endured, in spite of the latter. The older I get, the more I realise how lucky we are.