Posted on 01/12/2014 11:54:16 AM PST by DavidThomas
No, there have been many articles that this assertion is incorrect.
No. He’s heavily influenced by Communion & Liberation, an Italian movement made up mostly of older academics and wealthy leftists, so he’s probably heavily skewed left - but he’s not a Marxist.
The thing that bothers me most about him is that he seems very government friendly. That is, most of the theft he complains about is done by governments in league with companies or wealthy individuals, such as Michelle Obama, who contracted her college buddy for the “Obamacare” website - a woman whose Canadian company had already been excluded from doing business with the Canadian government because of their screw-ups and overbilling. But the Pope will never notice that.
His problem is not that he’s a Marxist, but that he’s firmly stuck in the late 80s. This was a recovering time for the Church, after VII, but not a good time. He needs to move on.
Yes. Hint: "sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have everlasting life" is not marxism.
It would also help if people understood what capitalism is. Hint 2: close a factory in Ohio and instead open one in China where communist government ensures low wage and no pollution laws, -- something nearly impossible without heavy involvement by both US and Chinese governments negotiating taxes and manipulating exchange rates, -- that systematic sale of our industrial base is not capitalism, not free market and not private enterprise.
The "godless" part is the troublesome part, since any "system" will become a terrible engine of injustice if people are not converted, if they do not confess, repent their sins, and turn to God with all their hearts.
Of course, what we have now, at the top, all over the world, is "crony capitalism," the incestuous relationship between big business and big government. The government picks the winners and the losers, and the Fobes 500 line up at the government teats.
You've got favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks; government-funded research being privately and selectively appropriated; you've got "regulatory capture," in which businesses throttle the competition by entangling them in custom-made government-created obstacles; political donors are subsidized, awarded no-bid contracts, "stimulused" and bailed out, while political critics are tortured by the IRS and subjected to regulatory extermination.
This --- corporate welfare passing itself off as "capitalism" --- is a worldwide phenomenon.
Not a soul had the mettle to read past the headline. Nice try.
The column deserved more than pop offs, to get the point that neither the Church nor the Pope are Marxist or Liberation Theology purveyors.
1)Materialist philosophy is not the creation of the "proletariat," who historically have been too busy just making a living to engage in such intellectual abstraction. It is the creation of middle class or even wealthy intellectuals who have never had to worry about making a living.
2)The idea of the non-owning laboring classes being the force of teleological progress in history has long since given way to a sort of racial mysticism, in which the more melanin one possesses, the higher one's place in the hierarchy of the oppressed. Regardless of wealth or poverty, Asians are thus considered to the left of whites, Hispanics to the left of Asians, and Blacks as the absolute pinnacle of revolutionary action. Even illiterate Biblical Fundamentalists who are Black are considered to the left of Marx, to the left of Castro, to the left of Mao, to the left of Enver Hoxha. There is certainly no ridicule of Black religiosity on the Left, though granted, the Black clergy for the past few decades has shown no evidence of still believing in supernatural realities to begin with.
Mrs. Don-o,
I head that concept once from a radio minister, so it certainly is not original with me. But I do think it helps explain things a bit.
Most Business people I know are good hardworking Americans who love their country.
But plenty at the top of multi-nationals do not put American or the American people first. That is clear.
I’m all for a free market, but despise crony capitalism.
Of course Francis is not a Marxist. Those who claim otherwise focus only on specific parts of a broader message and mistakenly associate Marxism with anti-Capitalism. I hope the first half of this essay showed Marxism is more than a criticism of capitalism. Francis does not preach revolution, a communist political system or atheism. In reality, the above-cited passages are just a few paragraphs from an eighty-four page document. And the Catholic Church, long before Marx, long before Liberation Theologians, dedicated itself to serving the poor. In another essay, I showed that Marx was shaped by Christian doctrine, so concordance between Marx and Francis are symptomatic of Christian influence on Marx, not vice versa. Even if I don’t like some of the concepts he employs, Francis’ ends are consistent with the Gospel and his means are not Marxist.
IBTPWM
France has a French problem.
So, the pope is against “unbridled capitalism” and he is not impressed with trickle-down economics, but that does not make him a Marxist or even a believer in Liberation Theology.
Yes, Pope Francis has adopted the Marxist “liberation theology” heresy. And he will use the power of the Vatican to spread it far and wide.
God Bless You! The ones bashing the Pope are the same ones bashing the Catholic Church even before the Pope. It is so frustrating to see such ignorance on Free Republic.
Capitalism isn’t really an ism.
Capitalism is what happens when people are free.
Which means the Catholic Church SHOULD support it.
Unfortunately, there is a long tradition of bishops and priests having absolutely no clue when it comes to economic activity or human freedom.
Capitalism isn’t really an ism.
Capitalism is what happens when people are free.
Which means the Catholic Church SHOULD support it.
Unfortunately, there is a long tradition of bishops and priests having absolutely no clue when it comes to economic activity or human freedom.
I think Francis is a Marxist with a Catholic problem.
I agree there is a lot to be said for ignorance, especially in the clergy. saying capitalism is not an “ism” is however, a syncretization of separated ideas. These things may compliment each other, but economics is certainly not metaphysics, or politics, or morality, or anthropology.
What you claim to be capitalism is another philosophy.
Capitalism is not an ideology cooked up by an academic. It is, precisely as I said, what happens when people are free to engage in labor, industry, and trade.
Why people make the economic decisions they make, when they are free, has been studied and subjected to rigorous rational analysis. The result is Austrian economics.
And Austrian economics is not an ideology. It is a true science, unlike the ideologies of statism and collectivism, which are merely expressions of the will, on the part of some, to steal and to kill.
Most of what passes for “Catholic Social Teaching,” in the realm of economic activity, amounts mostly to whining about the presence of poverty and suffering in the world, in language that is increasingly apt for exploitation by...plunderers and killers—i.e., statists and collectivist.
If the Church, especially Popes, would anchor their “social teaching” firmly in the Commandments—i.e., in sound principles regarding prohibited and praiseworthy actions—rather than painting pictures of DESIRED OUTCOMES, a “better future,” they would be teaching something of great value. What one usually encounters nowadays when the topic is “social teaching” and “social justice” is elaborate Utopian visions, consisting either of Marxism with all the corpses papered over, or nostalgia for everything from the “guild system” to the First New Deal.
BTW: Yes. Francis DOES have a “Marxism Problem.”
The problem is that he fails to condemn Marxism in all its variants and manifestations every time he opens his mouth.
He should never utter a syllable about helping the poor without in the same breath condemning Marxism and all other forms of statism. That he fails to do so renders everything he says fodder for the statists. I do not expect him to understand this. He shows very little, if any, foresight concerning the exploitation of his words by the pro-abortionists, the collectivists, the statists, etc., etc.
Tenth Commandment: Do not covet. This pope evidently sees covetousness as a virtue. Or he’s incredibly naïve relative to human nature.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.