As a kid who attended Catholic school from third through eighth grade, I stumbled repeatedly over processing problems with religion as taught by the Sisters of Charity (I have NO idea how they came up with that name).
To this day I'm still angry about a passage in the New Testament "Again I tell you it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." Various nuns at various times allowed me to assume that meant Gawd loved poor people (which explained why there were so many of us), except as it turned out that, as was true of so much else of the Catholicism the good sisters offered, was horse pucky at least in terms of the eye of the needle.
That I haven't attended Catholic school in almost sixty years may tell you a little bit more about the depth of my anger than I would like and suggests at least to me that there's more at stake than just a line in the New Testament. All of that is true, I fear, in spades, and very much a topic for another time.
I came across something called World Inequality Report the other day which made me think about Matthew and the Other Beatles, like Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, in terms of wealth management and who has what. This line jumped out at me: "The richest 10% of the global population currently takes 52% of global income, whereas the poorest half of the population earns 8.5% of it." And those same 10% own 70% of the wealth.
See, Virginia, there is such a thing as a free lunch. Would you like a napkin? It's nice to know none of those rich folk will be joining the rest of us in heaven, isn't it? Just keep telling yourself that until you believe it.
-bill kenny
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