At risk of being controversial, I must take issue with Jeffrey Epstein. Buried in the latest tranche of files released by the U.S. Department of Justice is a 2013 email in which the alleged sex trafficker to the stars expresses his frustration with the approach to philanthropy taken by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Epstein complains to an interlocutor: “[C]an’t they come up with a better foundation structure and goal. [T]hen to make the ludicrous statement that every life is equal. [If] so then give each one the billion kids one dollar for food. [E]very year, save a billion lives. [I]t is Catholicism at [its] worst.”
As endorsements go, the Vatican couldn’t have asked for better. Bill Gates, it is worth noting, is not a Catholic, though he told Rolling Stone in 2014: “We’ve raised our kids in a religious way; they’ve gone to the Catholic church that Melinda goes to and I participate in.” However, his foundation does claim to be “[g]uided by the belief that every life has equal value,” which certainly does sound like Catholic social teaching.
Read Full Article »