The “church tax” in Germany has no equivalent in the United States. It involves the state collecting up to 9% of income from  members of the different religious denominations and passing on the money to the various churches. Because of this lucrative arrangement the Catholic Church in Germany has a deep treasury and supports many major charitable ventures as well as sending millions to the Vatican every year.

That is an important source of real power in Rome where big cheques carry a lot of weight. In addition, since the Reformation 500 years ago, German intellectuals have been central to theological developments in the church. Most recently, Joseph Ratzinger, Archbishop of Munich before becoming Pope Benedict, was a leading theologian in the liberalizing Second Vatican Council before going on to lead a conservative papacy.

The sexual abuse scourge has devastated the Catholic Church. The idea that members of the clergy took advantage of their privileged position to prey on innocent young people disgusted the Catholic faithful to such an extent that they have left the church in droves.

The German exodus numbered over 100,000 annually from 1990 onwards, and then in 2018, following an especially egregious scandal involving a boys’ choir with a connected boarding school, a massive 216,000 cut their ties with the church which many of them spoke of as beyond reform.

People were especially shocked at the ineptitude and unwillingness of the hierarchy to take responsibility; in diocese after diocese the bishops engaged in a shameful coverup of this deplorable conduct by so many priests and religious brothers.

This huge leakage of members finally elicited a meaningful response, and a major two-year review of church policies in four vital areas started in December last year. The process, which so far is confined to Germany, is called The Synodal Way, and the four areas of concentration have been named:

1 Expanding the roles women play in the church.

2 How sexuality is understood and preached in the church community.

3 The job of the priest, including discussion of the celibacy tradition.

4 The use and abuse of clerical power locally and universally.

This synod will have about 230 members, all committed Catholics, with a fair balance between men and women and between clergy and laity. Four working groups of 35 will meet to deal with the agreed major topics. Their research and recommendations will be submitted to the entire gathering for approval or rejection.

The full participation of women in exercising power and authority, including accessing priestly ordination, will be debated and there is a strong expectation that the door will be opened – perhaps slightly – for this radical change favoring female ordination.

Unlike recent synods in Rome where no woman was allowed to vote on the important issues being discussed, the rules governing the German experiment actually prevent the passage of any proposal that does not enjoy majority female approval.

The synod is supported by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the archbishop of Munich and one of Pope Francis’ close advisors. The cardinal believes it is imperative for the church to welcome what he calls repeatedly “new thinking” if it is to thrive again. Continuing in the old ways will lead even more Catholics to look  to other churches that have embraced modern perspectives on the big issues of our time, especially in the area of sexuality.

In the other corner, from Cologne, the archbishop of that area, Cardinal Woekli, views the synod as a challenge to traditional church beliefs and sees it as a mistaken effort to align church teaching with popular moral stands.

This is especially true about demands for change in the important areas of the use of contraceptives and the acceptance of same-sex marriage, complete no-no’s in Woekli’s teaching. He argues that “throughout history, Christians have never been in sync with the world. I do not want to support a German national church. We should not pretend to do better than the wider ecclesial body.”

Meanwhile only 8% of Catholics in his archdiocese attend weekly mass, highlighting a malaise of very low church attendance that is not confined to his city.

Priestly celibacy was instituted by Pope Gregory close to 1000 years ago. Prior to that, going back all the way to the apostles, most priests married. One reason for the change related to property claims by priest’s children, a situation that surely could be remedied, certainly in our time, by a legal contract.

However, the major reason for Gregory’s actions relates to his vision that a priest had to be separated from his congregation, that he should be seen as a “special” man, endowed with an indelible sign of holiness at ordination.

The Catholic Church has been marked by a destructive clericalism mainly because of this attitude of moral superiority claimed as a result of ordination. This pervasive culture of setting a priest apart from the community he is serving, encouraging people to view his ordination as identifying him as worthy of special respect and even adulation, has been very damaging for the whole church but especially for priests.

Placing pastors on a high pedestal with unreasonable expectations explains how so many members of the clergy failed their parishioners. Progressive Catholics make a strong case that this clericalist culture that isolates priests explains the origins of the sex abuse crisis.

Synod participants set the tone for the proceedings by insisting that the bishops not wear their formal regalia when entering the cathedral in Frankfurt for the opening ceremony. Their message was clear, emphasizing that the synod is a serious undertaking by the whole church in Germany with no place for assertions of pomp and importance.

Female members displayed signs at the opening procession demanding full equality. Seating was based on the alphabet, not on anyone’s title or sense of self- importance.

One other issue on the agenda in the synod’s deliberations concerns the place and treatment of gays in the church where the two ends of the ecclesial spectrum, left and right, do not agree. From the traditionalists’ perspective, natural law is clear: same-sex intimate engagement is always wrong and immoral.

Modern perspectives on homosexuality have changed dramatically in Western countries in the last few decades. Being anti-gay or intolerant towards that lifestyle is seen as somewhat backward, representing prejudices of another era.

While most dioceses follow the Vatican’s condemnatory rhetoric on this issue, Cardinal Marx allows the blessing of same-sex marriages in the Munich archdiocese. More important, the majority of Catholics in Germany and beyond have no problem with the gay lifestyle and are happy adopting a live and let-live attitude.

On the ordination of women, Cardinal Marx as president of the German Bishops’ Conference informed the faithful in his country that Pope Francis had told him that he is opposed to any change in this area of church discipline. The cardinal went on to say that he sees nothing wrong with opening the issue for discussion and it is on the agenda for the Synodal Way.

In the United States where most of the hierarchy is much more in tune with traditional values and mandates, it would be difficult to find a parish that would allow an advocacy group like Women’s Ordination Conference(WOC) to lead a discussion on the possibility of female priests, even though successive polls have shown that people in the pews have no problem with a woman preaching and administering the sacraments.

Two years from now, this German synod will not be issuing a gobbledygook report affirming past practices and traditions. It is a high-powered body that is likely to recommend radical changes in the Catholic Church.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the outgoing president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops(USCCB) opined recently that the climate change crisis is “not urgent,” directly contradicting Pope Francis who in his encyclical Laudato Si pleaded that saving “the common home” must be a top priority for the church and indeed for all humanity.

DiNardo and a majority of his episcopal colleagues in the USCCB continue to identify abortion as the “preeminent” – their language – issue of our time, meaning that it supersedes all other concerns.

These church leaders have mainly pursued a legal remedy to the widespread termination of pregnancy in the United States. Reverse the Roe v Wade decision and they claim we are more than half way to solving the problem.

Archbishop Sample of Portland, Oregon, supporting this perspective, expounded last month about our times being particularly propitious to achieve their goal because “of a unique moment with the upcoming election cycle, given the changes to the Supreme Court.”

