Occupy Wall Street? Director of the MCC has a suggestion

The following article appeared in the Nov. 10 edition of The Catholic Spirit and was written by Jason Adkins, Director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, who is also brother of Michael Adkins, Academic Dean at Saint Agnes School, and one of the teachers of the Senior Capstone Seminar.

This piece ties nicely to our reading of The Rule of St. Benedict.  At the very heart of the monks' "action" is the Liturgy.  Many of you have commented on how St. Benedict orders everything so specifically on time.  Keener readers have seen that this is intricately linked to the Church's liturgical cycle, feasts and seasons.  Ora et Labora, yet the Father of Monasticism and Western Culture clearly underlines prayer as the heart of monastic life.

Occupy Wall Street?

"The Occupy Wall Street movement has been the big story of the last few months.  What fictional “Wall Street” movie character Gordon Gekko called the NINJA generation (No Income, No Jobs, No Assets) is gathering to­gether in major urban centers to protest growing income inequality, a lousy economy in which there are few available jobs, and the feeling that our nation is ruled by a plutocracy of bankers and financial speculators.
How should Cath­olics respond?
Like its fraternal twin, 2010’s Tea Party movement, OWS has elements of a truly populist uprising. Although neither movement has a specific set of political goals, there is definitely a sentiment across the political spectrum that something is wrong.
Many people no longer believe that democracy works for them or for the common good.
But each movement correctly identifies only half the problem.
The Tea Party recognizes that Big Government too often imposes the arbitrary rule of tax-loving bureaucrats who stifle authentic liberty and strangle entrepreneurism in a mass of red tape. Big Government also tends to usurp responsibilities that should be performed by individuals, families, businesses, churches and other institutions of civil society.
On the other side of the coin, OWS recognizes that Big Business (particularly financiers and the military-industrial complex) have enriched themselves at public expense, often conspiring with politicians to do so through tax breaks, corporate bailouts and legal regimes that funnel capital into usurious loans and other forms of financial speculation that do little else than provide massive profits for a select few.
And when the financial house of cards collapses, the average Joe gets stuck with higher taxes and fewer jobs to make sure GM and the banks don’t “fail.”
Further, poverty is on the rise, a record number of people are receiving food stamps, and homelessness is now common in the suburbs, not just the inner city.
People are, understandably, upset."

Read the entire article at The Catholic Spirit, the paper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis.