I find it rather unseemly that a priest would take such an arrogant and aggressive tone of machismo in all of his deliberations. I understand that, in a culture that worships the military and sees violence as therapeutic, many people applaud this nonsense. I understand that, in a Calvinist culture, the desire to demonize the enemy is always seductive. But on so many issues, Fr. Corapi’s tone and teachings are leading people astray. For a priest that loves to attack “dissent”, he comes dangerously close to encouraging it – by emphasizing the values of American liberalism over the values of Catholic social teaching.
The best example of this is his attack on “socialism” – see the You Tube video linked here (no, I am not putting this on the front page of Vox Nova, go click on it yourself if interested!) I admit, I didn’t get through the 27 minutes. I couldn’t stomach it. But here’s the gist of it – Corapi is attacking the great evil of socialism, with the implicit implication that this is an issue in American political discourse right now. He spends a lot of time quoting Rerum Novarum – out of context. I never hear him explaining that Leo XIII, and all popes after him, condemned American-style laissez-faire liberalism equally with socialism (Pius XI’s “twin rocks of shipwreck”). Of course, Corapi is really winking at the extreme right, which believes that Obama is some kind of socialist. This is the point of his video. I’m sorry, but anyone who thinks that Obama, who is more to the right that the average European social democrat, is somehow a radical socialist simply does not deserve to be taken seriously, and definitely does not understand Catholic social teaching.
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Editor’s note: ??????????!
March 29, 2011
Categories: Books & Publications, Events, Politics, Scandals, Videos, Photos, Audio . Tags: Barack Obama, Catholic social teaching, Father Corapi, liberalism, Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, socialism . Author: Doug Lawrence . Comments: Leave a comment