Madam, - Phillip Booth and Peter Nolan (Opinion & Analysis, July 3rd) are critical of Fr Tony Flannery's interpretation of the social message of the gospel and suggest that he and his colleagues in the church are anti-capitalist. In their treatment of the issues of wealth and tax, they defend the market economy and conclude that "the social gospel is not political".
And on this page recently, the editor of the Irish Catholic, in a similarly extraordinary statement on the subject, wrote that Fr Flannery should "leave the economics to the economists". Both commentaries are fundamentally flawed as the social gospel is both intensely political and profoundly linked to economics.
The teachings of Jesus are loaded with messages of political and socio-economic justice that have inspired countless philosophers, ethicists, jurists, economists and religious and political leaders. Augustine, Aquinas, Kant, Romero and our own Daniel O'Connell are but a few of the many inspired by the economic justice teachings of the synoptic gospels.
St Luke, in particular, exposes the dangers of wealth accumulation on more than one occasion. Doctrines and principles such as subsidiarity, redistribution, social protection, solidarity and equity are clearly discernible in the Lucan texts and have had a telling influence on public policy legislation throughout the world in favour of poor.
Were economics to be left solely to economists, we would be even more exposed to the dangers of inequitable wealth accumulation than we are already. Many mainstream politicians and economists simply have not recognised vulnerability as a relationship that is underpinned by socio-economic and political power and continue to describe it as the result of "market forces". So Tony Flannery has every right and reason to teach the political and socio-economic messages of the gospels.
Reductionist arguments that cast this as a Marxist against capitalist discourse are of little value. Prof Booth and Mr Nolan quote Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarumfor their anti-socialist purposes. But it was John XXIII's Mater et Magitrathat took Leo's thoughts to a bolder political plane: "The economic prosperity of a nation is not so much its total assets, in terms of wealth and property, as the equitable division and distribution of this wealth."
- Yours, etc,
KARL DEERING, Underhill Road, London SE22.
Madam, - Fr Seán Fagan (July 3rd) describes Pope Benedict's book Jesus of Nazareth"enlightening and inspiring, a pleasure to read".
Yes, indeed. But the book is more than that. Its profound insights, though couched in relatively simple, direct language, demand a continuing response from the reader. Jesus of Nazarethis one of those rare seminal works that are not to be skimmed or speed-read. It needs to be taken slowly, reflectively and prayerfully.
I would respectfully suggest that Fr Fagan re-read the book, and then he may well find for himself the answers to some if not all of the questions he puts to Pope Benedict.
- Yours, etc,
SEÁN MAC CÁRTHAIGH, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.