Opponents of this approach, including about one third at the Bishops’ Conference, focus instead on a much larger agenda than the legal and political considerations of the 1973 Roe decision by the Supreme Court.

In line with Pope Francis, they preach about the prevalence of injustice in American society. They quote Francis who without decrying in any way the church’s teaching on abortion wrote: ”Equally sacred are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned, the underprivileged.”

The pope also insists that the travails of refugees must be at the top of the Christian agenda and not in his words “a lesser issue” as if their plight doesn’t figure in the central message of the gospel.

Does it make moral sense to give exclusive “preeminence” to the abortion issue when thousands of children are forced to live in holding cages on the Mexican border?

The Oregon archbishop’s political assessment may well be right and five of the nine Supreme Court justices may vote to overturn the 1973 decision. That seems likely with the present composition of the court.

What happens then to a woman who chooses not to continue her pregnancy? If she is living in a state where the procedure is declared illegal she will have to travel to one where it is allowed – provided she can afford the air or train fare and other attendant costs.

This brings back sad memories of the thousands of Irish women who, over many decades, had to travel to England for an abortion until the people voted convincingly in the 2018 referendum to make the service available at home, ending the hypocrisy of fobbing the problem off to clinics in Liverpool or London.

Recent Irish history is very illuminating about the failure of legal strategies in dealing with the abortion issue. In the early 1980’s when there were no abortions allowed in any clinic or hospital anywhere in Ireland, nor was any of the major political parties advocating for change in this area, a group of very religious, fiercely anti-abortion people warned that judges could allow the procedure to be introduced in Ireland as, in their view, happened in the United States.

To block any possibility of this occurring these sincere Catholics, supported by the hierarchy, successfully launched a constitutional crusade and in a referendum in 1983 they copper fastened the existing legal prohibition by adding an amendment to the Irish constitution which was meant to settle the abortion issue beyond the power of liberal judges or left-wing legislators. In Shakespeare’s words, they were determined “to make assurance doubly sure.”

That referendum was carried by a majority of about two to one; the same percentages that in the 2018 referendum, less than forty years later, legalized abortion in the South of Ireland.

This is a major challenge for leaders on all sides of this issue: In the event that the Roe decision is reversed how should American society deal with women who want to end their pregnancies?

Archbishop Sample’s already-mentioned political calculation clearly associates his church with the Republican Party – a dubious ecclesiastical strategy, taking sides between the two political parties, especially at a time when the country is deeply divided on so many political and moral issues.

Emotions are running high on a number of impending decisions by the highest court, not only on Roe but on crucial judgements about privileges claimed by the current president as against the powers asserted by the co-equal branch in Congress.

Do the Catholic bishops really want to be involved in these political entanglements at a time when their own congregations are pulled in both directions?

Of course, they should continue to make their case from the pulpit and counsel women against pregnancy termination, but this should be done in a balanced way, especially by seriously addressing the multiple causes, many of them economic, that drive women to opt for abortion.

The Trump administration whose budgetary policies gave more than a trillion dollars in tax breaks to millionaires and big corporations also plans to cut a billion, a piddling amount by comparison, from food stamps for the poor.

No doubt about the obvious ethical incongruence in these figures between the treatment of the rich and the poor, directly clashing with the moral norms laid down by many of the prophets in the Old Testament and by Christ as revealed throughout the four gospels.

Consider the issue of paid maternal leave from work for women after they give birth – a clear pro-life enactment that exists in most Western European countries. Recent progress on this issue in Washington giving federal employees twelve weeks paid leave is a significant step in the right direction, but what about private sector workers? Those with little or no savings, estimated to include up to 50% of American women, will have to be back at work a few days after they leave the hospital with their babies.

Abortion is a tragedy for a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy. It is important to stress again that this is not primarily a legal problem and, as was demonstrated clearly in the Irish situation, is not amenable to a legislative solution.

The Catholic Church as a major institution in America can provide a significant platform for exploring holistic approaches to dealing with this issue of unwanted pregnancies.

The Catholic Church has a very commendable record in the vital area of economic justice going back to Pope Leo XIII’s radical encyclical supporting the need for trade unions nearly a hundred and fifty years ago. In the 1960’s John XXIII advocated in his ground-breaking encyclical Mater et Magistra for shared ownership of corporations between workers and owners, and Francis has repeatedly scoffed at the so-called Trickle-Down Theory of economics, a staple of conservative theorists.

These vital anti-poverty teachings have been subsumed and minimized in recent years, especially in America, by what the majority of the bishops in the USCCB identified again at its November meeting as the “preeminent” issue of abortion.

About 700,00 people leave the Catholic Church in America every year. These are not lapsed Catholics who drift away from their religious roots, but members of the church who choose to leave the belief system they were raised with.

There are multiple reasons for these unprecedented numbers, but the most important consideration centers on the dismal failure of the church in dealing with women’s issues.

Talking recently at a symposium titled “The Women the Vatican Couldn’t Silence” in Trinity College, Dublin, former Irish president Mary McAleese, who spent six years in Rome earning a doctorate in theology, bemoaned how “women were deliberately made invisible and programmed to stay invisible” because of church structures that are “designed to create and maintain the invisibility and powerlessness of women.”

Speaking to the same packed auditorium, Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun from Pennsylvania and author of nearly thirty books on various aspects of the spiritual life, was even more damning in her assessment of the church’s attitudes to females: “Silence is the only role a woman has in the Catholic Church. We make good window dressing. What I see in the the Catholic Church is a totally-owned subsidiary of pious males. We are not full members of the church. We are an outside edge.”

The Christian church has a history of misogyny going back to the earliest days. Tertullian lived in the third century and he is often spoken of as a father of the church and is viewed as a prominent moralist and theologian. In his mind, sins relating to sexual desire occupy a special corner of depravity, and he preached that women were the devil’s source of men’s downfall.

Thomas Aquinas, a Doctor of the church whose teachings were the bread and butter of all Catholic seminary theology courses until very recently, lived in the 13th century and wrote bewildering stuff about women, asserting, for instance, that females are really defective males and that they are “necessarily in a state of subjection.”

In the 11th century Pope Gregory introduced clerical celibacy partly to avoid legal claims to church property by priests’ children, but the main reason for this unfortunate change in church discipline related to the arrogant assertion that a priest was not an ordinary human. Instead, according to Gregory, he should be viewed as someone existing above the earthly sphere in a kind of exclusive spiritual cocoon, with celibacy as the main mark of his difference from the general population.

