A church to believe in

Here is an article my cousin sent me recently, on a recent statement from the Vatican condemning the unregulated excesses of avarice in the current economic system. It is a heartening reminder of the Catholic Church's progressive social teaching, which calls for a preferential option for the poor. We need to hear more of this coherent, ethical thinking from churches and political leaders.

Oddly enough, the student demonstrators at my university, who are clamoring against a stupid neoliberal law that would privatize and profitize Colombia's public education system, recently desecrated a Catholic church on campus. They broke most of the windows and graffitied threatening anti-clerical messages all over the walls. While I'm not sure why we have a church on a public college campus, I was appalled at this crime, which would count as a hate crime in any nation with such a legal designation. It is especially idiotic in light of the above statement from the Vatican, and the recent history of the Church in Colombia, where it has been one of the country's most progressive voices in terms of our civil conflict and social injustice.