Still Running Off at the Keyboard

A Catholic archbishop in Germany introduced his own "Das Kapital" -- an attack on capitalistic excesses -- to reporters Wednesday.

Archbishop Reinhard Marx of Munich is not related to 19th-century communist founding father Karl Marx, but the clergyman's surname draws wonderment and wisecracks wherever he goes.

Despite the similar nomenclature, Marx says readers should not expect a defense of communism in this new book. Instead, the Roman Catholic archbishop who is the most outspoken of Germany's 27 diocesan leaders in his criticism of big business, says that his work is to some extent "an argument with Marxism."

The book begins as a letter addressed to his "dear namesake."

"The consequences," he tells the 19th-century ideologist, "of your thinking were disastrous."

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