My concerns in life have never really been economic. While we were not directly raised by parents unconcerned with money, looking back, I think we just grew up in a home where other values were more important.

I am also a bridge-builder, not a debater as a first choice. It is what made my classrooms once upon a time teem with discussion and growth. I argue by teaching, and letting the slow maturation of that teaching take root.

Those are perhaps qualities that can be mistaken for candy-ass liberalism in the present climate, and yet my traditional values would be consistent with those of most conservatives. They are also why I sometimes bemoan the strict binaries into which online arguments so easily devolve. It is a shame that the algorithm thrives on them.

All of that said…

Yes, economic arguments naturally belong in conversations devoted to Louisiana politics and public policy. Poverty is not something one should ever strive for. This space, however, even whilst agreeing with the more obvious conservative premises, occasionally tries to turn an issue over another way, knowing full well that online culture often misinterprets “different” as combative. We’ve done it with data centers and other topics, and today we do it with the latest, a story so big that it doesn’t even need an introduction.

If nothing else, the narrative coming will be an absolute blast.

That prelude established, we indeed now turn the current news cycle to a different angle, specifically an older Catholic one.

God and Mammon

In Quadragesimo Anno (1931), Pope Pius XI taught the order I work to spotlight today. His teaching supplies the principles only, of course. Exactly what he would have taught concerning specific issues in 2026, while we may have some idea, is admittedly unclear:

41. …[T]hat principle which Leo XIII so clearly established must be laid down at the outset here, namely, that there resides in Us the right and duty to pronounce with supreme authority upon social and economic matters. Certainly the Church was not given the commission to guide men to an only fleeting and perishable happiness but to that which is eternal. Indeed ”the Church holds that it is unlawful for her to mix without cause in these temporal concerns”; however, she can in no wise renounce the duty God entrusted to her to interpose her authority, not of course in matters of technique for which she is neither suitably equipped nor endowed by office, but in all things that are connected with the moral law. For as to these, the deposit of truth that God committed to Us and the grave duty of disseminating and interpreting the whole moral law, and of urging it in season and out of season, bring under and subject to Our supreme jurisdiction not only social order but economic activities themselves.

In other words, the Church must teach what is right and wrong in economic life, but all the while keeping the eternal good of souls at its center. And more, that authority does not at all automatically indicate expertise in the secular field being discussed.

It is a shame that today’s Catholic Church, which this space so often distinguishes from the old, has forfeited its trust in such matters, which is why we consistently have turned to older teaching for guidance. See our archives for more.

With such distinctions in mind, then, whenever something new arrives that becomes political and seems to be a real economic boon for the good people of this state, and more specifically for the people of Acadiana, given how long so many of our communities have struggled, the thought can automatically be that this is a good thing, a moral thing, a thing that represents success.

Certainly, there are good reasons for people to hope that it will be.

And when any Catholic priest representing that Church speaks enthusiastically about the opportunity being presented to Louisiana, the entire venture can begin to seem preordained by God Himself. These men may very well be right, don’t get me wrong, but the question is whether that enthusiasm is being placed within the full Catholic order, the order I place, as I’ve said, inside an older context, not inside the Modernist arrangement so many people—particularly conservatives—have rejected through the woke left.

I grew up in Acadiana, my dad is Cajun (we’ve butted heads on many a thing!), and I played ball with and against people from communities like these, so I don’t approach their—some of them at least—perspectives from a distance. We in this space understand the excitement over a young person finally having an opportunity to make a better living close to home, being able to stay near parents and promote generational stability. Such is a quality of life seemingly come and gone. And certainly there is nothing virtuous about wanting our neighbors to remain poor, especially if it leads them to vice. God has given man the intelligence to discover and build things that can improve what can become a mundane life steeped in the pursuit of dangerous distractions. When progress means children having opportunities their parents never had, particularly if it keeps them home and anchored to a more traditional life, the good being sought is easy enough to understand.

There are other positives to consider as well, some of which we’ll touch on today and some of which supporters have absolutely nailed.

But our point here is something else, and that something else goes beyond the hay already in the barn.

People have already divided into supporters and opponents, and there is no denying that the debate has grown ugly. What the project actually produces over the coming years will tell us far more than the heat of the present argument.

Once an opportunity moves beyond its big announcement and into the grunt work required to make it happen, which is where we are now, the responsibility morphs irrevocably. Having hoped for something good, perhaps even grand, in Louisiana, we must now keep an eye on how such a marvel develops. We must help it become what people have reason to believe it can be, yes on an economic level, but more so beyond that. It is something supporters and skeptics alike can contribute to, provided we are willing to listen and learn as the long process unfolds.

And know that at every turn there will be ample opportunity to assess the optics that go beyond the economic.

Pius XI continues:

42. Even though economics and moral science employs each its own principles in its own sphere, it is, nevertheless, an error to say that the economic and moral orders are so distinct from and alien to each other that the former depends in no way on the latter. Certainly the laws of economics, as they are termed, being based on the very nature of material things and on the capacities of the human body and mind, determine the limits of what productive human effort cannot, and of what it can attain in the economic field and by what means. Yet it is reason itself that clearly shows, on the basis of the individual and social nature of things and of men, the purpose which God ordained for all economic life.

Put simply, Pius XI is teaching that economics has its own methods, but economic decisions must still answer to the moral law. There is a priority of order we must never lose sight of.

