I will no doubt catch a lot of grief from what I am about to say. People will go about writing me off as a crank, or worse. But in the great venue of life, I have my right to express my opinion just as much as the next man. And that is all it is – an opinion. I hope that I am wrong.

We are not going to solve the debt problem. This country is headed down the tubes. There is no solution that either Democrat or Republican can offer that will solve the problem we are facing.

The Lord God does not take kindly to nor tolerate the worship of idols in His presence. Observe the false god Dagon placed in front of the Ark of the Covenant. (1 Sam. 5: 1-4). Observe that the next morning, the false god lies in the dust where all such characters belong. And note what the dumb Philistines do. They place it back on its pedestal. Next morning, they find it not only in the dust, but cut into pieces. Then the message got through to their thick, idol-worshiping skulls. To have an idol in the presence of the Lord (for the Lord Himself was present in the Ark in a special way) is a grave insult to His majesty and glory.

Our Lord will forgive much from those who know little, but to those who have been given much, much is expected. Therefore, since our country claims to have been founded as a “Christian nation,” there is a great expectation that we would behave as such. And certainly on this list of behaviors should be the refusal of those who bear the name of Christ to have idols in their life. That is certainly bad enough, but the sin of idolatry is fourfold when it is promoted and endorsed by those in the government who are supposed to rule in God’s stead. (Rom. 13: 1-5). With the great number of churches in our country, with access to the Bible and the freedom to read its sacred pages, there is simply no excuse for the idol worship in which this country is engaged.

Idol worship? What are you talking about, Ed?

The worship of things. Things which have taken the place of God in our lives and which are promoted by the government as being a “good” when they are in fact, quite evil. When I survey what is happening in this country, I can only believe that God is tearing down the idols in our land, and will not suffer them to survive unless they are returned to their rightful place.

The first of these idols is money. It is used to buy all the other little idols we feel we just cannot do without, because they, and the happiness we think they can buy us, are the true gods of our lives.

When we base the election of our politicians not on whether they will immediately make war upon Roe v. Wade and end the holocaust of the unborn, but rather upon promises to make us richer by improving our economy, lowering our taxes, and providing us with a stimulated economy and jobs, we are worshiping money as an idol. The issue of abortion, the outright murder of the unborn in the name of personal freedom, should be the top priority on the list of any “Christian Nation.” Instead, it is hardly mentioned anymore during the election cycle. It has become unimportant to us as a people. Ho hum. Another day, another 4,000 slaughtered children. Now let’s get busy and elect someone who will turn around this sour economy and make us rich. That’s what really matters!

The overarching theme of this nation is the making of money. Our lives revolve around getting it, getting more of it, and protecting it when we get it. In our so called “Christian Nation,” a recent survey found that Evangelicals give just over 4% of their income to their assemblies. And Catholics? Those who belong to the “true Church?”

They give less than 1%!!

Which says to me that money is more important to them than obedience to the Sacred Scriptures which calls for the giving of the tithe to run God’s Kingdom here on earth. The biblical tithe is not a mandate, but what it does is to show the condition of one’s heart. Do I trust God and therefore am willing to give abundantly, or do I trust those dollar bills in my wallet and will not relinquish them, even though I might have a net worth of hundreds of thousands of dollars set aside, supposedly for my old age?

Our airwaves are filled with commercials huckstering us to buy gold to make money, to invest in stocks to make money, and to horde that money so as to make certain a future which our Lord has told us is uncertain at best. We have lost touch with the teachings of the Church and are committing the sin of idolatry. Something other than God has become our source of happiness, our protection in life, and that which we live for. Let us look at the written record from those who came before us:

St. Ambose (De Nabuthe, c.12, n.53, cited in Populorum Progressio of Paul VI): “You are not making a gift of your possessions to poor persons. You are handing over to them what is theirs. For what has been given in common for the use of all, you have arrogated to yourself. The world is given to all, and not only to the rich.”

St. John Chrysostom (Hom. in Lazaro 2,5, cited in CCC 2446): “Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs.”

St. Gregory the Great (Regula Pastoralis 3,21, cited in CCC 2446): “When we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs, not ours. More than performing works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice.”

The Decretals (Dist. XLVII, cited in ST II-II, q.66, a.3, obj 2): “It is no less a crime to take from him that has, than to refuse to succor the needy when you can and are well off.”

St. Ambrose (cited in ST II-II, q.66, a.6): “It is the hungry man’s bread that you withhold, the naked man’s cloak that you store away, the money that you bury in the earth is the price of the poor man’s ransom and freedom.”

From the Catena Aurea
St. Gregory the Great: “For if everyone receiving what is sufficient for his own necessity would leave what remains to the needy, there would be no rich or poor.”

St. Basil: “Are not thou then a robber, for counting as thine own what thou hast receivest to distribute? It is the bread of the famished which thou receivest, the garment of the naked which thou hoardest in thy chest, the shoe of the barefooted which rots in thy possessions, the money of the pennyless which thou hast buried in the earth. Wherefore then dost thou injure so many to whom thou mightiest be a benefactor.”

St. Bede: “He then who wishes to be rich toward God, will not lay up treasures for himself, but distribute his possessions to the poor.”

From the Magisterium
First, note that St. Gregory the Great spoke with the authority of the ordinary Magisterium, so his quotations above should be reviewed. Also, consider that the first quotation from St. Ambrose was taken from an encyclical letter by Paul VI.