The seeds of the current ecclesiastical sexual abuse crisis can be clearly seen in this foolish perspective that camouflages the priest’s human vulnerabilities and sets him apart from his community.

Moving ahead to our own times, the charismatic John Paul ll’s leadership extended into this century and he was canonized just four years ago. In his book Love and Responsibility he wrote “For the purpose of the sexual act it is enough for a woman to be passive and unresisting, so much so that it can even take place without her volition while she is in a state where she has no awareness at all of what is happening – for instance when she is asleep or unconscious.” Understandably, most women feel diminished by this statement and wonder how the church could canonize a man who seemingly approves of engaging in sexual intimacy with a sleeping female.

A distinguished Irish theologian, the late Fr. Sean Fagan, called the pope out on this appalling statement asking: “Can this really be Catholic Church teaching? It sounds like rape.” Of course, the pope never meant to give credibility or approval to any physical abuse of women, but his words provide a clear testament to the hubris and wild imaginings which so often accompany compulsory celibacy. It is also noteworthy that it was John Paul who issued a solemn edict ruling out women’s ordination to the priesthood – ever.

Church leaders like Tertullian and Gregory and Aquinas were reflecting the prejudices of past centuries and that perspective undoubtedly explains why they expounded some outrageous beliefs about women. Finding any rational explanation for John Paul’s ruminations on sex and love, viewed through the prism of our own time, is much more problematic.

But even today, under a progressive pope, the church seems unable to move away from old paradigms. Francis has assembled three church synods in the last year or so, bringing together ecclesiastical leaders from all over the world for serious consultations about major issues.

The conclusion of each synod involved a series of votes on a final document. Not one woman was allowed to cast a ballot on these recommendations. Only celibate males, mostly well on in years, could participate in this embarrassing effort at church democracy.

A major problem in the church derives from the fact that in their world all authority flows from ordination. Pope Gregory from a thousand years ago certainly left his mark on promoting clericalism which was assiduously cultivated by nearly all the popes since. Power is always seductive and corrupting and men have found spurious arguments to hold on to their prestige in the church, even when the whole edifice is crumbling around them.

Mary McAleese reads the situation clearly and truthfully. Preventing women from being ordained is based on “codology dressed up as theology.”Finding reasons to restrict ordination to men provide classical examples of the fallacy of rationalization, clerics coming up with arguments to bolster traditional practices that do not hold up under close logical analysis.

Francis appointed a commission to examine the roles played by female deacons in the early church and to investigate what functions they performed then in the Christian community. The experts could not agree on these historical matters so the debate goes on. Meanwhile communities all over the world are deprived of pastoral leadership.

This stultifying equivocation about the exact role of deacons two thousand years ago, blocking progress on an issue that has almost universal approval in the pews, is the modern maddening equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns.

Most Catholics want to deal with the problems they face in this century when women provide top leadership in every phase of modern life. That is real progress in civil society in our time while Rome prevaricates about even minor changes in church discipline. John XX111, the last great pope, talked in the 1960’s about opening the windows of the church to allow the fresh air of a new magnanimous spirit to blow through. That metaphor applies even more urgently in our time.

The often-acrimonious debate about the morality of the gay lifestyle continues in the Catholic Church. In most parishes members of the LGBT community feel more comfortable keeping a low profile, not making demands, while the majority of pastors avoid preaching about the knotty and complex issues of same-sex relationships.

While Judaism, as represented in the Old Testament, strongly condemned homosexual activity, you will search in vain in the four gospels, which tell of Christ’s sermons and lifestyle, for any criticism of same-sex relationships. His main message focuses on the primary importance of love and compassion among his followers, calling for special care for the poor and oppressed.

How then did these matters become so important in the teachings of the Catholic Church and indeed in most Christian denominations? The answer lies in what the theologians call natural law. Proponents of this approach to morality assert that any sexual activity other than between male and female is against the natural order. They point to the obvious way that men’s and women’s bodies complement each other as telling proof of nature’s intentions.

The problem with this logic arises because it ascribes a moral value to natural acts. The Catholic Church preaches that any sexual activity outside of the male-female variety is unnatural and thus “inherently disordered” and sinful.

This belief that same-sex romantic behavior is inherently depraved goes back centuries and has caused a great deal of suffering to the minority of the population that is gay. These men and women were frequently seen as freaks because their sexual interests and needs diverged from those of the vast majority of the population.

In the early 20th century a distinguished British philosopher named G.E. Moore wrote about a mistake in reasoning that he named the Naturalistic Fallacy. In a word, he argued that just because something is natural does not make it morally good or desirable. Applied to the area of sexual morality, the alleged naturalness of any intimate behavior should not determine its morality.

To explain their thinking Moore’s followers sometimes use a simple example by pointing to a mother who chooses to bottle feed her baby rather than the clearly natural method of breastfeeding. Would anybody argue that the decision to use a bottle formula to feed a newborn is somehow a breach of the natural law and thus immoral?

There has been a major shift in attitudes to homosexuals in Western society. Gay marriage, which was unthinkable to most people a mere generation ago, is now legal in the majority of European countries as well as in the United States and Canada.

However, the Catholic Church has maintained a hard line against the gay lifestyle, even though various professional studies suggest that a disproportionate number of the clergy at all levels of the church is homosexual. In a recent book In the Closet of the Vatican, the author, Frederic Martel, claims that the Vatican curias or departments are rife with homosexuals, closeted and barely hidden.

Traditionalists in the church blame the sexual abuse crisis on gays. They point to the fact that most of the children abused are boys, proof, in their eyes, that gays are mainly responsible for the depredations of so many priests and brothers.

Progressives reject this thinking and explain the provenance of male victims by pointing to the easier availability to predators of boys rather than girls in sacristies and playgrounds. They identify the huge accrual of power over centuries by the clergy as the main source of corruption in the church. Such unchecked authority leads inevitably to clericalism and, unfortunately, to the reprehensible clerical behavior.

Liberal commentators argue further that the exclusion of women from nearly all positions of ecclesiastical power sidelined an important voice that might well have cried stop, which the male hierarchy failed dismally to do.

Pope Francis, a man of great compassion who lends a willing ear to all oppressed groups, seems to have taken both sides in this church debate. Shortly after his election as pope he was asked about gays in the church and replied magnanimously “who am I to judge?”Also, in dialoguing with a gay young man, Juan Carlos, a survivor of clerical sex abuse from Chile, he assures him “God made you like this and loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are.”

However, Francis has issued official declarations opposing same-sex unions and he has spoken against adoption by gay couples. More important, he urged bishops not to admit to their seminaries young men with “deeply-rooted homosexual tendencies.”

