Posted on 03/15/2010 9:39:57 PM PDT by Steelfish
Catholic in America Glenn Beck's Anti-Catholic Rants
Anthony Stevens-Arroyo
Few people are better at making accusations with code words than Glenn Beck, the Fox News celebrity. With his chalkboard logic, Beck creates conspiracies that almost always make him a savior against anything named "Democrat" or "Obama." Ordinarily, it is convenient to ignore such prattle as just as empty as Beck's interpretation of history, but now he is using his lies and distortions to take on my Church.
The irrepressible Mr. Beck has made quite a stir recently by equating priests who promote the social justice ministry as Communists and Fascists. Beck calls on Catholics to switch parishes and report social justice priests to the bishop. (Beck's broad brush includes other denominations as well, but I know Catholicism best.) Forget that his plan to "rat on" priests is the same strategy of the Hitler Youth and the Polish Communist Party, and just examine the porous logic of his rant. While I think others like Fr. Martin of America have provided a more developed analysis this is my perspective.
Beck claims that the Bible does not promote economic and social justice. But look at Acts 2: 44-45: "And all that believed were together, and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need." And just so there is no mistake, this model of economic justice is repeated in Acts 4: 32. These passages echo Jesus' words about "selling everything and giving it to the poor" (Mt. 19: 21) and about how hard it is for rich people to get into heaven (Lk. 18:25). I don't know what bible Beck is reading, but it's not the Catholic one.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.washingtonpost.com ...
Now the media cares about what traditional Roman Catholics think?
In the church.... yes.... not in the government.
He’s not ranting against Catholics. He’s ranting against leftist, liberation theologists.
Careful - the anti “Romanists” will get you...
Seriously though, Roman Catholics have reason to be wary of such terms.
Look at what the “Black Pope” head of the Jesuits espouses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfo_Nicol%C3%A1s
(Towards the bottom of the page)
See my link. In some cases, they are one in the same.
Alinsky 101.
The firt one to cry was one of Oduma’s faith advisors...
It just seemed so typically hypocrite of them. I could say the same thing about MSM sentiments about Orthodox Jews, etc.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Beck's a showman; pure and simple. Says a lot of good things. Just realize that when he speaks of religion, he doesn't know what he is talking about. He's a cult member. Keep that in mind.
Of course they are. My leftist priest is one of them. However, I am not and the Church is against liberation theology.
There’s a difference between voluntarily selling your stuff and giving the money to the poor and having the government force you to do it.
Liberals don’t understand the difference.
Great post!
“Text without context is pretext”.
This person needs to read the Scriptures a bit more carefully. Not one of those passages he cited mention anything about the government mandating that these acts of charity be done. The folks in Acts gave of their own free will, not because the Roman government mandated that they had to give. And Jesus’ words to the rich young ruler to “sell everything he had and give to the poor” was for that young ruler only, to see where his heart was. Hence, His following statement about how hard it is for a rich person to enter Heaven because, unfortunately, as was the case of the rich young ruler, they tend to trust in their riches more than they trust God.
It’s not just roman catholics who have the “social justice” priests like Father Pfleger.
There are quite a few “social justice” liberals in supposedly mainstream protestant denominations.
They are all commie tyrant enablers, IMO.
He’s righ on the money.
Some of the author’s other screed...
http://newsbusters.org/people/anthony-stevens-arroyo
Anthony Stevens-Arroyo
WaPo’s On Faith: General Patton, Sgt. York Like Ft. Hood Shooter
>> Anthony Stevens-Arroyo: “but now he is using his lies and distortions to take on my Church”
It ain’t your Church, fool.
Bump for later reading
Here’s the complete URL link
That’s how conservative evangelicals take the verse (and I have no reason to believe they are wrong about the church history behind it).
I remember years ago when the Maryknoll Order was all for the Sandinisas. And who could forget the pursuers of Liberation Theology...even those who advocated the murder of people who wanted to keep possesion of their own things.
Yes, Just as in Islam, the Catholics have a murderous wing.
Of course it is. They don’t let a little thing like hypocrisy stand in the way of a good smear job.
The lib writer got all the progressive buzz words in along with a reference to McCarthy & Glenn Beck being “empty-headed”
Beck is as anti-Catholic as I am against steak & taters.
Btw...steak & taters are berry gud eatin :)
I do believe that the church is the place for "social justice," not the government.
I know that has been the stance with JP2 and Benedict. Will it always be the case? If they let a proponent of LT lead the Jesuits? I think it is wise to take the warning.
Why do you think Catholic Freepers worked so hard praying for Ratzinger to become Pope? But if this teaches you anything, it should be that there are hard-core leftists in all denominations, even in Beck’s chosen religion.
