To provide some context…

Developments in the Church do not happen in isolation – they unfold in a specific historical, political and economic situation. To understand what is going on we always need to look at the context. Certainly the last year has been one of social turmoil and upheaval – much of it at the direction of the controlling “civil society” of the United States and Western Europe. Today, we read the following in The Wall Street Journal:

Bank Earnings Soar to Record Highs

Goldman posted records in quarterly revenue and profit, while JPMorgan notched its highest quarterly profit on record. Wells Fargo enjoyed its best-ever quarterly profit in corporate and investment banking.

As John Dos Passos wrote:

(Wars and panics on the stock exchange,

machinegunfire and arson,

bankrupticies, warloans,

starvation, lice, cholera and typhus:

good growing weather for the House of Morgan.)

Dos Passos, John, 1919 ( U.S.A. trilogy) at 648 ( Library of America edition, 1996, New York; originally published 1932)