Posted on 10/22/2009 7:34:31 AM PDT by kronos77
Amid the worst recession in generations, Karl Marx, who famously described religion as “the opium of the people”, got a thumbs up from the Vatican overturning a century of Catholic hostility to his creed.
Marx, who predicted that capitalism would be destroyed by its internal contradictions, has joined Galileo, Charles Darwin and Oscar Wilde on a growing list of historical figures to have undergone an unlikely reappraisal by the Roman Catholic Church, The Times newspaper said on Thursday.
The British daily, quoting the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, said Marx’s early critiques of capitalism had highlighted the “social alienation” felt by the “large part of humanity” that remained excluded from economic and political decision-making.
Amid signs of recovery in global financial markets, Christian leaders have flayed the capitalist system for displaying a lack of moral values, arguing that ethical debates needs to be given greater prominence.
Georg Sans, a German-born professor of the history of contemporary philosophy at the pontifical Gregorian University, argues that Marx’s work remained especially relevant today as mankind was seeking “a new harmony” between its needs and the natural environment.
The report quoted Prof. Sans as saying that Marx’s theories may help to explain the enduring issue of income inequality within capitalist societies.
(Excerpt) Read more at beta.thehindu.com ...
Crap analysis. Viewed in absolute income terms, even the bottom is better off in capitalism, not even counting the personal freedom.
The above is one of the top five reasons I am no longer Catholic.
Too many in the Catholic leadership break the First Commandment by worshiping communism rather than God. And...There is absolutely no way for the ordinary layman to influence reform.
Hitler said the same things about capitalism, too.
Ping for later.
Always gotta get a slam in at the church somehow. It's part of being a patriotic Englishman. Besides, them Papists 'r poaching from the C of E, now.
Lesson number one: Never trust anything a British paper says about the Vatican.
Lesson number two: Not everything written in the Vatican newspaper is ex cathedra. Basically none of it is.
Nothing to see here. Some Europeans like Marx. Big deal.
Marx does NOT promote these values. Marx believed in centralized, non-democratic economic and political decision making.
These are democratic values in a FREE society, the OPPOSITE of marxism.
Duh.
What are these people thinking?? Marxism is SO 19th century...
A ‘hindu blog’ quotes a British paper quoting a Vatican paper.
One hell of a smoking gun right there. One quote from a lefty prelate (without the cure of souls) two years ago, and suddenly we got headlines like “The Church has decreed eight new cardinal sins and accepts abortion!!!”
Why do I get a weird feeling that this is going to be the same?
The Catholic religion is becoming a communist front, much as the Orthodox religion in Russia was.
Yes, let's ignore Jesus' "theories" in favor of Marx. Dummasses.
"The poor you will always have with you"
The “winnowing” is going on right now.
Join a good, literal bible believing protestant church.
For anyone who is still confused, let them consider that the words of a Papal encyclical trump anything said by a university professor in a newspaper.
Exactly. bttt
Horsefeathers.
And so it proves.
“Georg Sans, a German-born professor of the history of contemporary philosophy at the pontifical Gregorian University...”
The man isn’t even a priest. But how many FReepers will declare this the End of the World based on the word of a nobody with no authority? And worse - gleefully repeat this nonsense?
The others were not responsible for 150 years of global misery and tens of millions of deaths
Marx was.
>>This is why I no longer attend church, and may in fact leave the Catholic Church entirely. Liberalism is destroying that faith, just like it destroys everything else it touches. <<
Did you read “Charity in Truth”?
I’ve just started but I don’t see anything Marxlike. It’s about charity individually. Maybe I’m missing it, but I’m not seeing “Government controlled” charity yet. I’m not going to take the word of the MSM without actually reading the document myself.
I’m not sure where you are but if you need help finding a more conservative parish, Catholic FReepers can help you.
But Catholicism has tended to liberalism, and liberalism blurs into socialism.
And socialism is merely communism by the glassful.
The Church's position on marxism has been very clear for decades.
Funny how we forget that John Paul II publicly lectured Castro and the Sandanista regime on the empty philosophy of Marx.
And all of which is being spun by a Hindu newspaper to fit an agenda.
We were fortunate to have a Pope for so many years who had lived under Communist oppression and who comprehended the fact that Communists hate the Church. Now that Benedict has taken his eye off that ball, all of the Liberation Theology types from the 70’s are crawling out from under their rocks.
