Comments for Reading in the New Year at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 8 out of 8 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:44:09 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/reading-in-the-new-year.html#comment-15336 Randall, thank you for this. This is a great suggestion. - Louise Fri, 11 Jan 2013 22:02:16 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/reading-in-the-new-year.html#comment-15222 The fiscal problem the world faces is due to usury. Banks that lone money using fractional lending create inflated money and are guilty of usury. Not enough people know what money is to be able to make smart decisions. We have all been brain washed into accepting usury and now the banks own us. To make money understandable we must first remember that money is merely an exchange medium. Instead of using barter of animals, skins or metals etc. we use a common unit of exchange called the dollar in the USA. In simple terms money is the value of what you have to barter towards what you want to purchase. Many of us work for wages so our money is simply the value of our time. When banks practice usury they steal from the value of our time to profit themselves. What is the solution? One thing would be to make banks stop using fractional lending. That would end a potent inflationary practice and would return the stolen value of our time to us. If you want to help this great nation and the world the banking system must be changed. - William Tue, 08 Jan 2013 03:08:55 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/reading-in-the-new-year.html#comment-15212 Excuse me, Sue, but the boomers are not 'victims.' Basically, all of the fiscal problems the Western world faces boils down to one thing: The Pill. The millions, probably billions, of people who have been contracepted/aborted out of existence is what has led to the mess we're in now. The boomers are directly responsible for this bc of the 'choice' to plan their own families/lives/destiny etc. The Boomers Anthem, "It's all about me", is now bearing fruit of fruitless self-love. - gtb Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:25:33 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/reading-in-the-new-year.html#comment-15211 I do take umbrage at the comment that the Baby Boomer Generation has left the country in such bad shape! I am a baby boomer, and *I* had nothing to do with this mess: The people I voted for have continuously failed to do what they said they would do. What can I do to change that??? I started working in high school. I put MYSELF through college, and paid off my student loans in three years of hard work. When I could find nothing in my field, I put MYSELF through court reporting school, passed the State Boards, and worked for 32 years as a court reporter - including over 20 years as an independent contractor, where I paid FIFTEEN PERCENT of my income to Social Security (not the 7.5% one pays, where the employer pays the other 7.5%). NOW I am threatened with reduced benefits!!! HOW did *I* fail? I think not. Yet now you, and everyone else, want to blame ME and my hardworking generation. It is the LIBERALS and whack jobs, the "hippies," that did this to us. I sacrificed and sacrificed: I worked 60-80 hours a week and commuted 2-4 hours (a DAY), for over 32 years. Please, be careful whom you blame! There is an agenda going on here, and most people do not see the larger picture. This has been planned for generations and is part of the one-world order crowd's plans to decimate the middle class, destroy religion, and enrich themselves! - Laura Mon, 07 Jan 2013 11:33:45 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/reading-in-the-new-year.html#comment-15210 As I read it, the principles of The Our Father Prayer, The Gospel and the Beatitudes seems to be the Message from our Holy Father. "The struggle between good and evil will continue as long as time lasts. The kingdom of God, being "in" the world, without being "of" the world, throws a critical light on society, calling everyone, especially the laity, to infuse human reality with the spirit of the Gospel. (#25)" I appreciate the "world view" Catholics must take in light of our mission, knowing where all nations are truly headed (Daniel 2:44, Psalm 146:3, 1 John 5:19). How do Catholic's talk? We pray for God's Kingdom to come and point to the true lasting hope for not only the US (like we are all going to be Americans in heaven..) but the world... May our actions as well as our words stand in solidarity with the Church as we are "in" the World, but not "of" the world. - Hart Ponder Mon, 07 Jan 2013 09:47:36 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/reading-in-the-new-year.html#comment-15206 What the Church needs, before it can convert others, is to convert itself. Fifty years of bishops and clergy and religious promoting dissent has left its mark. Before there was Paul Ryan, there were the Kennedys, Ted Hesburgh, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Tom Harkin. Now the cardinal archbishop of New York hyucks it up with a politician who works to bring the Church to its knees. Reading encyclicals is always in order. Acting as if the Church matters is also in order. We need serious leadership, as in 'serious.' - Dennis Mon, 07 Jan 2013 03:24:42 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/reading-in-the-new-year.html#comment-15205 This is a superb suggestion to re-read "Centisimus Annus". I haven't read it through in many years, although I have referred to passages in it often. I thought your previous post ("what matters now") was good, but would have been much better if written before the Republican Primaries. It might've had a chance to impact which Republican ran in the general election. By coming after the election it had a nostalgic sense of woulda-shoulda-coulda that I'm sure seemed depressive to some readers. The one small quibble I had with it was that you presented the problems we face now as emerging solely from the pole of "hyper-individualism." I agree that many of our problems do stem from this source, but I think there is another pole at work as well: social pressures toward collectivism ("the spirit of the bee-hive" to steal Victor Erice's title). Perhaps you see these as related in some paradoxical way, but it was not clear from your post if you even countenance this second pole. - Ib Sun, 06 Jan 2013 20:50:14 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/reading-in-the-new-year.html#comment-15204 Excuse me but the WWII generation left us with FDR social (in)security and big government, and the post WWII generation left us with 60s era entitlement programs including Medicare. These are the addicting obligations which are ballooning our debt. The boomers also were shipped off to more ambiguous wars to fight. Please inform your students that the boomers were victims of earlier generations, as well as problems in their own right. On prudence: Paul Ryan imprudently hitched his wagon to an Obama lookalike and compromised his Catholic principles to implicitly support rape-incest abortions. Thus normalizing rape-incest abortions in the minds of the many Catholics who felt forced to vote for Romney. His credibility is shot. - Sue Sun, 06 Jan 2013 19:51:48 +0100