Such a vague policy is wide open to abuse. Who plays the role of Solomon in determining what level of “tendency” disqualifies an applicant?

The pope had a friendly meeting recently with Fr. James Martin, the Jesuit theologian who lives in Manhattan, whose recent book Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion and Sensitivity is a heartfelt plea for a closer dialogue between the church and homosexuals.

Martin urges that the disparaging description of gays as “intrinsically disordered” must be dropped. How do you build a positive relationship with anyone if your calling card includes a demeaning trope? Instead he suggests the non-judgmental description “differently ordered.”

That would be a great start, but many church traditionalists, led by the American Cardinal Burke who heads the anti-Francis brigade, say that Fr. Martin’s book “upends the teaching of the church, legitimizing relations between persons of the same sex.”

There is no guarantee that James Martin’s humane and thoughtful approach will prevail, but it certainly accords with the opinion of most Catholics and with the gospel values that should surely underpin all beliefs in the Christian community. Gerry OShea blogs at Gays in the Cat

wemustbetalking.com

A basic axiom in the ancient wisdom of the native American community states that any laws or ordinances passed by their governing councils must meet what they call the Seventh Generation Test, meaning that the impact of any new regulation should not harm people who will live long years in the future – a deeply enlightened and spiritual insight that provides a valuable perspective on the global warming crisis.

In his encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis makes the same argument: “We are not God. The earth was here before us and it is our common home which has been given to us”. He reminds us that we are just custodians, morally obliged to pass on a functioning planet.

From this perspective the treatment of the environment in particular by the huge oil and fuel industries, especially in the last half-century, has been ruinous for the world’s oceans and rivers and thus profoundly at variance with any positive ethical standard. The thoughtful people demanding that economic growth should be balanced with ecological husbandry were shunted aside in favor of corporate profits.

During the First Industrial Revolution in the 19th century the poet William Wordsworth bemoaned the damage to natural beauty caused by mass industrialization in memorable words that still resonate today: “Getting and spending we lay waste too much — we have given our hearts away – a sordid boon.”

Who is advocating for the common good while our climate is warming at an alarming rate? Who is making the case for bequeathing a healthy and safe environment for future unborn children – to the seventh generation? In truth there are leaders, headed by Pope Francis, who are seriously addressing the problem, but it is disconcerting that only seven of the 195 countries who signed the modest Paris Accord are close to meeting their goals.

Our situation is dire. Scientists tell us that the oceans and temperatures are heating faster than was anticipated a mere decade ago, leading inevitably to crop failures, freshwater shortages and violent and unpredictable weather.

The crisis is already abundantly evident. Just consider the scourge of wildfires in California. In 2017 two thousand square miles were burned in some of the worst fires ever recorded. This damage was matched in 2018 where a giant network known as the Mendocino Complex, a horrendous blaze that grew to cover an area bigger than New York, destroyed almost half a million acres of land.

Every year wildfires in the United States burn an area twice larger than they did fifty years ago, and that figure is conservatively estimated to reach 20 million acres per year by 2050. Burning forests release vast amounts of carbon; one major fire in California can eliminate the environmental value of the commendable local policies that significantly reduce emissions.

And that is just California. Similar disastrous happenings in places like Greenland and Sweden do huge damage in the Arctic Circle where soot and ash from these fires blacken the ice sheets which then absorb more solar heat and melt faster.

A hundred thousand fires burned across the Amazon last year. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s reckless policies of opening the massive forests there to “development” is estimated to add a similar amount of carbon to the atmosphere as the combined annual emissions of the two biggest polluting nations, China and the United States.

Vast areas of polluted ocean brought about mainly by warming seas and sewage pollution and identified by a cover of green soup-like bacteria have caused what are appropriately called dead zones. There are more than 400 of these ugly stagnant areas stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of Oman. Taken together these expanding dead ocean areas at present amount to the size of the European continent.

By 2050 the United Nations estimates that climate change will result in mass migration of up to one billion people moving from hunger and desolation for a chance of some kind of livelihood. The few million migrants of recent years that caused such political unrest in Western countries will be seen as a drop in the bucket by comparison with the massive surges of destitute and homeless refugees trying to find a place to live.

Ironically, the poor who did least to cause this crisis suffer the most. Millions of small farmers driven from their land burned by the sun or overwhelmed by tidal waves will be forced to leave their humble lifestyle and move to higher and less arid ground. They didn’t burn much of the coal and gas and oil that caused most of the damaging pollution, but their lives are far more likely to be disrupted than the people who did. Already, half of the children in Delhi suffer from lung damage from breathing the air.

Amazingly, President Trump says we don’t have a problem. For him, climate change is just a hoax. All the scientific evidence is disregarded. Talk about Nero playing the violin while Rome burns! It is hard to imagine a more immature and dangerous response to a pending catastrophe.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that if emissions continue at the present rate, by 2100 the earth will be largely uninhabitable. Young people realize that they will be the generation saddled with an ecological disaster and they have started to organize and make demands. Green parties are growing all over Europe and some of the candidates for the Democratic nomination are offering serious radical proposals costing in trillions.

The 2020 American Presidential election will provide a clear choice between the current leader in the White House who identifies the environmental crisis as liberal bunkum and a Democratic opponent declaring that global warming is our most compelling and immediate problem.

The United Nations secretary general, Antonio Guterres, believes that we only have a year to implement policies that could move the world away from dependence on fossil fuels. The IPCC contends that global mobilization on the scale of the Second World War is urgently called for.

Up to now, talk of a Green New Deal is associated with extreme political factions and activist groups outside the American mainstream. That will surely change and those whose views on global warming are deemed extreme now will be seen as moderate before we vote in November next year.

Only a moral crusade, anchored in a new respect for Mother Nature, that calls on people everywhere to rally around saving the environment as a first priority, can move the international community to adopting radical new conservation policies. That is a massive challenge and it won’t happen without credible American leadership.

Gerry O’Shea blogs at wemustbetalking.com

 

During the early centuries of Christianity, Christ’s followers met – often secretly – to honor his memory by community prayer including the sharing of bread in remembrance of the importance of togetherness in the Passover meal at the Last Supper.

They met in each others’ homes for their prayer services just as Amish worshippers do in their communities today. They had no priests, again replicated in Amish services in our time where leaders are chosen by the community and given no perks.

In fact most historians contend that Christ had no plans to start a new religion. He was critical of the legalistic formalism that dominated the Jewish rabbinical establishment of his day, but he is best understood as a charismatic Jewish rabbi with an inspiring message.

The records show that these early Christian groups were egalitarian, with men and women chosen by their peers for leadership positions not only for their prayer and communion services but also in their charitable outreach to help poor and needy members of their developing community.

