The recent column from David Brooks about the Pope's new Papal Encyclical is arrogant and intellectually dishonest. For a partisan whose party lies repeatedly, loudly, and hypocritically about scripture, the column is remarkably adolescent.
Brooks' column reads like an adolescent's term paper for an old Milton Friedman professorial adherent.
I am not a Catholic, but I am a very imperfect Christian.
Mr. Brooks, Jesus did not live, teach, nor die for your teaching, "the irony that the best social programs harvest the low but steady motivations of people as they actually are." And the Pope is not teaching your Biblical ignorance.
The Pope is absolutely right.
We do face one huge problem in the world, both social and environmental. That cannot be argued. Brooks claims that poverty is being alleviated around the world, but poverty is growing in America and democracy is dying. Even though fracking has displaced some of the use of other carbon fuels, it still poisons our water and ruins our land.
How much better off would we be if the resources invested in fracking and other carbon-based fuels were instead invested in the technologically sound, clean and green energy of the future?
Mr. Brooks, your religious beliefs are your own. But do not deign to lecture Pope Francis on the teachings of Jesus. Please, no more moral admonishment from your party about God.
Read all of Matthew 25. Read Isaiah. Read Jeremiah. There is a reference to the wisdom of the serpent, but it is not holy.
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