Talking A Good Game

I believe people in power who preach need to set a strong example. Actions speak louder than words. Fark.com put it best with regards to the article entitled 'False Idols' that follows:

Pope Benedict, leader of the Catholic church, which has a net worth estimated to be in the tens of billions of dollars, is upset that the world bows to the false idols of money and power.

Imagine how many starving or malnourished children would benefit from the proceeds of selling just one priceless painting that lines the gilded halls of the Vatican. Just one.

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FALSE IDOLS

LOURDES, France (Reuters) September 13, 2008 - At mass on Saturday morning in Paris, the pope told more than a quarter of a million people that the modern world had turned money, possessions and power into idols as false as the gold and silver statues worshipped by the pagans of antiquity. "Has not our modern world created its own idols?" he said. "Has it not imitated, perhaps inadvertently, the pagans of antiquity, by diverting man from his true end, from the joy of living eternally with God," he said in fluent French, wearing gold, white and red vestments. Benedict, who arrived in France on Friday, celebrated the mass at Les Invalides, a complex of military buildings begun by King Louis XIV in the 17th century that houses the sarcophagus of Napoleon Bonaparte. In his homily, he pursued a theme dear to him: the need to inject lasting spiritual and religious values into a modern society often enamored of things material and fleeting. He quoted the writings of St Paul, saying "Money is the root of all evil", and added in his own words: "Have not money, the thirst for possessions, for power and even for knowledge diverted man from his true destiny?" Since he arrived on Friday, the pope has been encouraging Catholics to speak out confidently in a country where "laicite", the separation of church and state that often relegates faith to the private sphere, is part of the national psyche. The once powerful French church struggles with a shortage of priests and Sunday mass attendance is below 10 percent. But religion has re-emerged as a factor in public life, especially because of the growth of Islam, and French Catholics have increasingly spoken out on social issues.