Kinda blows the credibility factor, doesn't it?
Within a church body,
it is often the case that we are a “bit socialist”, or at least “communal”.
This is entirely the case within a nuclear family, of course.
The mistake happens when this is extrapolated to the society at large.
This is similar to the macro vs micro evolution argument.
Yes, change occurs within a species, but to extrapolate that is just, well, unfounded extrapolation.
Isn’t the Marxist ideal that the Government decides everything?
An important point to make. Merely censoring Marx (or any other writer) is foolish. There's nothing wrong with studying a thing that has affected great numbers of people. And there's nothing wrong with accepting the true bits as true.
Is anyone suggesting that the common man in the 19th Century was not alienated from political and economic decisions affecting his life? Most people were living under monarchs at the time.
A newspaper called The Hindu refers to an article in the English newspaper, The Times. The article in The Times to which The Hindu refers itself refers to an article in L’Osservatore Romano.
As we read the article in The Hindu we find that the article in L’Osservatore Romano which is referred to in The Times is actually from a Jesuit periodical called La Civiltattolica. (I wonder if this might really be La Civiltà Cattolica.)
But from this collection of sources we are now to indulge in a new orgy of Catholic bashing on the grounds that some Hindus are reporting that some Protestants are reporting that the Vatican newspaper is reporting that an article in a Jesuit newspaper said that Marx was relevant.
Is that it? If so, knock yourselves out. Everybody needs a hobby.
"the Vatican said today ..."
Marxism and all (state) collectivism is predicated on humanist assumptions (see tagline).
These assumptions are that elite humans are capable of making superior decisions - decisions about how people live their lives, better than the people actually living those live. They substitute their goals for the goals of the individual. They don’t believe God will take care of the bigger plan when people take care of their own business. They believe that a superior human must invoke the bigger plan.
The Doctrine of Subsidiarity cannot be reconciled with marxism, from Wikipedia:
“Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level. The concept is applicable in the fields of government, political science, cybernetics, management, military (Mission Command) and, metaphorically, in the distribution of software module responsibilities in object-oriented programming (according to the Information expert design guideline). Subsidiarity is, ideally or in principle, one of the features of federalism.
The word subsidiarity is derived from the Latin word subsidiarius and has its origins in Catholic social teaching.”
The US Constitution is also founded on the Doctrine of Subsidiarity—see, for example, the 10th Amendment.
The article is bogus.
The liberals in the Church know that their time is up soon, and that they've left few (if any) ideological children in the younger generations - so they're making as much noise as they can.
A new era is coming to the Church - one of greater sanity. The younger generation of priests, and especially the current generation of seminarians are more interested in learning and teaching the Faith instead of working with the strange, failed ideas of the liberals.
Someone at L'Osservatore Romano is trying to get a little attention. Fortunately, L'Osservatore Romono has absolutely zero authority.
Is anybody quoted in L'Osservatore Romano considered a member of the heirarchy now? Give me a break.
While I strongly maintain that LO should be reined in (for this and other reasons), I must say you are off target here because "L'Osservatore Romano" ain't "the Vatican." It's a daily newspaper which, while it does publish approved translations of official Church texts, otherwise operates as an independent newspaper whose masthead motto is Unicuique suum ("To each his own").
True, "the Vatican" (by which I mean the clerical bureaucracy which runs the church government) has been characterized by "Good Doctrine; Bad Discipline" for years, and if you can't think of a dozen pathetic examples right off the top of your head, I can do so myself.
But the "teaching Church" (meaning the Ecumenical Councils, the Pope and the bishops who are in union with him, the Catechisms which faithfully convey their teachings) draw a bright and unmistakable line against Communism.
Why must you reinforce the toxic impression (as the EneMedia always does) that any Marxist renegade or modernist wackadoo they can put into the headlines is "speaking for the Church"?
Why add to the Enemy's incessant and insididous "divide and conquer" strategy?
Unfaithful Catholics should not force faithful Catholics out of Catholicism. Just like Olympia Snowe and Michael Dukakis (to take just two US examples) or Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky shouldn't force faithful Orthodox out of Orthodoxy.
This always strikes me as ironic: Catholics church shop for
conservative or liberal parishes. I understand that you will
tell me that they are all still RC, but when you come right down to it this is remarkably similar to what other Christians
do.
