Posted on 12/19/2008 9:44:31 AM PST by NYer
The New York Times is criticizing Ave Maria Mutual Funds, whose Web site promises “smart investing and Catholic values.”
Now, I'm not getting into the merits of the company which I don't know. I don't have the money to do much investing anyway. But the Times Editorial Staff used a little story about Ave Maria as a jumping off point to make a political point about the Church.
Ave Maria says it is designed for people who want to put their money “in companies that do not violate core teachings of the Catholic Church.” It says it screens companies using moral guidelines established by its “Catholic Advisory Board,” which includes such prominent Catholics as Thomas Monaghan, founder of the Domino’s pizza chain, and the columnist Phyllis Schlafly.Because you know that no Catholic who's pro-life cares at all about poverty. And Jesus' views on the value of life are rather murky when compared to his thesis on how government programs are the key to solving the problems of poverty.
Ave Maria, whose logo is a cross and open book within a Gothic window, conveys the implicit certainty that its vision of Catholic teaching is the correct one, that it has not misstepped in treading between God and Mammon. But anyone familiar with church politics will see that it stands starkly on one side of the old, deep ideological fault line that divides the church’s conservative and liberal wings.
To oversimplify, one side focuses its moral energies on abortion, contraception and other issues of sexual morality. The other is more likely also to weigh in on issues like poverty, war, nonviolence and social justice, topics on which Jesus Christ’s scriptural record is more explicit.
One person who bestrode these conflicts with stalwart consistency was Pope John Paul II. He is remembered as a staunch and eloquent defender of church teachings against abortion, contraception and euthanasia. But he did so while broadly proclaiming the sanctity of life and the value of peace. He condemned the Iraq war in 2003 as unjustified, fiercely defended workers against capitalism’s excesses, and deplored the death penalty, writing in a 1995 encyclical that circumstances under which capital punishment could be justified were all but nonexistent.Funny that the Times is all of a sudden praising John Paul II. This is the same paper that published Times columnist Bill Keller who wrote of John Paul II: "He has replicated something very like the old Communist Party in his church...Karol Wojtyla has shaped a hierarchy that is intolerant of dissent, unaccountable to its members, secretive in the extreme and willfully clueless about how people live."
Ave Maria hews to a far narrower, unmistakably conservative Catholic outlook. A prime objective, explicitly promised, is not to subsidize sexual indecency. Scan its investor materials and you will not find companies like Playboy Enterprises or firms that donate to Planned Parenthood or bestow health benefits on same-sex couples.
But you will find United Technologies, which makes Blackhawk helicopters; General Dynamics, builder of Abrams battle tanks and the Stryker combat vehicle; the junk-food giant ConAgra; Exxon Mobil; Halliburton; and Smith & Wesson, one of the largest weapons manufacturers in the world. (Here is a helpful Q. from Smith & Wesson’s “Investor FAQ” Web page: “Does Smith & Wesson still make the 44 Magnum used in the ‘Dirty Harry’ films? Yes, that gun is the Model 29.”)
Many Catholics will applaud this corporate lineup. Others will blanch. As always, they should read the prospectus carefully before they invest or send money.
Ping!
Wow so the NY Times read on Catholic theology would seem to indicate that, for example, service in the armed forces of the United States is incompatible with Catholic doctrine? I mean if defense contractors are taboo then surely directly serving in the army would be as well?
We pretty much cleared that up in the first century OK?
And “junk food giant ConAgra”? What exactly is the problem here?
Exxon-Mobil? Huh?
I guess any corporation that is on the leftist bugaboo list should ipso facto make it anathema to Catholics?
Is it OK to work for those companies? I guess not.
Exellent piece, NYer.
It sums up the constant lie that is the mainstream (aka leftist) media.
Considering the majority of officers in the USMC are Catholic, including one of my brothers, we'd be SOL without Catholics who are willing to lay down their lives for freedom. There are many men and women of other faiths willing to do the same, and in no way would any of us ever diminish their service, but for some reason, Catholics are singled out.
junk food giant ConAgra
ConAgra deals in a lot more than junk food and I have a very Catholic cousin who used to work for them. Something to do with chicken.
THe NY Slimes are playing really dirty pool here. I mean really dirty. They line themselves up with the arm of the Church that wants to "modernize" and just don't get that they are the ones that are wrong.
"legitimate defence can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another's life, the common good of the family or of the State".I guess they missed that part.
The Holy Father, like any sane person, desired peace. He was, however, a man who lived through the Nazi and communist invasions of Poland. He understood well that peace should not be at all cost.
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