From our friends at CEF in Rochester, N.Y.:

The Catholic Education Foundation, an organization committed to ensuring a bright and significant future for Catholic high schools in the United States, will be hosting its biennial, day-long celebration of Catholic secondary schools on March 25 in New York City. The theme of the event will be Catholic Education – Holistic Education: A Tribute to Pope John Paul II, Promoter of Catholic Schools. Presenters will include Sr. Mary Thomas, O.P., Principal, St. Cecilia Academy, Nashville; Dr. Michael Van Hecke & Dr. Andrew Seeley of the Catholic Textbook Project; Dr. Gerald Cattaro, Director, The Center for Catholic School Leadership and Faith-based Education at Fordham University, Dr. William Thierfelder, President at Belmont Abbey College; and Mr. & Mrs. Richard Hough. The cost for the day, including lunch, is $100.

Read more on Event: Catholic Education Foundation, March 25 in New York…

During my seminary days at Asbury Theological Seminary, Tony Campolo spoke at a chapel service and offered a litany of denunciations of greed and corporate America. However, one thing he said especially caught the attention of a professor of mine. During his talk, Campolo equated material poverty with spiritual righteousness. Later in the day during class, while the rest of the campus was still gushing over Campolo’s visit, the professor rebuked Campolo rather harshly. He said he stood with him until he started declaring the poor were righteous because of their poverty. We were of course reminded eloquently and emotionally that our righteousness was in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Read more on Material Poverty, Spiritual Poverty, and Tony Campolo…

Below is the full-length version of “The Rich Young Man: The Law Versus Privilege,” an essay published in the winter 2011 Religion & Liberty. John Kelly’s essay was shortened because of space limitations for the print issue. He was passionate about sharing the full version, which he edited himself for readers of the PowerBlog. Mr. Kelly, a financial advisor, also authored a piece in 2004 for Religion & Liberty titled “The Tithe: Land Rent to God.”

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THE RICH YOUNG MAN: THE LAW VERSUS PRIVILEGE

by John Kelly

As Jesus conducted his public ministry, he drew considerable crowds. Within the throngs were, of course, the peasants of the neighborhood, along with longer-term disciples. There were many who wished to see miracles, many who wished to hear his sayings of peace, love, hope and promise. There were those who wanted reinforcement of the Law and those who wished to see some of the Law abandoned. And within all these groups were many who were troubled by personal doubt.

Jesus spoke with these people, engaging them, answering their questions, asking them questions, all the while proclaiming the authority and the efficacy of the Law. He said, “Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish – but to complete them.” He then goes on – he’s trying to make sure his listeners understand: “In truth I tell you, till heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, not one little stroke, is to disappear from the Law until all its purpose is achieved.” (Matthew 5:17-18 – NJB)

Some of Jesus’ most engaging images come from these conversations. Rich and poor, titled and powerless, legalists and apostates, disciples and strangers all had encounters with Jesus that fleshed out for them his view of the Law. However, our lack of knowledge regarding the economic, political and cultural environment in which Jesus lived and preached sometimes hampers our understanding of his message.

One of the more famous of these encounters was with the rich young man. This story is found, in almost identical versions, at Matthew 19:16-22, Mark 10:17-22 and Luke 18:18-23. He approached Jesus and asked what was necessary to be saved. “Good Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replied that the young man should keep the commandments. “I have kept all these,” stated the rich young man, “What more do I need to do?” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go and sell your possessions and give the money to the poor … then come, follow me.” This was too much for the young man. Scripture says that he “went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth.”

This story seems too hard for most of us. What is fundamentally wrong with being rich? Preachers try to make sense of this passage by assuming that the rich young man was too materialistic, and that the story is a warning to us about that failing. That much may be true, however, that interpretation is about the young man’s reaction, not about Jesus’ words. Jesus instructed him to sell everything he had and give it to the poor. Why? Read more on The Rich Young Man: The Law Versus Privilege…

The always challenging Peter Berger has a fascinating post up on the history of Bad Boll Academy:

The Academy was to have two goals: to train the laity for service to society; and to be a place for free and open discussion about problems facing the society, especially between groups (such as management and labor) which did not normally meet under such conditions. This second goal was the most innovative. The Academy was not to be a place for evangelism. Nor was it to take positions of its own. That was its most interesting aspect. Mueller summed it up in the phrase describing the Academy as “forum, not factor.”

