The pope has no equivalent means of judging immediate reactions by the faithful, though probably a reasonable start would be to look into the rate of vocations -- one hardly checks into a seminary if doubting the entire thesis of Christianity.
But the president and the Congress can certainly act before judging the capitalist Weltanschauung terminally infirm. Clearly the accountants must be made to perform more reliably, which may be reason to forbid practices that are conflicts of interest, auditing vs. consulting. Just as priests are now to report any evidence of sinful behavior to public prosecutors, so chief executives can reasonably face tougher laws than those now on the books, so to speak accelerating the journey of the sinners to jail.
And Congress could act profitably for the investment class. Writing in The Wall Street Journal for the Club for Growth, Richard Gilder and Thomas Rhodes have made specific recommendations. Most immediately applicable is the proposal that beginning immediately, capital-gains taxes should be reduced to one-half the current level. The design is obvious, to entice investors back into the market by eliminating one part of the burden of a successful round.
Meanwhile the gross figures crowd in on us. The states of the union, with one or two remarkable exceptions, are drowning in deficit spending. Waterlogged hulls float less easily, and now manifestly is not the time to add to the national deficit $1 trillion in federal drug programs.
The metaphors for spiritual nourishment apply in the world of getting and spending. The Christian is invited to mortification of the flesh -- traditionally, to fasting and prayer. The secular equivalent of that is to spend less, work more. We operate in both worlds in the faith that just as no legion of failed priests can undermine the faith, so no legion of failed CEOs can undermine the free market.