A Cry in the Wilderness
The Pope -- God bless his soul -- is doing his best to convince world leaders to do one of the hardest things there are: redistribute wealth from the haves to the have not in every society. The main problem is that selfishness is so ingrained in our consciousness, that it's very difficult to go against it.
Take a country like the U.S., in which greed is, really, the national religion. Obama is having a hard time convincing his fellow Americans that something must be done to reduce the income gap. He will end his second term of office without accomplishing anything in this regard. When he recently proposed that the minimum wage be increased to $10.00, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative. The U.S. was founded on the principle of getting rich quick and keeping it for yourself. That's what, all platitudes aside, the "American dream" is really about. "Rugged individualism" and "self-reliance", touted as uniquely-American virtues, are really euphemisms for greed, selfishness and my neighbor be damned!
I'm afraid that, in this, the Pope is "the voice that cries in the wilderness."
Take a country like the U.S., in which greed is, really, the national religion. Obama is having a hard time convincing his fellow Americans that something must be done to reduce the income gap. He will end his second term of office without accomplishing anything in this regard. When he recently proposed that the minimum wage be increased to $10.00, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative. The U.S. was founded on the principle of getting rich quick and keeping it for yourself. That's what, all platitudes aside, the "American dream" is really about. "Rugged individualism" and "self-reliance", touted as uniquely-American virtues, are really euphemisms for greed, selfishness and my neighbor be damned!
I'm afraid that, in this, the Pope is "the voice that cries in the wilderness."
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