Mueller’s vision for the Academy is one that needs to be embraced by the Church today. This vision is one of the Church as a place where issues of social justice and economic policy are framed by a Christian moral vision and anthropology but where questions of prudential policy are left open. Sadly churches have often abandoned their role in preserving Christian liberty in favor of prophetic grandstanding. Berger rightly complains that, “The ascription of prophetic status to statements put out by committees of church bureaucrats is not very persuasive, to say the least. More troublesome is the simple fact that many of these statements are very far from any ‘truth’ that can be empirically assessed. The monotonous flirtation with leftist illusions by denominational and ecumenical organizations is a depressing case in point.”

Read more on We Need a Place not a Prophet…

As a follow up to recent blog posts (here, here, and here) where rising food prices have been discussed, the most current numbers have been released. What many of us already know from visits to the grocery store is that food prices have increased dramatically.

Read more on Surging Food Prices…

With the terrible human toll from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami catastrophe only now being comprehended, and the grave follow on crisis at the country’s nuclear power plants unfolding by the hour, the anti-nuclear power crowd has already begun issuing statements such as the one Greenpeace put out saying that “nuclear power cannot ever be safe.”

Predictably, reports Geoffrey Lean in the Telegraph, “battle lines” are being drawn:

On Saturday, some 50,000 anti-nuclear protesters formed a 27-mile human chain from Germany’s Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant to the city of Stuttgart to protest against its government’s plans to extend the life of the country’s reactors. Green politicians in pro-nuclear France urged an end to its dependence on the atom, and Ed Markey, a leading Democratic US Congressman, called for a moratorium on building new reactors in seismically active areas.

But Chancellor Angela Merkel, after holding a meeting of the German cabinet on the issue, reaffirmed her confidence in the safety of nuclear power. The leader of Silvio Berlusconi’s party said that Italy would stick with plans to build new reactors. And a spokesman for US Senator Lisa Murkowski said it would be “poor form for anyone to criticise the nuclear industry, or pronounce the end of nuclear power, because of a natural disaster that has been a national tragedy for the Japanese people”.

Poor form, indeed. Now we have an example of an unseemly statement on nuclear power at the worst possible time from a religious leader.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the Orthodox hierarch based in Istanbul, Turkey, today called for nations to stop using nuclear power and to adopt “green” energy technologies:

… with regard to the explosion of the nuclear reactor and the aftermath of a nuclear adversity, there is indeed a response that we are called to make. With all due respect to the science and technology of nuclear energy and for the sake of the survival of the human race, we counter-propose the safer green forms of energy, which both moderately preserve our natural resources and mindfully serve our human needs.

Our Creator granted us the gifts of the sun, wind, water and ocean, all of which may safely and sufficiently provide energy. Ecologically-friendly science and technology has discovered ways and means of producing sustainable forms of energy for our ecosystem. Therefore, we ask: Why do we persist in adopting such dangerous sources of energy? Are we so arrogant as to compete with and exploit nature? Yet, we know that nature invariably seeks revenge.

This is magical thinking about very practical policy questions and complex technology overlaid with a spiritual gloss. Read more on Green Patriarch: No Nukes…

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a summary post of this kind, but there’s been a fair number of things of interest over the last week or so that are worthy of a quick highlight. So here’s an edition of the aptly named “Five Things” (HT):

Read more on Five Things…

Kenneth P. Green, of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), recently examined green energy in Europe in an essay titled, “The Myth of Green Energy Jobs: The European Experience.” Green thoroughly analyzes the green industry in Europe while seeking to discover the reasons behind its current downward spiral. As readers discover, this is largely due to the green industry being unsustainable while heavily relying on government intervention and subsidies.

Read more on Can the U.S. learn from Europe’s green mistakes?…

The traditional Drupal logo

Last week I attended Drupalcon Chicago 2011.  Acton Institute’s website runs the Content Management System called Drupal.  It is a highly customizable website publishing tool that powers around 1.7% of the Internet.  Drupal scales: you can use it for a personal  website, but very large outfits use Drupal including the White House and Grammy.

Read more on Open Source Software and Market Competition…

Waking up to the devastation today in Japan was heartbreaking. Malcolm Foster, reporting for the AP, notes:

A ferocious tsunami unleashed by Japan’s biggest recorded earthquake slammed into its eastern coast Friday, killing hundreds of people as it carried away ships, cars and homes, and triggered widespread fires that burned out of control.

Reporting for Reuters, Patricia Zengerle and David Morgan’s headline reads: “U.S. readies relief for quake-hit ally Japan.” From their article:

Read more on Japan Quake, Military Aid, and Shane Claiborne…