"Why Is Pope Francis Promoting Sin?"

There's a click-bait headline that seduced me. It's an op-ed at Bloomberg.com.

By dwelling on inequality, the pope is promoting envy. The Catholic Church, I had always understood, disapproves of envy, deeming it one of the seven deadly sins. I would have expected Francis to urge people to think of themselves in relation to God and to their own fullest potential. Encouraging people to measure themselves against others only leads to grief. Resenting the success of others is a sin in itself.

Obviously, one can say the Pope is promoting virtue, notably charity. But the pitch comes from a Harvard professor, Lant Pritchett, whose expertise is in alleviating poverty, but hear him out. This next part may win over even the Pope fans:

While Jesus repeatedly preached against the love of riches, he was urging people to respond to a call to God and to become “rich to God.” It was not an appeal for people to resent the riches of others and obsess about material inequality. Jesus, when asked to remedy inequality, turned the focus back on envy and greed.

“Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.’ He replied to him, ‘Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?’ Then he said to the crowd, ‘Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.’” (Luke 12:13-15)

I am all for reducing poverty... What I’m against is talking about “inequality” as if that term denoted any of those concerns. Poverty matters; injustice matters. Mere inequality is beside the point.

Mere inequality is beside the point.

"Jack went out of his way to look poor, partly because he didn't want to be badgered by people who wanted money."

Jack McDonald, who died at the age of 98, left $198 million to 3 institutions — Seattle Children's Research Institution, the Salvation Army, and — because law, too, is good — the University of Washington School of Law.

"Did you bristle at the journalism at all, like why do we need the New York Post if the Times is gonna publish a headline saying you were a leftist?"

WNYC’s Brain Lehrer asked Bill de Blasio (the Democratic candidate for mayor of NYC).

De Blasio, admitting that the NYT headline saying that he "Was Once a Young Leftist" fit his own description of himself, in 1990 as being for “democratic socialism,” but that "I always described my philosophy of being made up of a blend of influences and ideas."

“I think that article didn’t fully represent what I feel except for one passage,” he said, “that very accurately noted that one part of me is a New Deal Democrat – just an updated version of it – one part of me is probably similar to a European Social Democrat, and I’m also very deeply influenced by liberation theology, which I learned a lot about in the years I worked on Latin America.”

So in the interest of diluting his connection to "democratic socialism," he's calling attention to his devotion to "liberation theology." Alex Pareene at Salon plays defense:

De Blasio was working with the Quixote Center, a Catholic social justice group that fights poverty and economic inequality and that is inspired by liberation theology. This is actually very typical humanitarian work, and Catholic groups in particular have been doing it for years.

But the Times seems determined to make working for a Catholic social justice organization sound much more radical than it really was, or is. So unnamed “critics” make a few appearances, to suggest that de Blasio and his friends were Marxists — “its harshest critics accused it of hewing to a Marxist agenda” — or naive hippies: “Critics, however, said they were gullible and had romanticized their mission — more interested in undermining the efforts of the Reagan administration than helping the poor.” Which critics? Who knows! How accurate were these criticisms? You decide!

Doctors Without Borders gives up on Somalia.

"We have reached the point where I just don’t see the recognition of the value of impartial humanitarian assistance in Somalia anymore... We’re not therefore able to put our staff in places where they can work. The risks and the compromises that we must make are too high.... I want to reiterate that the kidnapping was simply the latest in a series of incidents since we have been present in Somalia, but yes, it was the last straw."

Is charitable giving too emotional?

If you leave it to sentimental humans to determine where the money goes, you end up with a whole lot of guide dogs for the blind. Because: dogs! And: blindness!

And:

“My father gave a lot to religious stuff because he was religious... He was also a bleeding heart.” She recalled him crying as he watched the nightly news and then making a donation to a charity aimed at easing whatever troubling situation he had seen.

Remember all the money given to help the dogs seen in the news coverage after Hurricane Katrina?

"I think we ought to abolish the IRS and instead move to a simple flat tax where the average American can fill out taxes on postcard."

"Put down how much you earn, put down a deduction for charitable contributions, home mortgage and how much you owe. It ought to be a simple one-page postcard, and take the agents, the bureaucracy out of Washington and limit the power of government."

Said Ted Cruz, puzzlingly preserving the charitable deduction, which would require that somebody keeps making those determinations about which organizations count as charities for tax deduction purposes.

"We gathered for a simple purpose, to dirty our hands as we prepared to attend Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral."

"We were soiling our hands as a silent response to Cardinal Dolan's column last week in which he suggested that LGBT people were welcome in the church so long as they washed their hands. As we began to rub our hands together with pieces of ash, our hands took on the look and feel of the effort that has defined our work to receive an equal seat at the table of Christ in the Catholic Church. Those participating were not only LGBT Catholics, but also allies and, perhaps most importantly, parents of LGBT children. We gathered not in protest, but as a silent witness...."

ADDED: Many commenters complain that the linked article — by Joseph Amodeo at HuffPo — fails to link to Dolan's column. Here it is: "All Are Welcome!" It begins with a lesson learned from his childhood: His friend was welcomed to the family's dinner table, and his father told both boys to "go wash your hands before you eat." He makes the analogy to "the supernatural family we call the Church: all are welcome!" And what is the equivalent to the expectation that hands will be washed before dinner? Dolan refers to the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. Jesus doesn't condemn her but tells her to "sin no more."

