In The Boston Globe, a look at the Koch brothers' attempt to seduce Latinos, especially Puerto Ricans, recently arrived in the U.S. The bishops need to address this: Libertarianism is quite simply not compatible with Catholicism. The bishops of Florida need to use their own network of communications to warn people how hostile to the faith these ideas are.
I have said before that I feel better about voting for a candidate for the presidency if they have been a mayor beforehand. Now, at The Washington Post, Fred Hiatt looks at the recent meeting of the nation's mayors and how it reflects so poorly on Washington politics.
Though not intended as a rebuttal to Bishop Robert Barron's talk at Notre Dame, this article at America about Catholic memes on the internet has that effect. The money quote, from Bishop Richard Umbers, is that memes are about "winning people rather than arguments."
At Ethika Politika, Daniel Saudek looks at the effort to baptize neo-liberalism and concludes — how can one do otherwise? — that it cannot be baptized. I do not know Saudek, but think he is someone to keep an eye on. This essay is very well done. I don't suppose it will be taught at Catholic University of America's Busch School of Economics anytime soon.
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At Religion News Service, Mark Silk gives an update on the spread of FDS: Francis Derangement Syndrome. And, this was penned before Ross Douthat's latest screed in the New York Times!
At Politico, an article that looks at the Democratic Party's intramural conflict in the wake of Conor Lamb's victory in the Pennsylvania special election. The author, Heather Caygle, mistakenly pits Lamb against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) as representing opposite polls of the party. The opposite poll from Lamb is Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), not Sanders or Warren. More on this in coming days.
[Michael Sean Winters covers the nexus of religion and politics for NCR.]
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