Posted on 09/22/2015 6:49:31 AM PDT by shortstop
Pope Francis doesn’t hate you.
But he does hate your lifestyle, your country, and the economic principles upon which your life is built.
Today, the Holy Father will come to America, the nation which personifies all the evils he sees in the world, the country that is the obvious target of his invective and condemnation.
As he condemns capitalism and consumerism, denounces things like air conditioning and private automobiles, and condemns people who, by overconsumption, engage in what he calls social and racial oppression, he’s talking about you.
You know that, right?
Yesterday he was in Cuba, where he had no criticism for the regime that has locked up people for being Christian. Today he is in America, where he has criticized our way of life from top to bottom.
Most irksome to him is our country’s contribution to supposed manmade global warming. He accepts unquestioningly that the climate is changing and that that change is driven by man’s use of fossil fuels and that stopping that change is a major moral responsibility of the Catholic Church.
Consumption of natural resources, as demonstrated by modern society, he reasons, is destructive of the earth and morally wrong. Internal combustion and the burning of coal to generate electricity all make gases that, the pope says, destroy the earth and allow one people – you – to unrighteously oppress another people – everyone else.
The generation of those gasses is, then, a sin.
And the pope wants you and the United States to stop sinning, to stop consuming more than others and to stop having more than others. Income equality, a lot less electricity, elimination of fossil fuels, and no more air conditioning.
Apparently using air conditioning really ticks God off.
Which raises the question: Why did God make coal?
And oil?
Seriously, if the use of coal and oil is sinful, and presuming God made the earth, then why did he make so much coal and oil? Do hydrocarbons in nature exist merely to tempt man, to test his abilities of self-restraint?
Is a vein of West Virginia coal something akin to pornography, a forbidden fruit that must never be touched? The oil beneath the arctic, did God put that there to see if we would be pious enough not to use it? Do natural resources exist only to tempt us, a creation perhaps of the devil, as opposed to God?
And if it is miserably hot with intense humidity and you turn on the air conditioning to comfort a fretting child or to ease the circumstance of someone else afflicted by the heat, are you sinning?
Only in Pope Francis’ world.
And that is a world in sharp contrast with reality, to say nothing of the teachings of his two predecessors – Benedict XVI and Saint John Paul II. The Roman Catholic Church has gone from one of its most conservative pontiffs of modern time, to one of its most liberal. Imagine how Benedict XVI must be kicking himself, as the Francis papacy was created by the almost-unprecedented retirement of a sitting Benedict XVI.
I believe the pope is mistaken, both about wealth and global warming.
The resources of the earth are in the earth not to tempt us, but to bless us. God created a world replete with coal and oil because he knew of the needs of humans over time. He knew of our current population, and its need for energy and food – two things fossil fuels make possible. He also knew of the populations we shall yet produce, and of their needs.
Natural resources are a gift from God, to be used with thanksgiving, but certainly to be used. And those who argue that the blessings of God should be left in the ground, unused to better the lives of his children, are not doing the work or speaking the truth of God. And they are certainly not helping God's children -- the family of man.
And the blessing of the poor does not come about by the debasing of the rich, but by the lifting of the poor. Technology, a frequent target of the pope’s criticism, is not a curse, it is a blessing – a blessing from God. And just as the advance of technology – in every area – has blessed American life, its continued advance and application around the world will lift the lives of other peoples.
You do not enhance the lives of Third Worlders by attacking the lives of Americans. You enhance the lives of Third Worlders by applying the principles that enriched America to the situations of Third Worlders.
First among those is faith in and fidelity to God. Second is a belief in individual freedom and determination – including the freedom of the marketplace known as capitalism.
The pope is mistaken in condemning America and its lifestyle. Yes, the United States has moral woes which weigh it down, and has great need of repentance. But these are found in its morality, not its marketplace, finances and prosperity.
The pope is preaching a gospel of Marx that depicts America as the hated 1 percent, the oppressive source of the world’s woes. That is consistent with the liberation theology of his youth, but not the realities of the world.
Because the realities of the world are that in the traditional values and priorities of the United States we find not the source of mankind’s problems, but the solution to mankind’s problems.
I hope the pope is open minded enough to recognize that.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/09/the-left-has-its-pope/#oLpYFS6Dj7A6Tps4.99
He doesn’t understand how things work. All he sees is a country that he has always thought was super rich, and he wants it to give its money to the “poor.”
Got news for you, el popo. We ain’t rich no mo.
-— Thomas Sowell has stated in a column today, “Pope Francis’ own native Argentina was once among the leading economies of the world, before it was ruined by the kind of ideological notions he is now promoting around the world. -—
Very true. And we wonder, How can this be? But it’s no different from our country, where a large number of people blame free markets for our social ills, when the true cause is welfare programs.
Economics is abstract, and people generally struggle with identifying cause and effect when causes are remote from the effects.
By the way, how much money do you suppose the Sistine Chapel is worth? My guess is that the ceiling alone is probably more than 99.999% of all the people in the history of human existence saw in their lifetime.
Keep attending as your church needs a voice of reason.
I know churches, not just Catholic, are getting a lot of money from the gov’t to assist refugees and illegal immigrants. I would not contribute to those charities.
The commie pope who proclaims that capitalism is evil is quick to come to America to enjoy the fruits of our hospitality. Imagine all the money he would have saved American taxpayers (security costs) had he stayed in Italy with his socialist liberal ideas.
Isn’t this the first time he’s ever been here? Really, his opinions cannot really have much intelligence if that is the case.
Holy Father? Not mine. He is the False Prophet as far as I am concerned.
Remember the Eucharist....when everything else is gone, it remains for you as a gift.
“I hope the pope is open minded enough to recognize that.”
This hope is in vane. Pope Francis is a flawed man with an agenda, just like Obama has an agenda. The most effective way to accomplish it is to infiltrate and affect change from the inside of a very powerful organization or country. Makes me glad I am not a Catholic because I would be locked in a moral struggle with myself for even saying that. My father-in-law went to his grave believing that the pope was infallible. It is just as well that he didn’t live to see this one.
I saw a Catholic church in the 70’s in Oxaca, mexico and its aisle and pews and altar were all lined with gold inlay. The parishioner all were dirt poor, but the catholic church was lined with gold.
This pope is a dope.
I stopped going thirty years ago....couldn’t take the leftist crap from cardinal Roger Mahoney in LaLa land.
It’s only gotten worse since.
“Do as as say, not as I do”
~The Pope
“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”
~Matthew 7:5
“They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.”
~Titus 1:16
“Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?”
~Romans 2:3
“Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.”
~2 Timothy 3:5
““Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”
~Matthew 7:15
“If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.”
~James 1:26
I've wondered this aloud before, but I think this Pope would prefer his sheep living not with modern-day conveniences, but in the drudgery of the Middle Ages. Like that, we could all be serfs and give whatever meager wages we earned to the Popes and kings.
Ima waiting for Father Guido Sarducci’s take ona new pope
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.