Catholic and Enjoying It!
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure * for the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. (James 5:1-5)
The standard ways of ignoring James are as follows:
1. That link is to a ritually impure source, so we needn’t bother with the fact that the data it relates is accurate.
2. Who even knows *what* James means by this anyway? “Rich” is such a *vague* word.
3. Something something agrarian economy of James’ day vs. super-complicated handwaving about modern economics today. Voila. Nobody got cheated out of their wages.
4. Something something development of doctrine (and ignore that simpleton Francis because the real Magisterial teaching comes from my favorite libertarian theorist).
5. Abortion and homosexuality! So shut up!
6. Any criticism of even the grossest economic equality is Nazism and no I am *not* a self-absorbed creep cocooned from all reality by my obscene wealth. Perhaps it’s time we revisited Luther’s proposal to take James out of the Bible. I think I’ll contact one of my publishing assets and see about that.
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