I heard Glenn Beck’s whole statement. As a Catholic, I emphatically state that he was 100% correct in everything he said, including his remarks about the “seamless garment.”
This Newsweek guy is a sensationalist troublemaking idiot.
Liberal now all religious because they can rally the anti-Mormons and Mitt Hates to turn on Beck and the Tea Parties. Good try but I’m not buying it.
That’s true.
I’m as Catholic as can be. And I heard Beck’s rant and the guy was right on the money. The only thing I would disagree with him on is I actually try to infiltrate various church peace and justice groups. One is now focusing on ending abortion, as it’s primary end, so there’s always hope.
It doesn’t bother Newsweek that the now President, used clinging to bibles as an negative against a particular group of people?
Newsweek doesn’t see that as poor behavior... of someone wishing to be President, for ALL the people of the United States, THAT is OK? To insult/belittle THEM and their beliefs?
Beck admits to a messed-up life and says he turned to mormonism because he realized he had to seek a higher power and the mormons don’t drink — and he’s an alcoholic.
While I think he’s following the wrong path, the very wrong path, I also give him credit for trying. And his journey may not be over.
The guy has courage. Give him that. Considering the danger he willingly puts himself in by taking on Barry’s agenda, he could use prayers, both for safety and for further enlightenment.
Agree. As a Catholic we have to admit there is a tradition in Central America of socialist Priests who have used ‘social justice’ from the teachings of Christ to justify leftist political action.
Who doesn’t know this? Who can’t spend a few minutes to find out about this history?
Beck made the point today that reliance on government for social justice supplants the state in the roll which should be justified by churches.
For example, the church has been given the mission to feed the poor. Instead, the government mails checks.
Rather than address the spiritual causes of poverty people are kept in poverty through these government checks. They create a slave class in perpetual poverty.
Read the book THE TRAGEDY OF AMERICAN COMPASSION for more information on this topic.
I'm not a Mormon. I do have Mormon neighbors I like very much. I've learned not to offer their kids chocolate or tea. I have a Mormon church a block away, where I see what seem like real nice folks coming and going. I don't share their belief, but that applies to a whole lot of religions. I haven't noticed anybody over there leaving and alienating themselves from their families, soliciting at airports, drinking poison KoolAid, watching for space ships behind comets, or sawing off heads.
I'll assume your position of apparent divine knowledge for a moment. Based on what you have revealed of yourself here, I think Christ would agree with me that you're a jerk of monumental proportions. If you consider yourself a Christian, you should hang your head in shame for the lousy ambassadorship you've just done for your faith.
Alinsky style full court press, bump.
Typical Communist prattle about how “Jesus was a communist”. I call BS, fer sure. Read Just a little further in Acts and what does Peter ask Ananais about the property he sold? (Which, by the way, as a Pharisee wasn’t he not supposed to OWN property?) Peter asks him, “Wasn’t that property YOURS?” “Weren’t the proceeds YOURS?” Notice Peter doesn’t claim the proceeds were Peter’s or the groups or anyone else’s. They belonged to Ananais. Ananais had publicly stated that ALL had been given. (And where was his wife, Saphira meanwhile? Out some three hours? Husband recently acquired some cash. Wait for it. Wait for it. Shopping???!!!) Anyway, the thing I am impressed with as one really begins to study the Bible is not a WORD is extraneous or out of place or imprecise.
Curious that the early church DID pool resources, but just as the folks at Jamestown did, they discovered quickly that IT DIDN’T WORK. THey discovered that “some didn’t want to help” and so these were told that if they didn’t work they didn’t eat. Paul makes a great point repeatedly aboutr paying his own way for everything but working at making tents. Just as in every place it is ever tried, RUssia, Cuba, Venezuela, you name it. It has never and will never work.
The left have been comparing Glenn to Father Coughlin. When you understand who this Father was, the idea of Glenn being another Couglin is hysterically funny.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/cough.html
Actually, he is right, it is his church. It just isn’t HIS church, if you get my meaning. The author’s church isn’t part of “The Bride”. The author’s church probably also has “enlightened teaching” on a number of matters, homosexuality being one, I would imagine.
I'm really glad your mormon cult friends down the street are so swell. Isn't that special.
I would suggest reading a bit.
The left and even many Catholics answering the guise of “social justice” abuse Yeshua’s statement that (I’m paraphrasing) it is more difficult for a rich man to get into heaven than a poor man.
The lesson is NOT that the rich man is bad because of his wealth or because of how he got it or because of how much he keeps of it.
Reaching salvation is harder for the rich man because of the danger that he will allow his wealth to be a temptation towards all the bad things in this world, if he allows it to and because with great wealth it is so easy to allow it to. It is that danger, the many temptations that great wealth presents to our imperfect selves, and not that anything about that wealth itself is bad. It is a tale about the difficulty the wealth presents TO the rich man, not that his having it is bad out of a comparison with others.
