At mass this morning our parish priest quoted Richard Rohr, who I quote from memory. He spoke about how Americans use capitalism in pursuit of wealth and materialism and mask it in a façade of religion. [I am sure I am misquoting him here. The quote is from Rohr’s book “Hope Against Darkness. I googled him to see if I could find the correct quotation, but no luck. His website is here however. In trying to do a quick review of his writings for this post, I realized it is impossible to do a quick review of his writings.]
This is a theme that my priest has expressed before, especially in relation to communism. Pope John Paul II was a champion is freeing Eastern Europe from the grips of communism and since the fall of the Iron Curtain he has increased his attention to the excesses of capitalism.
The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with "communism" or "socialism." She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of "capitalism," individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for "there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market." Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended.
I think that C.S. Lewis hits the nail on the head on this topic in Mere Christianity, where he claims that by excluding God we cause the ruin of our societies.
God made us, invented us as man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gasoline and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on himself. He himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and feast apart from himself because it is not there. There is no such thing. That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended, civilizations are built up, excellent institutions devised but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top and it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact the machine conks. It seems to start up alright and runs a few yards and then it brakes down. They are trying to run it on the wrong juice.
Communism was explicit in its rejection of religion, which was a key component (or the reason in a Lewis point of view) for its demise in Eastern Europe. My fear is that by rejecting religion or by worshipping false religions in a Rohrian context, the western world will run out of fuel.
