Thinking about this thread, I was vaguely remembering having read that Opus Dei was generally pro-"free market". A google on "Opus Dei economics" turned up a lot of subscription-walled stuff, but also an interview from the late '90s with a Spanish Misesian economist. An excerpt...
de SOTO: The Catholic church is like a huge transatlantic ocean liner. If you turn the wheel to the right, the boat moves slowly, slowly, and eventually begins to change direction.
There is a powerful Catholic group in Spain called Opus Dei. It is very close to the Pope and it is very pro-business. Someone in the order read the works of Hayek, saw him as very pro business, and sent out a message to the entire organization: Opus Dei should back the Austrians.
All of a sudden, all my books were being read by everyone in the order, and I began to lecture to their priests and members. In fact, I recently read a PhD thesis written on Mises and Hayek by a leading member of Opus Dei.
I think the fortunes of Opus Dei waver back and forth over time(I can't imagine the current JESUIT Pope is their biggest fan). Still, if there was any possible way for something like the Prosperity Gospel to take hold in the Church as a whole, it might be via that group. If you get another really pro-OD Pontiff, and the group goes whole-hog with preaching Austrian economics, and this drifts into the official doctrine(or at least rhetoric) coming out of Rome, it might be possible for a lumpenized version to trickle down to the masses, especially if there are already pockets of quasi-Prosperity Gospel operating in various rapidly-industrializaing countries.
I'd still put it as a long-shot, though. The worldwide demographics of Catholcism would have to change pretty drastically for the religious equivalent of Ayn Randism to become the standard catechism.
link
de SOTO: The Catholic church is like a huge transatlantic ocean liner. If you turn the wheel to the right, the boat moves slowly, slowly, and eventually begins to change direction.
There is a powerful Catholic group in Spain called Opus Dei. It is very close to the Pope and it is very pro-business. Someone in the order read the works of Hayek, saw him as very pro business, and sent out a message to the entire organization: Opus Dei should back the Austrians.
All of a sudden, all my books were being read by everyone in the order, and I began to lecture to their priests and members. In fact, I recently read a PhD thesis written on Mises and Hayek by a leading member of Opus Dei.
I think the fortunes of Opus Dei waver back and forth over time(I can't imagine the current JESUIT Pope is their biggest fan). Still, if there was any possible way for something like the Prosperity Gospel to take hold in the Church as a whole, it might be via that group. If you get another really pro-OD Pontiff, and the group goes whole-hog with preaching Austrian economics, and this drifts into the official doctrine(or at least rhetoric) coming out of Rome, it might be possible for a lumpenized version to trickle down to the masses, especially if there are already pockets of quasi-Prosperity Gospel operating in various rapidly-industrializaing countries.
I'd still put it as a long-shot, though. The worldwide demographics of Catholcism would have to change pretty drastically for the religious equivalent of Ayn Randism to become the standard catechism.
link