Then in the early 4th century the Roman Emperor Constantine allowed Christians to assemble without any hassle and to worship freely. The Emperor himself asked to be baptized on his deathbed after years preparing as a catechumen. He made Christianity respectable, giving it the Roman stamp of approval.

For the first time a clear pecking order was established as the hierarchical structures and trappings of the Roman Empire were transferred to the growing Christian church. For example, a diocese, a Roman administrative unit, was transmuted to a basic governing part of the church; a basilica, the Emperor’s majestic hall, became an important place of worship for the members of a burgeoning religion.

The church moved away from its original emphasis on the equality of all members by assigning authority based on offices held in the community. In the new hierarchical structures decision-making was vested in priests and bishops. With the gradual growth over centuries in the prestige of the papacy, a hundred and fifty years ago Pius 1X brought the acquisition of power to a new and dubious level by claiming infallibility when pronouncing on faith and morals.

Over the years this hierarchical system led to the development of a powerful church organization that did outstanding work with people of all ages in every part of the globe. The Catholic Church is the largest nongovernmental organization in the world, providing food for the hungry and medical care and education for millions who would be cast aside without the services of the heroic Sisters, Brothers and priests who stood with them, opening the door to a chance for a better life.

But there was a serious downside to the growth of the church as a major center of political power, influencing and participating in wars, a long way from a universal religion of peace and goodwill. The church was an important player in religious battles in Europe and in leading crusades to make the cross dominant in Jerusalem. The institution forgot its humble founding principles and responded to political developments with generals and armies similar to other European powers.

Women and married men were excluded from any position of church authority which was vested entirely with a male celibate clergy. They continued to dress in gowns and top hats and other similar gaudy apparel, symbols of importance back in the days of the Roman Empire and still setting the church leadership class apart from the hoi polloi in the pews.

Augustine, a reformed libertine, who lived in the same century as Constantine, promulgated a poorly-researched theory that the so-called original sin was a sexual act initiated by Eve. She was responsible in John Milton’s later words in Paradise Lost “for all our woes with loss of Eden.” This baseless Augustinian rationalization combined with the deplorable misogyny in all the major cultures of that time led to a negative and unhealthy attitude to sexual behavior and especially to the subsidiary role assigned to women in the church.

That situation has not changed. When Pope Francis convened an important international synod last February to make recommendations on how best to deal with the ongoing crisis related to sexual abuse by clergy, he invited a few hundred aging church leaders – all male – to the Vatican to deliberate on these crucial matters.

From a church with over a billion members not even one woman or young person voted on the final recommendations. Hardly an adequate response in 2019 to dealing with the biggest crisis in the church since the Reformation 500 years ago.

The Second Vatican Council convened by the last great pope, John XX111, attempted to deal with the clericalist culture by stressing that all church leaders at every level are meant to be servants of the people and certainly not lording it over them. The Council pronounced that the church should always be seen as consisting of its full membership, the people of God, with the mysterious Spirit inspiring lay and cleric alike, without regard to human pecking order. Surely Beginners’ Theology 101!

Unfortunately, after the Council ended in 1965 the caste system re-asserted itself. There was little change in the blatant misogyny, the cult of secrecy within the clerical club and the institution-wide sexual repression.

Starting about 50 years ago, the pandemic of sexual abuse by many priests and Brothers and some nuns was gradually revealed in all its enormity. People were shocked that widespread maltreatment of children by men wearing Roman collars and by women displaying crucifixes was not only tolerated by church authorities, but these predators, instead of being dismissed or reported to the civic authorities, often were just transferred to a different parish where they inevitably found new victims.

Pope Benedict pointed the finger of blame for the sex abuse crisis at the new liberal ideas about sexuality that gained provenance in the 1960’s. Other conservative clerics blamed the Western culture sympathetic to the gay lifestyle as the culprit.

Most commentators agreed that clericalism, which encourages people to view priests and other church dignitaries as different and exempt from the rules and consequences that apply to everyone else, is the core problem leading directly to the deep crisis.

Commenting on a White Paper titled “Confronting the Systemic Dysfunction of Clericalism” prepared by the Association of Catholic Priests in the United States, Cardinal Cupich from Chicago described the damning research findings as “a catalogue of horrors, chronicling imperial pronouncements, putdowns, claims of privilege, entitlements and exemptions from accountability .”

The pope and the cardinals, bishops and priests still speak for the church on all matters of religion or morality. The hopes of many progressive theologians during Vatican Two and since that the life experiences and spiritual insights of “ordinary” people would be valued and incorporated into church thinking has not happened.

Despite all the heartbreak caused by clericalism, the congregation in the pews is still not heeded. Sadly, the traditional establishment built around an elite clerical class continues to call the shots in the Catholic Church.

 

By Gary OShea at wemustbetalking.blogspot.com

 

Thomas Aquinas, the famous Dominican priest and theologian, promoted natural law as a sound basis for ethical teaching. This approach followed the great Greek thinkers and in particular Aristotle who used human reason alone to deduce binding rules of moral behavior.

Major problems have arisen as a result of the limitations of this natural law thinking when dealing with sexual morality. It was central to Pope Paul V1’s controversial 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae which banned the use of condoms or the contraceptive pill even for married Catholics, basically because, following Aquinas’ model, the moral order dictates that one may not stymie or interfere with the natural procreative purpose of sex.

 This  papal edict was disregarded by almost 90% of Catholic couples as impractical. It has the distinction of being the first Vatican encyclical honored, in Shakespeare’s words far “more in the breach than in the observance.”

In the late sixties – at the time of the pope’s letter – the prevailing culture was hostile to gays. Queers were often dismissed as dysfunctional deviants, stigmatized as engaging in aberrant behavior which disobeyed the laws of nature.

 Mainstream Christian teaching condemned homosexual  acts as a clear breach of natural law and thus morally wrong.

Since the 1970’s societal attitudes to gays have changed dramatically. Most Western countries now propound the humanist belief system that eschews judging the sexual behavior of others and  is comfortable with the philosophy of live and let live.

The Pew Research Center’s 2013 Global Attitudes Survey finds “broad acceptance of homosexuality in North America, the European Union and much of Latin America.” In many countries, including the United States and Ireland, gay marriage is now accorded the same protections and legal standing as male-female unions.

Sociologists are amazed by the speed of this massive change in attitude across the western world. It is correctly seen as a major paradigm shift in a short time frame from ignorance and intolerance of homosexuality to widespread acceptance of what is now often spoken of in terms of a different lifestyle.

