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The actual statement isn’t bad, and even has a lot if (unreported) good stuff. But where he falls down, like any Argentinian, is saying that it is this “redistribution of benefits” is something the State should do. He’s a statist, and I think this is his biggest defect.

See post 112

Historically, it was Protestant countries who advanced capitalism and increased prosperity. Catholic countries typically resisted capitalism as something suspect and foreign, and consequently ended up with wealthy oligarchies and masses of poor people.

As Catholic intellectuals and missionaries began to feel guilty about this situation, they blamed the capitalism that they had rejected, and began to promote Marxist liberation theology.

Catholics do tend to have a socialist bias, and most of the pioneers of capitalism were Jews and Protestants. These are - of course - generalizations, and generalizations have exceptions, but I think this was generally true.

I might agree. I think it’s too easy to say “he’s an Argentinian statist” though (just as it’s probably too easy to say “he’s just calling for more charity from all of us, voluntary charity not forced redistribution but voluntary”)

The fact of the matter is, he used the phrase “redistribution by the State”. However he also said in relation, “legitimate” and “economic benefits” (IOW not simply “money”).

So, it seems to me what he is saying is, the state should guarantee that every person has an equal opportunity to earn a decent living, and where inequality exists, such as crony capitalism, this should be abolished by the state.

So in this sense he isn’t a “statist” but he is in the sense that he believes the state has a role to play in guaranteeing opportunity for all. (Although I don’t agree that makes one a statist, I can see where one might think and reasonably argue it does).

Really, what we have here, (again I think), is he is strongly promoting in more concrete terms than prior popes, the idea of “subsidiarity”, which is that the state’s job is to guarantee that nothing interfere with local efforts toward human improvement.

In other words very close to the American experiment but not quite in that it assigns a role to the state the US Constitution does not. But it’s a rather small difference I would argue as the ultimate goal is the same: to rid individuals and families of state control, a control that would and does eventually dehumanize them.

Subsidiarity seeks to primarily protect the individual and small local group (family, etc), even at the cost (if necessary) of “free” enterprise. (Although the proponent of subsidiarity would argue , and I agree, it doesn’t work against capitalism per se, rather against crony capitalism and/or capitalism that seeks exploitation of people as a resource, not as partners in the enterprise, which some, with vested interest in same or simply the selfish, would interpret as opposition to capitalism in total)

The point to return to is his use of the word “redistribution” in the context of the state. This interpretation can’t be avoided. However I would submit this is where his Argentinian background would be properly understood as having an influence.

In other words he is speaking to all the Latin American countries where crony capitalism runs amok, and is urging in all such countries where such oppression is seen, the state should step in to redistribute the economic benefit garnered via human exploitation (which is what crony capitalism is). And this redistribution should not be to take money from the rich and give to the poor, rather it should be a redistribution of economic “benefit”, such that other people, rather than just those who have government friends, can start businesses and earn livings for themselves, through their own hard work. Rather than being enslaved by those in their own government who, by favoritism shown to their employers by the state, enable only some to prosper economically, but not all.

So this isn’t Marxist. I should hope that would be clear. If anything “political” it’s “individualist”.