But this encyclical doesn’t talk about the state. In fact it says directly
“The Church does not have technical solutions to offer[10] and does not claim “to interfere in any way in the politics of States.”[11]”
Thanks for the clarifying post. I used to be surprised when I’d see junk articles like these posted and taken as gospel truth by anti-Catholics here on FR.
No more. It seems there is no depth too low for them to crawl, but probably not. I’ve never seen one apologize for anything twisted yet.
>>but when you come right down to it this is remarkably similar to what other Christians do.<<
I agree. But the difference is that Our parish Priests (who are human) have their own ideas about politics. We can’t ditch them and find a new one. We move ourselves and our cash to a new parish if we disagree with their politics.
Looks like they say that the Church doesn’t have the technical ability to implement the system
and therefore, inherently endorses the State to do so.
A newspaper called The Hindu refers to an article in the English newspaper, The Times. The article in The Times to which The Hindu refers itself refers to an article in L’Osservatore Romano.
As we read the article in The Hindu we find that the article in L’Osservatore Romano which is referred to in The Times is actually from a Jesuit periodical called La Civiltattolica. (I wonder if this might really be La Civiltà Cattolica.)
But from this collection of sources we are now to indulge in a new orgy of Catholic bashing on the grounds that some Hindus are reporting that some Protestants are reporting that the Vatican newspaper is reporting that an article in a Jesuit newspaper said that Marx was relevant.
You nailed it!
I heard from a guy who read an article in The National Inquirer that there was a piece in The Star that quoted a column in People about a guy who had a cousin whose sister-in-law had a grilled cheese sammich (NEA authorized spelling) with John Calvin's face on it.
And you can quote me!
This doctrine represents the (true) “tragic” vision of man (per Sowell).
The “locus of discretion”, where decisions are made, should be located closest to the point of the information required to make those decisions.
Conservatives believe the information is most available at the local and individual level,
elitists believe that a centralized elite authority has the necessary information (and better wisdom, intellect and morality) to make the decisions.
It all comes back to Satan’s lie about the nature of man.
I love those who appear on Catholic threads when it is written that the Pope supports a One World government, Marxism as does the church and say that it’s what it means or doen’t believe what you read.
The leaders of the Catholic Church support One World Government and Nationalized Healthcare.
1) This article is not a "Vatican endorsement" of Marx. It is the opinion of one professor at the Gregorian University (a Jesuit - insert obligatory Jesuit joke here).
2) The Pontifical Gregorian University is an excellent university, and has many good and faithful professors... but there are still some that are a little... for want of any better word, off. Some more than others.
3) The someone in the Vatican Secretariat of State forwarded this on to L'Osservatore Romano (someone who apparently thinks that the Church promoting any part of the philosophy that it has condemned for more than a century and still does is an alright idea).
I've heard rumor that there is some tension within the Curia that includes the Secretariat of State...
My opinion: Somebody in the SoS just stuck it to the Vatican.
So you think the Vatican has control of any government but their own?
Seriously?
If anyone reads “Charity in Truth” they will see that it’s not about government control but individual Charity.
No matter how the MSM wants to spin it.
Can you please give me the quote, directly from this encyclical that tells any government to implement what is proposed there?
Georg Sans, SJ
He's either a Jesuit brother or priest. I just checked.
Oh, I fully agree that charity is an individual mandate,
but do the liberal priests believe this? Or do they believe that charity is best done through the State?
The vatican and priests can influence their members to vote in a certain way, can influence their worldview, and, indirectly, control the government of democracies.
Settle down and try writing that sentence again.
The "same": Some Catholics 'church shop'. (Some, not all. My famdamily went to the same parish for maybe a decade because it was the one we were closest to, and for no other reason. As soon as I had a good pastoral duty to move to my current parish I did, but not before.)
The "other": I would venture that Catholics who "church shop" go from one Catholic parish to another, not from one denomination to another, and if there were no other Catholic parish they'd stay where they were and either mutter in their beards or make life miserable for the pastor.
BECAUSE the pastor is not the "show." Jesus is the show. The pastor is no more than either an enhancement or a nuisance.
And I KNOW this because I read a review of a TV show which had a discussion about radio talk show where one of the guys interviewed said he found some stone carvings in The Anasazi site which mentioned that some Catholics move from parish to parish. So it MUST be true.
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