The Christian churches in Europe and the United States face a major dilemma. Should they go with the new spirit of tolerance or  revert to the old sermons that reflect the outright condemnation of homosexuality as an abomination, a viewpoint that is asserted in the books of Genesis and Leviticus as well as in the harsh epistolary reflections on same-sex relationships by the apostle, Paul?

Many theologians and biblical scholars point out that, whatever about the validity of assertions of divine inspiration of the Old and New Testaments, all the books of both represent the thinking of the historical era when they were written with authors who reflect the beliefs and prejudices of their time.

True to this perspective, the Bible contains prohibitions against eating shell fish and has strange injunctions ordering the stoning of adulterers as well as those who work on the Sabbath, not to mention mandating the same treatment for awkward and disobedient children. And much more of the same!

Clearly these were tribal rules designed to deal with real situations thousands of years ago. It is close to blasphemous to suggest any divine input in such writings. Also, while Paul of Tarsus was fluent in advising Christians, especially women, on sexual matters, Christ had little to say about these issues. There is no record in the gospels of him even commenting on same-sex romantic behavior, suggesting strongly that it didn’t figure prominently in his sermons.

The Catholic Church responds to the new perspectives on the gay lifestyle by supporting laws that ban discrimination and by affirming the rights of homosexuals to a full social life free of any discrimination. However, the Vatican also asserts that same-sex intimate behavior is “intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to natural law.” It is a very tall order for a gay person to establish a positive relationship with a powerful institution that  tells homosexuals, male and female, that they are loved but are also objectively disordered.

Some prominent conservative leaders in the church point to the prevalence of gays in the priesthood as the main reason for the clerical abuse crisis. This reasoning, based on an unfounded vision of  out-of-control gay clerics with unnatural tendencies, is vehemently opposed by most commentators who point to clericalism, a hierarchical system that gives excessive and undue power to men wearing Roman collars, as the systemic root of the problem. The power of the clerical garb gave these immature men permission to act out their corrupt and evil fantasies.

Recent disturbing pronouncements from the highest levels in Rome about admission criteria to seminaries suggest that openly gay candidates are too risky for ordination and should be excluded. Advocates for a non-judgmental church, with the principles set down in the Sermon on the Mount as their guide, fear that gays are being scapegoated again. It is indeed inviting to point the guilty finger at queers and load the blame for the worst and most damaging church crisis since the Reformation on to their shoulders.

It should be noted that Cardinal Reinhart Marx, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, stated in an important interview last year that blessing of same-sex unions is allowed in German Catholic churches. Some Austrian dioceses follow the same protocol.

 Note to Cardinal Dolan: If it is OK in Germany why not in New York where so many wonderful gay couples live, most of whom, unfortunately, feel alienated from the Catholic Church?

Protestant churches have similar internal differences about this thorny moral issue which can be appropriately seen as pitting tradition against modernity. Many are comfortable with the natural law argument and preach strongly against any diminution of the traditional Christian condemnatory stance.

 They bolster their position by pointing to the biblical story about  the denunciation of the sexual sins in Sodom described in Genesis as clear proof of God’s condemnation.

As long ago as 1963 the Quakers in England, who were very prescient in their analysis of the human issues involved, recognized the authenticity of same-sex relationships. The United Church of Christ celebrates gay marriage while some Anglicans and Lutherans provide a formal wedding blessing. The United Methodist Church elected a lesbian bishop in 2016, but two years later the Council of Bishops reversed the church’s liberal policy and today their official position opposes same-sex marriage and the ordination of openly-gay  clergy.

Finally a word about Sodom which has come to represent the most glaring example in literature of lecherous debauchery because of the shameless sexual behavior associated with the biblical story about that ancient city. Many erudite modern scholars say that the Sodom message is not primarily about sexual depravity. They argue, based mainly on  comments in later books of the Bible, that the  Genesis authors wanted to convey that the worst sins that were committed in their powerful story reflected the shoddy welcome shown to the visitors in a Hebrew culture where generous and open hospitality was considered a paramount virtue.

 

On February 10th, 2013, Pope Benedict shocked the world with his announcement that he would step down from the papacy at the end of that month. He promised that his contribution to the church in retirement would be “a life dedicated to contemplation and prayer.”

 

He chose rooms in the Vatican for his domicile and announced that his title would remain Pope followed by the descriptor emeritus. He continues to wear the pectoral cross and the white garments which are seen for centuries as part of the papal regalia, and he is comfortable being addressed as Your Holiness.

 

This rather haughty behavior raised hackles in many places with Diarmaid McCulloch, the renowned professor of Church history in Oxford, predicting ominously that “two popes is a recipe for schism.”

 

Francis, true to his belief in a modest lifestyle, lives in Casta Santa Maria, a guesthouse for visiting clergy where he eats in a self-service cafeteria and gets his coffee from a coin-operated machine.

 

In February Francis called together in Rome the heads of all the national bishops’ conferences and leaders of religious orders to deliberate on the awful abuse of children by ordained clergy. This gathering was strongly and appropriately criticized by progressive Catholics because very few women or lay people participated.

 

However, it was an unprecedented and serious effort, unmatched by any of Francis’ predecessors, to come to terms with what is undoubtedly the biggest crisis in the Catholic church since the Reformation 500 years ago. The deliberations extended over four days, and  since its conclusion Francis has unveiled the first church law which mandates that all  allegations of sexual abuse must be reported to the top members of the local hierarchy.

 

A few months after the conclave ended Benedict published a long article in a conservative German magazine placing the blame for the sex abuse crisis on the liberal culture of the 1960’s and certain changes in church thinking evident in the Second Vatican Council. He pointed his finger of rebuke at the anything-goes liberal sexual culture of those years for releasing the demons of pedophilia.

 

The former pontiff decries the move away from theology based on natural law and strict adherence to biblical rules in favor of a situational approach where what is right and wrong depends on the circumstances of each case. This moral  relativism, in his opinion, led to faulty moral reasoning and confusion, even in the Vatican.

 

The longstanding maxim of church governance recited – often in Latin – in every presbytery and seminary, Roma locuta est; causa finita est (Rome has spoken – end of discussion!) no longer carries weight because the two popes and their followers preach different sermons, one legalistic and highlighting sin and possible damnation, the other far more anchored on actual human dilemmas and focusing on mercy and compassion, especially in dealing with the poor.

 

In the area of sexual ethics which so often engage the celibate moralists in the Vatican, the liberal wing led by Francis advocate for allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion while the traditionalists consider that approach an abandonment of a sacred biblical principle that precludes adulterers – their language – from participation in the Eucharist.