Dolan doesn't talk about sinners being unclean and needing to wash. He says "Hate the sin; love the sinner," and lists 6 examples of sinners who sins the Church does not "condone." Persons "with a same-sex attraction" are 5th on the list. The others are: 1. alcoholics, 2. a businessman who fails to "pay a just wage," 3. unmarried heterosexuals who have sex, 4. a woman who has an abortion and the man who impregnated her and encouraged it, and 6. rich people who don't give to the poor. 

"Amanda Palmer: The art of asking."

Beautiful! I love that. I loved it even before I got to the part where I understood that Amanda Palmer is the singer in The Dresden Dolls, who did this song, which I've embedded before:

"Coming with me to clean up dog poop?"

Meade asks. I say, "That's not me... but can I blog about it?"

Meade, who's getting ready to go out for some dog park volunteer work, says okay, but only if I link to this comment on yesterday's "Obama’s insulting salary stunt" post:

garage mahal said...

He won't even feel his sacrifice. And if he does, he can ease his tiny pains with another deluxe vacation and a few more concerts at the White House performed by whichever pop stars his daughters are enthusing over this month.

Just like you didn't have to feel any real sacrifice from Act 10.

I doubt you ever rub elbows with the peons at the bottom of the food chain who did feel it.

IN THE COMMENTS: Phil 3:14 said:

OK Professor, help me understand, who are the "peons" in this analogy?

Or is this another of you word plays (i.e. pee)?

And think plants are at the bottom of the food chain.

Okay, I'll accept it as my job to pick up the metaphorical poop. I didn't call people "peons," and I didn't mix a metaphor of "peons" and "food chain." I don't even know why Meade imposed that condition on my use of his poop quote.

A "peon" — according to the (unlinkable) OED — is "An attendant, an orderly; a footman or messenger having subordinate authority over other staff. Also: a junior member of staff in an office."

1973 P. G. Wodehouse Bachelors Anonymous i. 8 ‘She treated me like one of those things they have in Mexico, not tamales, something that sounds like spoon.’ ‘Peon?’ ‘That's right.’

"Peon" actually used to be pronounced pyoon. The pronunciation "pee on," however, is better for punning.

Anyway, "peon" seems to be an unusually apt word to refer to public sector employees, who are the people affected by Act 10, the GOP's approach to budget balancing here in Wisconsin. We — I include myself — were required to make contributions to our pensions and health insurance. (Before the 2010 elections, we lost money via the Democratic plan, which imposed furloughs.)

Given the "pee on" pun, perhaps garage meant to evoke pity for the public workers and outrage at me and Meade for declining to condemn Act 10. 

A "food chain" is "A series of organisms, each of which is dependent on the next for food, esp. by direct consumption or predation." Where are the public sector employees in the metaphorical consumption and predation? Maybe taxpayers think they are at the bottom of the food chain? The public servants paid by tax money should hardly want to be seen as the predators at the top. But that makes more sense than perceiving the taxpayers as the predators.

"Rub elbows" — the OED tells us — means "to come into contact."  Examples:

1916   L. N. Parker Disraeli ii. 56   You would pass him in the street without the faintest idea you had rubbed elbows with one of the world's greatest powers!
1956   ‘B. Holiday’ & W. Dufty Lady sings Blues i. 16   A whorehouse was about the only place where black and white folks could meet in any natural way. They damn well couldn't rub elbows in the churches.

But you damn well could rub elbows with one of the world's greatest blog commenters at Poopstock '13.

"More than two dozen Madison-area restaurants will ask for a small donation as servers pour glasses of water this week..."

"... which one group said was just the beginning of a push to curb water waste."

The collections will benefit the Clean Lakes Alliance, which works to clean up Dane County's lakes, said James Tye, the group's vice president.

"We're not telling people, 'Don't drink water,' we're just telling them to be aware that the water that's coming to your table is not free and any water being left on the table is just being tossed away," Tye said.

Annoying. Just avoid restaurants for a week and you'll be free of this dunning. Or, skip the water and, since this is Madison and not New York City,  order a large soda. (Or as they say in NYC, where people are hipper and also more babyish, a sugary drink.)

ADDED: Here's an idea. When the waiter asks you for $1 for your water, say I will add an extra dollar to your tip, and you can put it in the water fund if you want.

"A shoeshine man has given a Pittsburgh children’s hospital a total of more than $200,000 in tips he’s collected over the last 30 years."

"Albert Lexie says he’s been shining shoes for $5 at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh since the early 1980s. He says most customers tip him $1 and some give him an extra $2."

"We have done everything possible to make the presidency less venerated."

Says José Mujica, the president of Uruguay, who lives "a run-down house on Montevideo’s outskirts with no servants at all... never wears a tie and donates about 90 percent of his salary, largely to a program for expanding housing for the poor." That leaves him with $800 a moth.

Quoting the Roman court-philosopher Seneca, Mr. Mujica said, “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor.”...

Before Mr. Mujica became a gardener of chrysanthemums, he was a leader of the Tupamaros, the urban guerrilla group that drew inspiration from the Cuban revolution, carrying out armed bank robberies and kidnappings on Montevideo’s streets....

He spent 14 years in prison, including more than a decade in solitary confinement, often in a hole in the ground. During that time, he would go more than a year without bathing, and his companions, he said, were a tiny frog and rats with whom he shared crumbs of bread....

Mr. Mujica rarely speaks about his time in prison. Seated at a table in his garden, sipping his mate, he said it gave him time to reflect. “I learned that one can always start again,” he said.

"I want to become a doctor... because I want to save people."

"And when I do, I won't take any money from them."