What's a nice Irish American priest like Séamus Finn doing on The Daily Show? The answer is not what you might think: he's squirming to avoid nasty questions and jokes about abuse scandals. The show's producers caught Séamus Finn and some colleagues in New York's Financial District as he pressed a cause that has been his job and passion for over 20 years: banking and financial sector reform and social justice.
The Daily Show episode is slated to run soon, and Father Séamus is a wee bit uncertain about exactly what will come out. Samantha Bee, who led the several hours of interviews with Séamus and his colleagues, was and is full of surprises. But he's hopeful that basically an unlikely alliance of priestly righteousness, good solid facts, and satirical spoof will reinforce the point that both social justice and common sense demand deep reform in the financial system, now.
Séamus Finn has a mouthful of a title: Director of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation for the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. What it means is that he works the political and corporate halls of power on ethical causes that always seem to come back to the worlds of big business, finance, and politics. He introduces shareholder resolutions at corporate general assembly meetings, presses causes on Capitol Hill that range from Sri Lankan refugees to strip mining and rights of indigenous peoples in Bangladesh, and shuttles around the world trying to solve or at least get a grip on the root problems.
Finn's role has an interesting back story. While Apartheid seemed entrenched and hopeless in South Africa in the early 1970s, a motley group that had responsibilities for managing the finances of various Christian groups came together. They eventually founded the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) that worked to withhold or withdraw investments from companies that did business in South Africa. Now 40 years old, ICCR has over 275 institutional investors who come from a wide range of religious communities. Together they control billions of dollars in assets. ICCR's game plan has changed over the years, and today the idea is to use the power of shares in positive ways, wherever possible, introducing resolutions and defending them on the companies' home turf. Séamus Finn is an ICCR veteran and a passionate spokesman for faith-based, socially and environmentally responsible investment: promoting sustainable development without losing your shirt.
Séamus Finn should be a natural on The Daily Show. His Irish accent is genuine (he was born in Kanturk, County Cork, Ireland and moved to Lowell Massachusetts when he was 14 years old), his humor is sharp and elfish, and he loves Irish songs and a party. But he also knows his facts cold. With a PhD in Theology and Social Justice from Boston University, he has years of dueling with financiers behind him. And he also has a powerful sense of righteous indignation at what's happened to poor people as a result of shoddy financial dealings, starting with irresponsible lending to developing countries, predatory lending and the sub-prime mortgage fiasco.
Séamus told me the story of the rather arduous process of taping the Daily Show appearance, which will be cut down to just a few minutes that will air. Séamus was with three colleagues: Father Joseph La Mar of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers; Sister Barbara Aires, a Sister of Charity; and Catherine Rowan, with the Maryknoll sisters. The tale of the taping is itself uproarious, with twists I could barely imagine (why did Samantha Bee, looking as if she would give birth any minute, lie down on Wall Street and dare Séamus and the others to step over her to get to the Goldman Sachs meeting?).
The Daily Show, Séamus thinks, may roast him in various ways, but, he believes, Jon Stewart and his colleagues, in their inimitable fashion, will also want to take the Mickey out of Wall Street. That's why Séamus agreed to what's plainly a risky venture, because with The Daily Show you just never know who or what will be lampooned. They won't be able to resist taking the Catholic Church to task at least to an extent. When Séamus was in the studio they had a photo of him massaged to show him like a game show host emerging from a barrel of cash, the bible, some quotes from scripture, the crucifix, and candles as part of the props and staging. But, he thought, they generally kept their eyes on Wall Street.
Surely the combination of this improbable priest with his improbable portfolio and his unlikely team makes a great story that would be lost if it meanders too far towards the challenges (which, of course, are plenty real) facing the Catholic Church and religion more generally. In all the kerfuffle and reams of talk and words about the financial mess we are living, the ethics of it all are easily submerged. Who's really tackling the tough questions not only about who's responsible but about how to fix it? How are we going to get some ethical compasses back into the process?
Obviously churches have their own ethical quandaries to address, but after all, ethics and justice should be their core competence and core mission. So it's a relief as well as a joy to see Séamus in action. Let The Daily Show go on.
Jim Wallis: Wall Street, Repent!
The principles of clarity, transparency, accountability, and protecting the common good against private greed are not just economic policy matters. On a more transcendent level, they provide the metrics of real repentance.
