Wall Street protests gain Vatican support

[Matilda]

A SENIOR Vatican official has said the Occupy Wall Street protests are justified, as the Holy See has called for overhauling global financial rules and establishing an international market regulator.

''Do people at a certain time have a right to say: 'Do business differently, look at the way you are doing business because this is not leading to our welfare, to our good?' '' Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson asked.

''Can people demand this of the people of Wall Street? I think people can and should be able to.''

http://www.smh.com.au/world/wall-street-protests-gain-vatican-support-20111025-1mi3a.html


As so often happens, the Vatican is right when it speaks against injustice. But it does remind me that we never did have a full investigation into the running of the Vatican Bank all those years ago, when John Paul I died in mysterious circumstances.

[hedgehog]

1. It's always fun to watch Conservatives who back the Vatican

on every other issue explain why the Vatican is wrong n economics!

[CBHagman]

2. Friars Respond to Occupy Movement

I was going to do this as a separate thread, but what the heck. Here come the Franciscans.

http://www.americancatholic.org/news/report.aspx?id=3693

In reality, Occupy Wall Street is a mix of idealistic youth, veterans, the homeless and middle-class victims of down-sizing. In two months this grass-roots movement has caught fire and blown westward from New York City, the place where it began as a campaign against greed. On Tuesday, under orders from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, riot police dismantled the original tent city at Zuccotti Park and arrested 100 protesters. That night in Cincinnati, the Rev. Jesse Jackson stoked a defiant Occupy Cincinnati crowd gathered in Piatt Park, where they had recently been evicted. Fueled by a well-organized social media campaign, the movement has made its way around the world. And in cities where the Occupy message is loudest, Franciscan friars are listening.

“These people are doing something worthwhile, quietly and faithfully,” David Moczulski says of the youthful residents of Occupy Pittsburgh, a camp of about 100 tents at Mellon Green, a park owned by the financial firm BNY Mellon. “They’re very respectful and non-violent, walking around with signs, chanting, trying to engage people in conversation” about the growing gap between rich and poor. “It’s basically the big bank bailout. Nobody’s been held accountable for the misdeeds of the last few years.” In a statement on its website, Occupy Pittsburgh spells it out: “We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know we are your allies.”

Describing himself as “an aging hippie,” David says, “It’s a great thing for me to see young people involved in this. I’ve thought about participating” in the Pittsburgh camp, made up primarily of underemployed college graduates and veterans. “It would be good if we did that as a Church.” So far the closest thing to that is a document on global finance issued Oct. 24 by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. “Catholic social teaching and the Occupy Wall Street movement agree that the economy should be at the service of the human person and that strong action must be taken to reduce the growing gap between rich and poor,” Vatican officials told the National Catholic Reporter.

[Kingofalldems]

3. Excellent!

[Matilda]

4. Excellent article from NCR.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/where-i-stand/vision-and-wisdom-meet-occupy-support-group


I feel for the difficulties of the protesters in America, who have to contend with winter as well as the police, but I don't think they're going away. The MSM needs to start paying real attention.

[CBHagman]

5. The flip side of that is wearing out your welcome.

I'll get flamed for this elsewhere on DU, but there is the business of inflaming the situation. I work literally within steps of one of the Occupy DC encampments, and can report that for two months, for the most part, ODC kept a peaceful presence in the city and a surprisingly cooperative, live-and-let-live coexistence with the Park Police and others within the city. There were a couple of incidents, at least one of which was apparently a stunt by an RW infiltrator.

But in the past week some elements are moving to a more combative relationship with the police and with people who work in the neighborhood or commute through it. Let me emphasize that it's not an across-the-board thing, that some participants and supporters don't agree with the tack some ODC people have taken.

What really troubles me is that people are mistaking the how of the protest (i.e., inconveniencing people so they'll think about the larger issues, cursing at police because, after all they've cracked down on people in other cities, right?). I wouldn't expect the Park Police to let friendly European students camp for even a night during the summer on DC park lands, so the long-term protests represent quite a bit of leniency, and at taxpayers' expense (McPherson Square, where my local demonstrators camp, had just undergone quite extensive work and will now need quite a bit more).

It's the old complaint I have against Ralph Nader: Why say you stand for something when you pursue a strategy that will prevent you from getting it? Someone stuck in traffic because of deliberate blocking by demonstrators isn't going to think, "Wow, economic injustice really is an important issue!" He's going to think, "I'm due in a meeting/the radiologist's office/my kid's school in X minutes, and there's some jerk shutting down the street. Great." If you don't win popular opinion, you lose the war.