 

Conservatives blame the provenance of a gay lifestyle in seminaries as a major cause of the sex abuse crisis. 80% of the children abused are male so, they conclude, the abusers must belong to what they name disparagingly as the lavender mafia, active homosexuals in clerical robes. Blaming gays has a long  history among Catholics, but it is contradicted in this situation by most experts who argue convincingly that the clerical culture that approved excessive power for men wearing the Roman collar opened the door wide to all kinds of abuse, including sexual predation. In addition, they point out that young boys are more accessible than girls to corrupt priests and brothers.

 

The crisis predated the liberal sixties. In the 1950’s Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, a priest from the Archdiocese of Boston, wrote to his superiors and met  Pope Pius X11 warning about the widespread sexual abuse of minors by priests. He admonished bishops that re-assigning known pedophiles in the hope that they were cured by therapy was a terrible mistake.

 

 Fitzgerald referred to these wayward clerics as repugnant vipers and paid a deposit for a remote island in the Caribbean where he wanted to consign all predatory priests. The bishops weren’t ready for that isolationist approach sixty five years ago.

 

Benedict’s 5500 word letter portraying the church as a victim in an unfair and hostile world is not a new perspective. The former pontiff would prefer a smaller church with members committed to the traditional teachings that go back centuries, crowned by the belief in papal infallibility passed at the First Vatican Council in 1870 at a time when strong and dominant leaders were greatly admired throughout Europe.

 

On the other hand, Francis’ big tent philosophy sees the church at its best comforting the poor, welcoming the refugees and opening the door to waverers. He has proclaimed – no doubt with the southern American border in mind – that building walls to keep people out is unchristian.

 

There should be no problem with theologians presenting scholarly disquisitions that disagree with the prevailing wisdom in the Vatican. However, when a former pope sets down a detailed analysis, a parallel and contradictory story to the reigning pontiff’s, on the biggest conundrum facing the church, we are looking at a truly scandalous situation. Which one of the popes should people believe?

 

Church rules regarding the behavior of a retired bishop in dealing with his successor are instructive and explicit: deference to the new appointee guided by a spirit of generous co-operation. It seems that Benedict doesn’t believe that this mandated behavior for retiring bishops applies to popes.

 

Francis is under open attack from arch-conservative Catholics led by Cardinal Burke, former archbishop of St. Louis, who was photographed wearing a tee shirt emblazoned with the message: Benedict is my pope. These hostile actions came to a head last summer while Francis was visiting Ireland. Archbishop Vigano, a former papal nuncio to Washington, issued a letter accusing the pope of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse and urging him to resign.

 

 These dissidents, who include Steve Bannon, stalwart promoter of anti-immigrant  balderdash, are shocked to see him kissing the feet of Muslims at a Vatican ritual, and they wince at his fierce critiques of modern capitalism, a system which often shows scant regard for workers’ dignity.

 

Archbishop Ganswein, Benedict’s right hand man and a very powerful Vatican functionary, asserted in 2016 that the two men are, in his words, really part of the “one expanded papacy”, one “active” and one “contemplative.”Francis rejected the idea out of hand, but can anyone imagine a previous pope having to deal with such impudence from a senior prelate.

 

Natalie Imperatori-Lee, a professor of theology in Manhattan College in the Bronx, warns Benedict about his inappropriate behavior, telling him that he needs “to practice a ministry of silence. To continue to speak out is to flirt with schism. Let the pope be pope.” Indeed!

 

Gerry OShea blogs at  wemustbetalking.com

Fr. Daniel O’Leary was born in the village of Rathmore County Kerry, close to the Cork border, in 1937. He died in January of this year after a short battle with cancer.

Fr. Donal, as he was called by his friends, served as a parish priest in the Diocese of Leeds in England  for the first thirty years of his ministry. After that he worked for  two decades teaching theology in St. Mary’s University College in London.

He authored a dozen books on spirituality and was well-known as a leader of parish and diocesan  retreats. He was a regular columnist in the prestigious international Catholic  news weekly, The Tablet.

In his final column for that publication he stated that he wanted to be “free of fear and bitterness and full of love and desire as I step up for the final inspection.”  He goes on to argue in the major theme of his parting essay that forced clerical celibacy is “a kind of sin, an assault against nature and God’s will.”

Priests married and lived normal sexual lives until the Second Lateran Council in 1139. The change at that time seems to have been caused by economic considerations resulting from family members’ claims to inherit church property  after the priest’s death.

The creation story in the Book of Genesis is very clear about male and female joining together to propagate the human race. God’s words are recounted as a statement of incontrovertible principle: It is not good for man to be alone.

This core foundational wisdom affirming the complementarity of the two sexes is certainly not confined to the Judaeo-Christian tradition. For instance, the same message is conveyed powerfully in the famous two-faced statue with carved hands joined from the back and front on Boa Island on Loch Erne, close to Enniskillen in Northern Ireland.

This is a fine relic, a message from pre-Christian times of the wise psychological insight that balance is crucial in every positive life force, between male and female, goddess and god, yin and yang – each one needing the other for a full productive life.

The Catholic Church – alone among the main Christian denominations – stipulates that its priests must commit at ordination to a life without sex which is a part of normal intimate female companionship. It is a heavy and unreasonable burden imposed on young men who are usually in their mid twenties when they are ordained.

Sigmund Freud points out that the sexual drive to procreate is second only to self-preservation in the human psyche. The young priest faces fifty or more years of daily struggles to honor his solemn pledge to eschew any sexual contact with a woman. A tall order for many men!

Some priests maintain their commitment to their promise at ordination, but others, as many as 40%, either leave the priesthood to get married or cultivate  a  discreet sexual relationship  with  a woman while continuing in their ministry.

Loneliness is a major problem faced by men who are compelled to avoid the safe haven of sharing their intimate feelings with a partner who understands and relates to their deepest human challenges and frustrations.

Fr. O’Leary is very clear about the serious damage this lack of female intimacy causes: “I am just pointing out that one of the fall-outs of mandatory celibacy is the violence it does to a priest’s humanity and the wounds it leaves on his ministry.”

He also argues that it is very difficult to maintain a sense of personal authenticity when one is struggling to control demanding sexual and emotional drives while pretending to parishioners that all is well with the world.

He is at one with Pope Francis in condemning clericalism which sets  men wearing the Roman collar apart from the wider faith community and heightens the sense of isolation felt by many priests. In O’Leary’s words clericalism “keeps vibrant, abundant life at bay; it quarantines us priests for life from the personal and communal expression of healing and the lovely grace of tenderness.”

The distinguished Kerry man reflects on the inadequate seminary training he received in All Hallows College in Dublin where falling in love was viewed as the cancer to be avoided at all costs; prayer and confession were recommended as the cures.