Pope Leo XII (encyclical letter Rerum Novarum, 1891): “Every person has by nature the right to possess property as his or her own […] But if the question be asked: How must one’s possessions be used?, the Church replies without hesitation in the words of St. Thomas Aquinas:

‘One should not consider one’s material possessions as one’s own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when other are in need.’ […] True, no one is commanded to distribute to others that which is required for one’s own needs and those of one’s household; nor even to give away what is reasonably required to keep up becomingly one’s condition in life. […] But when what necessity demands has been supplied and one’s standing fairly provided for, it becomes a duty to give to the needy out of what remains over.”

Do you see the common theme here? The world and its goods are a gift, not just to a privileged 1% of the world, but to all mankind. Every man should own his own property and have that property bring in his daily bread for him and his family. Yet to suggest this to any of the right-wing radio pundits of this country would be to invite one’s self to be called a Communist, as Glenn Beck said about the saintly Dorothy Day.

I challenge Mr. Beck and anyone else to tell me why it is right that a man has to live in a $70 million dollar mansion, have a yacht in the canal outside that house, and drive the newest of cars when 10 blocks away, an elderly woman lives in squalor, no family to care for her, and worries if she will be able to buy the medicine she needs. You can see this in West Palm Beach, block after block. Ten blocks from stores selling $1,500 dollar shoes are children who have no shoes.

The high priest of this idolatry, Rush Limbaugh, was heard one day to clarify this attitude on his show, stating that the purpose of life is the acquisition of things and the bettering of one’s life. That credo should be printed on every dollar bill that comes by the billions out of the treasury and into our pockets. It is truly what life in America has turned into. It is the Capitalist dream.

For money, justice is perverted and the rich buy their way out of their crimes. Lawyers do not seek to find the truth, but seek to find a way to defend their rich clients and score a big payday.

For money, pharmaceutical corporations manufacture questionable drugs that have killed scores of people. They also work to distort the facts about natural and holistic cures which would wreck their profit margins if known about.

For money, bribes abound in Washington DC like fleas on a sick old dog. Imagining that your senator or congressman has your best interests at heart is a fool’s exercise.

For money, pornographers are allowed to wreck lives and destroy the moral fabric of this country.

For money, abortionists kill the innocent unborn every day, demanding cash for their grisly work so that they can hide their income from the government.

But lest you think that I am only going to excoriate the money worshipers on the right, the leftists are every bit as bad. You see, once the shiftless and lazy crowd realized they could pick my pockets legitimately, with the full faith and support of the government goons behind them, they lined up outside the halls of government and went on a sustained whine until they got what they wanted – an easy life with no need to work or be responsible. You think I’m kidding? A recent survey of welfare credit cards being used in California turned up misuse of these funds that is staggering. As a working man, I can’t afford vacations. I worked 18 hard years and never took a traveling vacation from my house because I couldn’t afford it. Yet the debit cards given to welfare recipients in this country are routinely used for trips to Hawaii, Las Vegas, in liquor stores, and to buy electronics. Liberals cannot imagine that the government shouldn’t just hand out money hand over fist to anyone with a sad story and a line of bullshit a mile long. My next door neighbor’s daughter has four sons from four different fathers!!! And guess who is paying for them!! This is nothing more than stealing at the behest of the government, and it makes me damn mad!!

I could list many more evils being done in this country for the idolatrous love of money. We are a people who are afraid to live life as Christ told us to. We do not wish to do the things that our Lord commanded us to do because we have come to expect our money to make us comfortable in every way imaginable. The evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience are old fashioned. No one is listening to them anymore.

So when I hear the current debates, sharp disagreements, and rhetoric being spewed out regarding the current financial meltdown, I can only laugh. The idol worshipers are watching their monetary Dagon be thrown to the floor, and they don’t like it one little bit. Not trusting in the God Who can be trusted with all our needs, they run in fear to their elected representatives and scream at them, “Fix this!! Fix it now!! How dare you let our money wind up in this situation?” Monetary Dagon lies on his face, and his worshipers scream for him to be resurrected again and again.

How could it not wind up like this? For you see, every idol we worship will do to us what Baal did to his followers in 1Kings 18: 26 – 28. Those who follow the Baals offered to them always wind up slashing themselves with self-made knives. The alcoholic dies of cirrhosis. The homosexually impure get AIDS or some other terrible disease. Political ideologies like Socialism, Nazism, or Communism extract a dreadful toll from those who bow before their anti-Christian ideals. Whatever idol we worship, whatever we choose to replace God will turn on us with a vengeance, demanding our very life’s blood at the altar of such idol worship.

Our money has turned on us precisely because instead of using it to feed and clothe ourselves and then to bless the poor and the needy with the excess, we have made a god out of it, clutching it to our bosoms in a manner that should be reserved for our Lord. Money was never meant to be a god, only a means to bless ourselves and others. False gods always turn on their worshipers. Just because we are Americans does not grant us an exception from that rule. I believe we are watching the end of an empire, and precisely because our empire, like Rome of old, has been worshiping false gods for way too long. God grants mercy for us to turn from idols to Him. But there comes a time when the patience of God is exhausted. He destroys the idols that offend him and the people who have steadfastly refused to turn from them to the true and living God.

I believe that time is approaching.  America is not exempt from the chastizement of God.