Lifestyle Liberalism Takes Money – Lots of It, by Randall Smith

Christian Results Flow Only From Christian Faith, by Dr. Jeff Mirus
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Fr. Ed Broom: Call Upon the Archangel Raphael
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*Image: The Pharisee and the Publican (Le pharisien et le publicain) by James Tissot, c. 1890 [Brooklyn Museum]. See Luke 18:9-14 (“God, I thank you that I am not like other people . . .”)

By Randall Smith, The Catholic Thing, Sept. 9, 2020

Randall B. Smith is a tenured Full Professor of Theology. His book Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Guidebook for Beginners is available from Emmaus Press. And his book Aquinas, Bonaventure, and the Scholastic Culture at Paris: Preaching, Prologues, and Biblical Commentary is due out from Cambridge University Press in the fall.

 

Randall SmithMany people assume that a society “progressive” in its moral views would naturally be “progressive” in its economy, that someone who believes in a more equal distribution of goods would also be a person who believes in more permissive standards of behavior.

I am not denying the perception, but the reality is often the reverse of what young progressives seem to assume. Those who wish to ensure goals such as a more equitable distribution of the wealth in the economy and a greater respect for the environment are demanding considerable self-discipline of the sort we do not customarily or habitually demand of people in a culture of lifestyle libertinism.

You think it unreasonable to ask a man to discipline his appetite for sex, but then you think it eminently reasonable to require him to relinquish his appetite for money, status, and power?  ….

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