I started reading this thread up until about page 4 of it, then stopped because it was starting to get hateful. However, regarding the eye of the needle comment somewhere about there, I understand this passage in the Bible to mean that the love of money and aquiring material goods for its own reason is an obstacle to holiness and consequently to attaining to everlasting life, NOT that there is some magical number that if you make over this you will condemned to hell. This is nonsense. For while some people will work simply for love of doing the Lord’s business, a fair recompense is needed to compensate workers for a fair day of work. Indeed, even if, perish the thought, we ignore Church bulls and other decrees for a second, is it not contrary to one’s sense of justice if those who work hard get fair pay, regardless if one is a garbage man or a CEO? Who would take the time to invest in starting a business, with the huge possibility that it might fail—that you will end up in filing for bankruptcy, if everyone got the same pay? Who would take the time to go to medical school, with years of earning nothing, only to find themselves in a risk for med-mal lawsuits, if they were going to get the same? Maybe a few of us, myself included, want to live like St. Moscati, donating as much services as possible to the poor. But I don’t expect (and I think it is unfair and un-Christian-like to expect) others to follow this lead, since medicine is expensive. And while were at it, don’t start this nonsense that if an individual can make good decisions for the benefit of the poor, the government most certainly can. And all that rubbish about socialism being everything owned in common—this is nonsense. To reiterate another’s post, everything is owned by the state. Comparing socialism to monasticism is nonsense—in monasticism, the individual, with the help of God, chooses to become part of a monastic community. In a socialist state, those who did not vote (if any) for this kind of state still have to give up whatever the state says for the sake of the state. In the Communist nations, you had to belong to the Communist party to have a say in anything, if anything my history books tells me is correct. Or they could all be plain wrong. With all the nonsense being written out there, I don’t take anyone’s word, on whatever side, to be law.
Now, enough of my rant. Back to the official topic at hand, which is Church teaching on the matter----and please, no more of the personal attacks or vitrol.