Before I actually introduce Jack McManus, I'd like to give a couple of brief thoughts on the whole subject of economy,
the economic realities that he will give us a no-nonsense look at.
It's nice to have these teleprompters. Thank you, Jack.
We've already explained that an integral Catholic culture...
is one in which every aspect of life is under the sway of Christ's law of his kingship.
This, of course, includes economics. In fact, in my opening presentation, introducing the whole...
theme, I specifically mentioned that economics would be under the sway of
Christ's law in an integral Catholic culture. There are manifold errors which
deny this.
Communism being one of them.
other forms of socialism that are akin to it, and also what we would call
economic liberalism. Now communism makes man the product of essentially an
economic dialectic. In other words, it is anthropology as economics.
They criticize a lot of the new theology, saying that it is anthropology as theology, or theology as anthropology.
Well, communism is basically economics serving as anthropology, and that is an error.
This gives us the class struggle of Karl Marx.
Economic liberalism, on the other hand, unhinges economics from Christ's law.
in one of two ways. I'm sure there are variations on this theme, but
the economic liberal might say that the free market itself
is inherently moral by virtue of its own interior
composition and its own internal laws.
Or, he may say that economics is a science which is divorced from the moral order entirely,
therefore amoral, one in which morals, ethics, simply do not enter.
The first of these liberal economic errors is delusional.
The second is evil.
To us, and here I am referring to Brother Francis' outlook on reality,
To us, economics, like politics, is part of the philosophy of ethics.
That is, the normative science which studies man's behavior.
Which studies man's behavior not as he behaves, sometimes aberrantly,
but being a normative science that studies man's behavior as he ought to behave.
That's what a normative science is.
Further, for Catholics, the moral law of Christ enters in.
Therefore economics must be regulated according to the norms of moral theology, including
such norms, such doctrines as the just wage doctrine.
and the just price doctrine, things that the popes have written about in their social encyclicals.
Now, of course, as politics comes from the Greek word meaning city, the polis...
And we get our study of the governing of any society from the model of the city, so too economics comes from the Greek word for a household, the management of a household.
You know, what we call HOMAC, you know, and what used to be called HOMAC,
it's maybe a passé term now, was really a redundancy when you get to the essential meaning
of or the core original meaning of economics because.
Home Act is economics. But, of course, it's been broadened, just as the concept of politics has, from the government,
the ordering of the home in terms of material needs and means to get them,
to the ordering of an entire society, in the proportioning of its use of material things,
and expenditures for them, and exchange of them.
Now, integral to a sound economy at the national or local level,
is a sound medium of exchange.
That would be money.
Hence, money is very important for Catholics.
I don't mean the collection of it, the getting of it,
the hoarding of it, and so forth,
but it is an important area of study.
So my introductory comments are in part, anyway,
intended to be an apologia for why we would actually
want to be concerned as Catholics with money.
Father Dennis Fahey, the great Irish disciple,
apostle of Christ the King and of the Church's social teachings and a sound Catholic social order,
spent a lot of time thinking and writing about the money question,
not because he...
overly valued money, but because he knew of its importance in a sound society.
So without any further thoughts on my part, I'll introduce
Jack McManus, who by the way, as a third-order member of the Saves of the Mac
and Heart of Mary,
is known as Brother John Berkman's.
Thank you, brother.
Thank you very much for the invitation.
It's always a pleasure to be here.
It will be different coming here when Brother Francis is not here.
so many times. I did spend time with him. In fact, he was the one that finally
introduced me to get smart and to start looking into St. Benedict Center at
length. I could tell that story and maybe I will, but I always like to start
off any talk with a little humor or an attempt at it. So I'm going to tell the
story of the fellow who's flying around Ireland in a hot-air balloon.
And he got lost.
He didn't know where he was.
And he saw a farmer in a field way down there. So he lowered the balloon a little bit and
He yelled over the side
He said hello. Where am I?
The little Irish farmer had never seen this before, he was a little bit...
So he did it again, hello, where am I?
And finally the little farmer pointed his finger up and he said, you can't fool me,
you're in that little basket up there.
Thank you.
I have to tell you how I first met Brother Francis.
I have a good friend who is a friend of the society, a woman who lives in Minnesota.
and she called me one day and she said I'd like you to come
out here and to meet some people.
And I had some time, so I did.
I came out and met her.
And I found out that she was trying to talk me
out of my work in the John Birch Society.
And I asked her, I said,
well now you're very convinced about St. Benedict Center
and all of what's taught here.
I said, would you have been able to understand that
had you not first been in the Birch Society?
In other words, you can understand the oppression and the conspiracy against the faith.
Would you have been able to do that had you not first understood conspiracy from the John
Birch Society's point of view in the economic, political world and so forth?
Well, she slotted for a few minutes and she said, you know, you got a point.
I don't think I would have been able to.
I said, well, I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing in the John Birch Society,
and it's been nice to visit with you and so forth.
She said, but you've got to meet Brother Francis.
I said, who's Brother Francis?
Well, she said, you've never met Brother Francis.
You don't know Brother Francis.
I said, no, I don't.
Well, let's see, we can go find him.
So we came out of the building,
we were in Still River, by the way,
came out of the building where we were,
and lo and behold, he's walking up the path.
And she said,
"'Brother, I'd like you to meet John McManus.'"
John, this is Brother Francis.
How do you do, how do you do?
And she had the good sense to take off.
She just left the two of us there.
so he said well tell me a little bit about yourself I said well I went to a
Jesuit high school and then I went to Holy Cross College and he stopped me and
he said poor fella
I said, I've been an advocate of the traditional mass and it's because of my advocacy of the traditional mass that I guess that's what brought me here.
And he reached into his pocket and he pulled out a little booklet, a little booklet called Holding Fast.
Holding fast was put together by the priest Father Francis Fenton when he
started the Orthodox Roman Catholic movement to preserve the traditional
Latin Mass. And Brother said to me, have you ever seen this? And I said yes. I kind
of gulped.