...Shapiro spoke on how to create positive religious values in a secular world. While identifying three specific threats, he said: “Unfortunately, the attacks on Catholics have come first and foremost,” adding, “It’s really fascinating to watch, not just from a Jewish perspective. Usually, we’re the first on the hit list. Now it’s you guys.”...
...Shapiro said that the Enlightenment did not spring up suddenly in the 1700s, but was a result of thousands of years of Jewish and Christian belief that stems from the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount and created the modern world. There are some people, Shapiro said, who ignore that these are the foundations of the systems that brought about smart-phones and other technologies....
So far, so good; that summation is only disputed by the semi-educated. They are loud and have the megaphone of the Press, but they are ignorant.
But then Ben falls off the rails.
...“What they don’t see is that their iPhone is the result of free market capitalism that is rooted in a vision of individual value and that individual value didn’t come out of nowhere: it came from God,” Shapiro said. “These are the values that undergird the way we see things in the West,” he said....Errrmmmhhhhh.....Ben, my friend, "free market capitalism" had nothing to do with Lemaitre, Mendel, Bacon, Copernicus, (et al.) Capitalism pure, like socialism, is opposed to the Church's genuine social teaching, that which is found in the encyclicals of Leo XIII, Pius XI, (etc.) Wiki has a decent summary:
...Catholic social doctrine has always tried to find an equilibrium between respect for human liberty, including the right to private property and subsidiarity, and concern for the whole society, including the weakest and poorest...Thus, the Church condemns both pure capitalism (free-market) and pure socialism.
Otherwise, Ben, pretty good stuff.
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