Peg Chemberlin: Transparency in Financial Reform: Because God Doesn't Like Secrets
Many in the faith community strongly support an amendment to the financial reform bill that would require greater transparency for companies that extract natural resources.
Sounds like he's got the right credentials...
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According to Acts, the Holy Spirit was put in each one of us, and WE are the holy priesthood, fully capable of sharing wine and host in REMEMBRANCE of what has already been done (ie He took upon himself all of our sin, for all eternity, and for every person who believes in him).
So, going to a priest to be absolved from sin is unnecessary, unless you do not believe Jesus came. If you do not think he came, then you have to go back to slaughtering small animals and burning them to create an "aroma pleasing to God" in atonement for your sins.
The primary role of a modern priest or minister is to REMIND you of your new purpose: being the hands and feet of God and BRINGING ABOUT heaven on earth through SOCIAL JUSTICE.
But, most people are lazy, and they just want to go to church, put their 10% in the collection plate, be absolved of sins already covered, and pay lip service to serving. In fact, I'll bet most people who say they are "religious" have never read the Bible cover to cover; they get all their information during one day during the week (Sunday) and one person (their minister). That person could tell them just about anything and they'd never know the difference....
An ethical system erected upon the core teachings of most of the world's major faiths is all you need. If loving God and your neighbor as yourself, plus the golden rule can't be found in them, they are inherently false. Simply empty ceremonies performed to worshop false gods.
We had our arguments before. What happened? Did you finally see the light?
I have no choice but to fan you for this one.
I find it interesting that you are the person who knows the truth, whereas everything built with the wisdom of the ages is wrong.
Here is a little of "the wisdom of the ages" from our great Post-Christian Founding Father.
THE MONSTER MUST FINALLY DIE
Cabalistic Christianity, which is catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die.
Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires.
John Adams
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American politician and political philosopher and the second President of the United States (1797–1801), after being the first Vice President of the United States (1789–1797) for two terms. He was one of the most influential Founding Fathers of the United States.
Read more at:
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_15160193
Clements ( managing director of the center for Christian Business Ethics Today Philadelphia) even correlates the decline of business ethics to the decline of Christianity:
"Today, we live in a post-Christian world. Christendom, spread across the world from 50 to the end of the 1970s. And now we've abandoned it ... so don't be surprised. ... We as a people are going to find more strife."
It's a notion that makes O'Toole, the business ethics professor, bristle.
"There is no correlation that we can find between people being religious and behaving in an ethical fashion," he said. "We really have to separate those two questions."
There are, after all, plenty of ethical atheists and plenty of criminally minded Christians.
And I'm not even sure there's a correlation between ethical behavior and people who study business ethics in college, either.
All I know is that discussions about business ethics are rare during economic booms. Nobody from the pope on down seems to care much about the subject until long after the money is gone.
"I picked a great time to be a business ethics professor," O'Toole concedes. "These are boom years."
The Homiletic review, Volume 33
http://books.google.com/books?id=xM4nAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA5-PA487&dq="BETTER+THE+HOLY+HERETIC+THAN+THE+MALIGNANT+CHRISTIAN".&ei=D8CzS9PdMJ2IkwTa07iBCw&cd=1#v=onepage&q=%22BETTER%20THE%20HOLY%20HERETIC%20THAN%20THE%20MALIGNANT%20CHRISTIAN%22.&f=false
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http://holyheretics.com/
Popes are usually the last folks on earth capable of teaching such a course anyway.
It also shows that catholic priests are much more likely to reform Wall Street than they are likely going to reform the Vatican.
Or was that glib rejoinder supposed to be on The Daily Show?
:-)
somehow hopeless case. TYhe Catholic Church is always great in creating some hope,
some diffuse promises, and then frustrate all the idealism. Nothing ever changes.
One of the major reasons is the Augustinian theology, that from part and parcel of that creed.
The Church has the habit of talking about Jesus and the Bible, while nothing is Jesus and the
Bible. It is time and again the Augustinan theology, a completely different gospel.
Augustin fits that famous description:
"For you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. .."
Augustin is the theology for catastrophy lovers, he hasfor some morbid fascination. Among
others, he is the father of original sin, the ideology of thecross, the messages of threats,
doom and gloom, the "massa damnata", (damned masses), and more. But beautifully
whitewhased like a tomb, nicely decorated.
A pretty adequate critique and overall description of his theology and understanding of God
is provided in:
James J. O' Donnell: Augustine. A New Biopgraphy. 2006