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TOM DEIGNAN

Michael Moore’s unlikely 'Capitalism' ally: An Irish Catholic priest

By
Tom Deignan

Published Wednesday, October 7, 2009, 11:25 AM
Updated Wednesday, October 7, 2009, 11:30 AM

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Michael Moore’s unlikely 'Capitalism' ally: An Irish Catholic priest | Irish News | IrishCentral




Filmmaker Michael Moore has teamed up with an Irish Catholic priest
Filmmaker Michael Moore has teamed up with an Irish Catholic priest

Michael Moore’s latest documentary "Capitalism: A Love Story" is now in theaters all across the country.  The reviews have been predictable. 

Some people who loved Moore’s previous provocative looks at health care ("Sicko"), gun control ("Bowling for Columbine") and the war on terror ("Fahrenheit 9/11") have applauded Moore’s intense criticism of corporate greed.

Then there are Moore’s enemies.  The Fox News crowd and other right wing critics gleefully label Moore a socialist or communist, not to mention an anarchist and the anti-Christ, sometimes in the very same sentence.

Often, Moore revels in such criticisms.  But in his latest movie, Moore seems like he is trying to cut his critics off. 

For example, he uses an Irish Catholic priest to bolster his case.

Who would have thunk it?  Michael Moore and the Catholic Church, teaming up to take on Wall Street.

Actually, Moore has often talked about his Irish and Catholic roots, as he did last week during an interview with IrishCentra's sister publication the Irish Voice.  The problem is that so many people either love or loath Moore that it is easy to ignore some of the lesser-known facts about his personal life.

But often Moore links his radical politics to his Irish Catholic background.  In 2004, while visiting Liverpool on a book tour, he told a crowd, “I’ve always asked everyone to send me to Liverpool and they’ve always said no. Why? They’re afraid of the city, aren’t they? Because at the end of this book reading you might actually go out on the street and tear something down. Woo-hoo!”

Then, according to a New Yorker profile, Moore told the crowd “that Americans of Irish origin had a special feeling for Liverpool, because their ancestors -- Moore’s own great-grandmother among them -- had come through the city on their way to America.”

Then, a man in the Liverpool audience yelled out, “We never left, Mike.  We starved here. Five thousand Irish people were buried in paupers’ graves in this city through typhus.  This city has seen misery untold.”

In "Capitalism: A Love Story," Moore tries to undermine the argument often made by Republicans that unfettered capitalism and Christianity go hand and hand.  He talks to numerous Catholic priests, among them an Irish American named Peter Dougherty.  This bolsters Moore’s argument that the hyper capitalism we’ve seen in recent years is not only bad policy, but sinful and amoral.

In a recent TV interview, Dougherty said that Moore wanted to discuss greed “from the morality standpoint as well, and so he asked me as a Catholic priest what I had to say about capitalism."

Dougherty added, "Things are in bad shape in the United States of America, our economy, the corruption is rampant.  Hopefully some of what I'm saying might strike a chord."

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Michael Moore’s unlikely 'Capitalism' ally: An Irish Catholic priest | Irish News | IrishCentral


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