His own words in recalling those seminary days are very poignant and powerful, leading to an unhealthy and upside-down spirituality: “Emotion was the threat; detachment was the safeguard; becoming too human was the risk.”

The Vatican shows no sign of reverting back to the church rules during the early centuries of the church. Pope Francis recently referred approvingly to the opinion of his predecessor from the sixties, Paul V1, who said that he felt so strongly about maintaining the status quo in this area that he would rather give his life than to change the celibacy law for priests.

It is important to note that the Kerry theologian’s  cri de coeur does not mention the clerical sexual abuse crisis that continues to haunt the Catholic church. That provides an additional strong argument for seriously reviewing the prohibition imposed at ordination, but O’Leary’s entire focus and the ground for his heartfelt plea for change are based on the stultifying and, in his opinion, sinful effects that compulsory celibacy have on the spiritual and emotional development of his fellow-priests.

Is anyone in the hierarchy heeding the profound final love letter written by the late Daniel O’Leary?

 

Capitalism has lost its appeal for many young people. In a recent poll,  51% of Americans aged from 18 to 29 stated that they feel more positive about socialism with just 45% affirming the capitalist system. This represents a hefty 12% decline in just two years.

What has caused this dramatic  change? A few statistics that indicate serious dissatisfaction with the status quo may give some indication of the issues involved. Since 1989 the working class share of total income in America has declined from 45% to 27%. Four out of ten citizens complain that they don’t have the means to pay an emergency bill of just $400. Only 14% of private sector workers have access to paid family leave.

Meanwhile the rich have done very well. There are more millionaires and billionaires than ever before in the United States. The stock market is flying, benefiting mainly the richest 10% who own 80% of the shares. Sales of luxury boats and cars have never been more ebullient.

With big money in America comes an accretion of political power. Nobody claims that the worker living from week to week has the same political clout as the millionaire. Relatively small groups with deep pockets like the National Rifle Association  get their way in Washington even when a clear majority opposes their agenda.

There is an important moral dimension to how the wealth of a country is distributed. Reinhold Niebuhr, the great New York Protestant theologian of the last century, argued that Christians have a clear moral obligation to pursue justice and “to prevent the strong from consuming the weak.”

With, for example, a recent study revealing that 25% of children in Texas live in demeaning poverty, Niebuhr’s admonition surely applies in modern America.

The Catholic tradition going back to Thomas Aquinas always asks about “the common good” as distinct from individual profit or private gain in assessing any political or economic situation. Francis, the pope of the poor, has spoken repeatedly in the strongest terms against a capitalist system that he sees as blind to the plight of people at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Moralists led by Pope Francis condemn the heightened inequality and crass treatment of the poor and refugees. The poet William  Wordsworth’s words come to mind when the American Government approves of the separation of young children from their parents and   closes our ports to strangers in dire need: “We have given our hearts away – a sordid boon.”

A few years ago the billionaire Warren Buffett urged the lawmakers in Washington to stop coddling the super rich, pointing out that his secretary is compelled to pay a higher percentage of her taxable income to the IRS than he does. Young people trying to deal with their monthly bills as well as paying their taxes are angered by unfair situations like this, and in the midterm elections when Republicans lost a massive forty seats in the House their voices were clearly heard.

The top 1% of earners and the big corporations hire teams of accountants to tease out every dubious deduction to reduce their payments to the local and federal treasuries.

The last Trump budget gave massive tax breaks to the super rich and big corporations. Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, assured people that these giveaways wouldn’t  impact the national debt, but economists now tell us that it has added about two trillion to the bill that future generations will have to pay.

Meanwhile the Internal Revenue Service enforcement division was reduced by a third over the last eight years. One IRS estimate claims that  businesses skip paying their tab to Washington to the tune of about 125 billion dollars annually – enough to finance the departments of State, Energy and Homeland Security. Audits of people in the top 1%, the most likely group to misreport income, have dropped from 8% in 2011 to 2.5% last year.

Congresswoman Alexandria  Ocasio-Cortez proposes a Wealth Tax on big earners. She suggests a top rate of 70% on taxable income over 10 million dollars. The current marginal rate is fixed at 37%. Predictably this proposed new high rate has drawn harsh criticism from conservatives who conveniently forget that under President Eisenhower, the Republican president in the 1950’s, the top marginal rate hovered around 90%.

Bill Gates, until recently the richest man in the world, endorses the supposedly socialist proposition of levying higher taxes on wealthy people, but he disagrees with Cortez on how to achieve this. Instead of new taxes on income, he argues convincingly that the focus should be on upping the contributions from levies on Estates and Capital and Social Security.

Liability for Estate or Inheritance Taxes was greatly reduced in recent years thanks to a masterful propaganda assault on what the so-called reformers successfully labeled a “death tax.” The amount exempted has now been raised to 5.6 million dollars  for individuals who die and double that figure for couples. Very few would argue against excluding the first few hundred thousand dollars from liability for this Estate tax, but the changes in recent times are a major boon for the children of millionaires and a serious loss to the treasury.

The Social Security Trust Fund is heading for insolvency in sixteen years. At present the 6.2% levy on all income ends at $132,900. If this limit was eliminated and all income was subject to this tax, the Trust Fund would be clear until the next century. There are hearings currently scheduled for a Bill in Congress that would extend the Social Security levy to all income in excess of $400,000.

The Wealth Tax issue has come very much to the fore in France where President Macron  rescinded this tax on the wealthy  when he took over as president a few years ago. He also reduced some benefits that especially hurt low-paid workers and retirees. The Yellow Vest movement  is seen as a response to these changes, and one of their main demands continues to be a restoration of the Wealth Tax.

After the sad burning of Notre Dame Cathedral Macron promised it would be rebuilt within five years. Billionaire Francois  Pinault  pledged 100 million euros to the renewal project, only to have Bernard Arnault, France’s richest man, double that amount as his contribution to the restoration.

The workers wearing yellow vests continued their protests proclaiming that the generosity of the big contributors only strengthened their case for a Wealth Tax. One of the leaders mocking the Trickle Down Theory, which underpins Macron’s economic policies, wondered if any of the Arnault or Pinault  billions would find their way to citizens in need.

Another memorable protest  sign in Paris recalled Victor Hugo’s famous novel: “Everything for Notre Dame but nothing for Les Miserabiles.”

Back to the United States where many young  people especially are questioning the economic system that has spawned grossly unequal  policies leading to the disgraceful situation where many people do not even have health insurance. Some are calling themselves socialists but this movement is better understood as a loud call for radical changes in the present capitalist system.

These young people made a big statement in the midterm elections and they are likely to do so even more forcibly in November 2020.