Rev. Wallis/Fr. Martin on Religion & Ethics via Commonweal.

Rev. Wallis identifies himself as "an evangelical convert to Catholic social teachings" and I'd hasten to add that the Catholic hierarchy itself is a convert to Catholic social teachings, well after Wallis's conversion but by the same means, Dorothy Day.

More from Wallis:

We've all got into this culture of greed, the culture extolling greed as a value. In D.C., property values have doubled in four years. So what do they say?

Take your equity value and take a loan against that and buy another house, and then you can rent that and pay for your mortgage and then buy a third house. The prophets say you add house to house to house to house -- the whole thing falls apart

My impression is that people aren't interested in owning their homes these days. It isn't a goal that they have. Despite having a mortgage, they "rent" their homes. In some places, the very dream of paying off a mortgage can be impossible.

Without getting too personal, we bought this place eight years ago after saving for ten years. We put down just over half without tapping the proceeds of the sale of our previous place. We went with a 15 yr. loan for the rest with the expectation of paying it in about 12.

And at every step of the way, people tried to talk us out of this traditional, conservative approach:

"Why tie up your money in your home?"

"You know, you can deduct the interest from your taxes."

"Why did you pay off your previous home if you planned to move one day?"

I got to thinking that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I just hope Dr. Kaveny has some cash stuffed under her bed along with her Fidelity statements. I stopped opening mail years ago ... and the financial crisis had nothing to do with it!