Posted on 03/15/2013 12:27:30 PM PDT by dangus
very good post. PINGU!
When Catholics came to the United States, they faced bitter economic repression. Where they could not find leadership roles in businesses at first, they did manage, due to their numbers, to elect people in cities who would open the doors of government work to them. Civil service, such as police, firefighters, soldiers and teachers, was a means to the middle class. Further, the Church was very unionist, at a time when unions stood for decent pay and working conditions, rather than emezzlement, abortion, homosexuality and bloated government bureaucracies. (The merger and nationalization of local unions into the AFL-CIO was tragic.) So practically, yes, American Catholics have been long affiliated with the Democratic party.
At the same time, the Catholic Church in Europe was the last (unsuccessful, sadly, in most cases) against the anti-clerical socialist movements. She forcefully condemned socialism, and pioneered the economic theory of subsidiarity. Unfortunately, she also became infected with freemasons, and the New World became dominated by left-wing American priests, and the heresies which in the Protestant world were called “the social gospel” took root in the Catholic Church as “liberation theology.”
John Paul II condemned liberation theology, and nourished domestic clergy in Latin America and Africa. But in the midst of expressing so much concern for the poor, he insufficiently spread the gospel of subsidiarity, the notion that authority should default to the simplest social structure even theoretically capable of accomplishing a socially necessary task. (Think states rights in the context of national policy, but community rights in the context of state policy, and individual freedom in the context of communities.)
John Paul’s answer to communism was solidarity, the notion that a hulking bureaucracy cannot be responsive to personal social means. But his critiques of plutocracy in the West led to several opportunities for the economic left (still at heart holding to liberation theology) to exploit his linguistic limitations. For instance, Americans conflate “economic freedom” with “Capitalism.” To Europeans, “capitalism” means what we would call, “plutocracy.” So when John Paul the European decried “capitalism,” American liberals portrayed him as opposing free markets. And they conflated in so many minds, “socialism” and “charity.”
I believe Pope Francis gets it far better.
This displays an appalling historical ignorance. There were members of the Church who complied (there are always collaborators, unfortunately) but by and large the Church held firm and many of Her clergy and laypeople suffered greatly in the concentration camps for it!
SotC makes a well-sourced expansion of the difference between what Europeans call “capitalism” and what Americans mean by the term.
However, the church at large was weak on economics (susceptible to socialist ideas) which is why it was not able to hold Hitler off.
The Church is against theft: and furthermore teaches that if a man does not work he should not eat. Widows and orphans are another matter of course.
Socialists do not HAVE a love FOR the poor. What they have is a love of being in control of the poor. And, to that end, they want to make EVERYONE poor. Except themselves, of course. Someone has to be in charge.
“The challenge to eradicate poverty cannot be truthfully met as long as the poor continue to be dependents of the State.” - Pope Francis I
Too long for a tagline
Yes. Did you read past the first sentence?
“But that’s not socialism. Every Christian should have a love for the poor; socialism is merely a kleptocratic movement which usurps and perverts that.”
Not necessarily
*sigh* I guess it is. I wonder if I can paraphrase it.
I’m not understanding the reasoning for your comment. The left would have us believe that socialism is a form of government whereby the poor are taken care of. Hence their stand that the new Pope is a socialist based upon his “love” for the poor. Their belief that socialism is good for the poor is an untruth. Under socialism the poor suffer greatly. The Catholic Church, through their “charity”, does more to help the poor than anything socialism could do. The Church’s “charity” is not socialism.
the Church held firm and many of Her clergy and laypeople suffered greatly in the concentration camps for it!
One of the images that stuck in my mind’s eye while visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington was a photo of a group of priests, in clerical collars lined up in front of a Nazi firing squad. So yes, the Nazis didn’t just persecute Jews. In fact, pope John Paul II’s own parish priest was executed.
Well said!
Your tone had me thinking you were trying to correct me, but your words were agreeing with me.
“Then why is it that surveys conducted by the Church show that 54% (fifty four percent!!!) of Catholics do not oppose same-sex marriage?”
My point was not Catholics it was the Church / Pope...
“Widows and orphans are another matter of course.”
This is my point.... the truly needy.
If not, nothing else matters.
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