That’s what makes it “more difficult for the rich man to get into heaven”; but the Marxists and their “social justice travelers have turned the words of The Savior into an erroneous cause of envy and class warfare.
So Joe Smith is a "higher power"? Who is higher than Jesus Christ of the Bible?
Listen, Beck made a major blunder by joining a cult; You know it; I know it; anyone with any brains knows that.
And if any of you do-gooders out there believe in it, then I am accepting donations of all givers!!!!!!!!
There will be no “social justice” in Heaven.
As with all leftist evil, “social justice” substitutes the power of the state for our God-given free will. Where God says He wants us to be loving, merciful, and charitable, but leaves us the free will to be otherwise, “social justice” is the state saying, “Screw free will. You will *act* as we think you should, or men with guns will come arrest, fine, or kill you.”
As Shakespeare tells us, “...mercy...is twice blessed. It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
“Social justice,” conversely, is twice cursed: It robs the free will of him that gives, and degrades him that takes.
Shakespeare also notes that “...in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation. We do pray for mercy, and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy...”
There is God’s will at work: people learning to be merciful for its own sake, and not because some leftist has a gun pointed at their heads.
And what does “social justice” teach us? From the POV of the taxed, “Men with guns take my hard-earned wages and give it to strangers, leaving me no choice in where and whether to perform deeds of charity.” From the POV of the taker, “They are so reluctant to help me that men with guns have to make them do it. How deep their contempt for me must be.”
As with so many of Satan’s programs, “social justice” appears to be noble, but is in fact deeply evil and destructive.
Understand & agree with your thinking, but the church—any church—IS NOT the place for “social justice.” It’s the place for CHARITY. The whole notion of social justice is inconceivable. For that matter, it’s undefinable. Christ, contrary to the ramblings of lib theologians & “Christologists,” never spoke of any such justice. Nor did He ever speak of “tolerance.”
Right on.
Furthermore, it is indicative, not prescriptive.
It is suggestive of the kind of spirit that a local community of Christians might well choose towards one another, voluntarily of course. It’s not wrong to infer modes in which God works to bless among people. That’s one of the points of giving a bible to men. The incident with Ananias and Sapphira seems to further emphasize the voluntarism aspect. They perished by divine action not with a rebuke for being selfish but for pretending to be more generous than they really were and thus trying to parade a falsehood before God.
Jesus talked about taking YOUR OWN money and helping the poor. He never said anything about rendering unto caesar your money to help the poor. Caesar kept the tax money for HIMSELF and the empire. Sound familiar?
2425 The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with "communism" or "socialism." She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of "capitalism," individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor. Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for "there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market." Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended.
So, in denouncing socialism, Beck is as Catholic as the Pope. And on reflection, what the Catholic Church refers to as "capitalism" is actually extreme libertarianism, not capitalism as exemplified by the United States and other modern nations.
Moreover, for the Church, the term "social justice" is fully consistent with modern capitalist societies in the value they place on freedom and the value and dignity of the individual, in their extraordinary capacity to generate widespread wealth, and in their provisions for mass education, a safety net, and an abundance of private charity:
1928 Society ensures social justice when it provides the conditions that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their due, according to their nature and their vocation. Social justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority.
1929 Social justice can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man. The person represents the ultimate end of society, which is ordered to him: "What is at stake is the dignity of the human person, whose defense and promotion have been entrusted to us by the Creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment of history are strictly and responsibly in debt." 1938 There exist also sinful inequalities that affect millions of men and women. These are in open contradiction of the Gospel: "Their equal dignity as persons demands that we strive for fairer and more humane conditions. Excessive economic and social disparity between individuals and peoples of the one human race is a source of scandal and militates against social justice, equity, human dignity, as well as social and international peace."
1943 Society ensures social justice by providing the conditions that allow associations and individuals to obtain their due.
2426 The development of economic activity and growth in production are meant to provide for the needs of human beings. Economic life is not meant solely to multiply goods produced and increase profit or power; it is ordered first of all to the service of persons, of the whole man, and of the entire human community. Economic activity, conducted according to its own proper methods, is to be exercised within the limits of the moral order, in keeping with social justice so as to correspond to God's plan for man.
If true Beck did try to rip the Catholic Church then all I have to say is Most Catholics who leave the faith for what ever reason (Beck was once a practicing Catholic) are usually the biggest critics.
Rolls off my back.
Watcha got next Mr. Beck I forgive you.
Beck was a Cathlic, not practicing.
Beck wife choose the faith they are practicing now.
Beck agreed.
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