Quote of the Day
This quote comes from a sobering and thoughtful blog post written by Cranmer, which is well worth a read in its entirety.
Pope Benedict XVI observed a few years ago that the global financial crisis ‘shows the futility of money and ambition’. He said: ‘He who builds only on visible and tangible things like success, career and money builds the house of his life on sand. We are now seeing, in the collapse of major banks, that money vanishes, it is nothing.’ And he added: ‘The only solid reality is the Word of God’.
Amen to that.
Tags: Law Moral Ethical, Politics, Theology Doctrine Philosophy
November 10th, 2011 at 9:27 am
Amen. But I’m also guilty of it, too. :/
November 10th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Interesting tho’ how it is the Catholic/Non-Protestant countries that have been hit the hardest in the Eurozone. Partly because they were economical with the truth about their own finances when they joined the Euro and were also places of gross financial mismanagement – in addition to becoming places of considerable materialistic greed (as a comparison between Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy etc. circa 1991 and Ireland circa 2007 would demonstrates). All the countries that have had problems – with the exception of Greece – have been overtly Catholic. Each typifying that well known religious habit of being able to say one thing and do another. Which is probably why Benedict is eager to shift the attention elsewhere.
No comment on Ealing Abbey today – I only dropped by to see if there was a comment on that here…
November 10th, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Sorry christian, not sure what you’re referring to with your ‘Ealing Abbey’ comment. Have a missed something; I was on mandatory elf n safety training today….
November 10th, 2011 at 6:05 pm
There is a Protestant work ethic. But there is at least as much a Catholic one, forming and defining half of the Germans, more than half of the West Germans during their post-War economic miracle, half of the Swiss, half of the Dutch, and great tracts of the working classes of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand during those countries’ industrial heydays.
The richest German Land is profoundly Catholic Bavaria, the seat of the Jacobite claimants to the Thrones of the Three Kingdoms, and the homeland both of the present Pope and of BMW, Siemens, Audi, Allianz, Puma and Adidas, to name but a few. Germany is proportionately the second most Catholic Land, beaten only by Saarland with its coal mines, steel works, car plants and ceramics factories.
To cite only Britain among many possible examples, who do people think did actually did much of the work in the West of Scotland, the North of England, the Midlands or (if, perhaps, less so) South Wales? And what do they think that the inhabitants of Northern Italy are? Protestants?
November 10th, 2011 at 8:14 pm
Interesting then that the Vatican has invested heavily in banking and other financial institutions.
November 14th, 2011 at 7:27 pm
My partner is concerned that the financial crisis is the beginning of the end of the world, i dont know what to say to that, but a slightly different question – do you think money is the route of all evil? Do you think this could be a battle of good against evil?
i dont expect you to comment as this is rather a deep and complicated issue, and you may think we are clearly mad, what if we’re not though?
Thanks,
sara
November 14th, 2011 at 7:34 pm
Sara, it always feels like the end times! That’s probably why it isn’t.
November 14th, 2011 at 7:46 pm
Sara, from a Biblical perspective it is not money itself that is evil per se; it is the love of money that is evil.
November 15th, 2011 at 12:38 am
Sara,
Please tell your partner not to worry. One has only to think of Germany in the early 1930′s to see a far greater financial crisis and far worse consequences.
I’m sure you’re not mad, and I’m equally sure this is not a battle between good and evil heralding the end of the World.