Links for 03/06/15 | National Catholic Reporter

Links for 03/06/15 | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: Pewsitter and Rorate Caeli  both simply use Bishop McElroy's positions against him as if that were all there is to say.  Its not.  What they really don't like is that he is in the other "party" which has to make him wrong.  The reality is, it is what makes him right, which tells you all you need to know about these commentators.



The Crisis article is interesting, although they make the same error that most conservatives make - that of error in the doctrine of God v. error in the doctine on man.  Reason can be used on the doctrine on Man - and the Pope is right to use it, as is anyone.  Whatever argument is true wins the day - absent a commitment to bring force to that argument.  Arguments about God are different.  Since there is no evidence, they depend on agreement.  Being out of agreement (and we have had Aryan pontiffs) is not so much a sin as a betrayal if you see it right.  Of course, some disagreements are reduced to novelty, like the Filioque.  Indeed, disagreement is often deliberately made to make a point of separatism (like the Protestant view of Communion as symbol rather than reality - which I pity them for).



I love the Pope's position on cooperatives and wonder what my great-grandfather, Silas Allen, who helped set out the first modern cooperaties, would think of it (I would not call him a Papist, although as a Disciple of Christ, I would not call him an anti-papist either).  As for this matter of cooperativism and libertarianism being askew - no they are not.  Indeed, cooperativism are an escape from not only outside financial markets and an attempt at having more market power, but they are potentially a way to disregard government if they can pull off an arrangement to provide servies in lieu of paying for and getting them from the goverment.  It happens more often than yoo think and will happen more and more as banking, government and industry continue to collude without providing anything more than Walmart and movies to the working class.