Thus, since economic decisions do answer to morality, one of the underlying topics of this story—securing the Louisiana wetlands—should be and is a part of the conversation. They help buffer coastal communities from storm surge and provide habitat for wildlife, which makes their protection part of protecting the people and the way of life we hope will benefit from new opportunities—despite the coming noise.

All of that can find support in Scripture.

Might it turn out for the worse? Maybe. But there is morality tucked in there that makes the conversation morally valid.

At the same time, however, there are other Scripture passages and teachings to consider. When promises are made about protecting the coast, it is reasonable for skeptics to want to know what that protection will involve, who will be responsible for it, and how people who live there will know it is accomplishing what was promised. Those are questions that can help translate the good intentions expressed by supporters into something skeptics can actually see and evaluate.

Once again, morality, order, and God.

In insisting on that kind of clarity, that kind of order, perhaps I am trying to give some better structure to the objections of skeptics so that they can explain their concerns without having to condemn the whole enterprise, just as supporters should be willing to address a problem that might arise when future (or current) evidence establishes one. Neither enthusiasm nor angst, no matter how right we think we are, relieves us of the obligation—at least as far as Christian virtue goes—to be charitable.

For a Christian, that charity belongs to a larger order governing everything we do, including, yes, what we hope to enjoy in the fruits of economic progress. And yes, sometimes charity involves a little righteous anger—but the proper scaling of that emotion should never be lost.

One more from Pius XI:

43. But it is only the moral law which, just as it commands us to seek our supreme and last end in the whole scheme of our activity, so likewise commands us to seek directly in each kind of activity those purposes which we know that nature, or rather God the Author of nature, established for that kind of action, and in orderly relationship to subordinate such immediate purposes to our supreme and last end. If we faithfully observe this law, then it will follow that the particular purposes, both individual and social, that are sought in the economic field will fall in their proper place in the universal order of purposes, and We, in ascending through them, as it were by steps, shall attain the final end of all things, that is God, to Himself and to us, the supreme and inexhaustible Good.

In other words, material progress has a proper place, but it must remain subordinate to our ultimate end, God.

Thus, the one question we should ask ourselves is, what is the heart—the motivation and intensity—of our own participation in the story as it develops? Is it geared toward the glory of God, or toward an overemphasis on the material world Christ warned about?

You cannot serve God and mammon. It is in the Gospel reading for this past Sunday, the Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost. It doesn’t say don’t try to serve God and mammon.

It says you—cannot. Our priest made this point very well in Sunday’s homily, offering a necessary qualification to any misinterpretation of the passage. A priest offering an assessment of uninhibited praise for the economic progress of Louisiana may be correct in his practical judgment, sure. The Catholic question, the one my priest raised without discussing any current event specific as his context, is whether that judgment is placed within the proper order, with the material benefit subordinate to man’s higher good and final end.

That is where the conversation never goes anymore. Everything we do in this life, as most of us already know, at least philosophically, must be ordered toward God.

Of course that means living on planet Earth, inside a material world Our Lord warned about, but the warning was about the order—not the material aspect in itself. If it were, Our Lord wouldn’t have come here in His own incarnated, “material” body. It is the order of priorities, and the heart behind that material or economic progress, that is most paramount here. If we work and enjoy the good things of this world with that proper order, with His glory as our mental nucleus always and His commandments governing our actions, we can indeed live poor in spirit as Christ’s beatitudes command whilst enjoying the material goods with which He has blessed us.

Putting God first is not the same as asking Him to bless whatever it is we’ve already decided to do.

Again, we don’t talk like this anymore, I get it, and a discussion about economic opportunity is not ordinarily where people expect to find a discussion about the spiritual life. But one need only see what Christ was so angry about when He took the whip through the temple that day. It was economics couched inside the context of the temple.

Eventually, praise God, true priorities will show themselves in what we actually do with the economic opportunities we are being given, which makes the questions we are posing today practical as well as spiritual.

Final Words

Do we seek first the kingdom of God and His justice? Our Lord gives us that order explicitly in St Matthew 6:33: “Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.” The anticipated prosperity cannot, all by itself, tell us whether we are doing this God’s way. Making sure that we are will require us to keep examining our opinions as this story unfolds, seeking His justice while the work is churning forward, and remaining willing to correct ourselves when we realize we are wrong.

Having referred to my own priest’s homily, I should make clear that the argument does not rest on his personal authority, but it does rest on the teaching of Pius XI. When a Catholic priest offers his own judgment about an economic venture, he may have studied it carefully and may be entirely right. But his having said it does not, by itself, establish that it is true. That personal judgment is not infallible, whether he supports the venture or opposes it.

A priest’s first responsibility, after all, is to work for the salvation of souls. That certainly includes teaching the moral law as it applies to public life, and it does not forbid him from offering prudential judgments about secular affairs. Those judgments, however, should remain visibly ordered to his pastoral mission. When that higher ordering remains unstated, the commentary risks sounding indistinguishable from ordinary economic talk and politics.

Likewise, that same moral law governs public officials. If credible evidence of kickbacks or other corruption emerges, it should be examined, and any wrongdoing established ought to be brought to light rather than excused. The promised prosperity would not justify it. But suspicion remains suspicion until evidence supports it, which is a distinction we owe people even when we disagree with them.

I would like to see Louisiana prosper, of course I would. And because I don’t view these communities from a distance, I want that prosperity to serve the people who live there in more than economic terms. I would also like us to keep talking long after everyone has determined which side he is on, giving us room to learn something along the way without feeling that we have betrayed somebody by learning it.

Thank you for reading The Hayride!