Posted on 07/19/2015 5:31:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
Recently we had a rendezvous with my daughter’s future roommate (plus her mother and her mother’s best friend). The roommate is moving to Los Angeles from New Jersey after graduating from college. When we met the mother and her friend, they were both prominently wearing crosses on necklaces. We felt much more comfortable about the future of our child’s new living arrangement. They were delighted to find out we were committed Jews.
I spend extensive time discussing with people who adhere to different denominations of Christianity. I am still befuddled by the varieties of Protestantism and I am confident I will never get it down as hard as I try. I rarely, if ever, criticize someone adhering peacefully to their religion. At this juncture I feel compelled to criticize this Pope (Francis) because he has crossed over into my area – public policy – more than sticking to healing the faithful of his religion.
That is not unfamiliar territory for Jewish Republicans. We experience this often from rabbis, due to the fact the vast majority of rabbis are people of the Left. They feel compelled to express their left-leaning beliefs from the pulpit, while Republicans often cringe at High Holiday services as we endure an onslaught of leftist mantra in lieu of a lesson about the Torah. As important as that is to us, it pales in comparison to the magnitude of the comments from our current Pope.
There is no doubt that Pope Francis came to his defined point of view after being shaped by his life experience in Argentina with its deeply-confused political structure. One might think that he would reject left-wing politics, having experiencing firsthand the failure of Argentina’s socialist-leaning governments. Instead he appears to have Paul Krugman, the befuddling economist and columnist for the New York Times, as his guiding light. Francis like Krugman seems to think that every failure of invasive government and restriction of capitalism is an excuse to double down with the mantra that the problem is government has not gone far enough.
First, Pope Francis issued an encyclical regarding climate change. I must stop here and cite that anyone who uses the terminology “climate change” is just downright silly. No one in their right mind does not understand that the climate is fully in flux at all times. The significant changes in the environment are not only outside our control, but beyond the scope of worldly endeavors as matters in our solar system and beyond, have grave effects on our climate and its ever evolution. I am more an adherent of George Carlin (certainly no conservative) who can be seen here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB0aFPXr4n4). I also have interviewed multiple real climatologists who question the models used to calculate these ‘severe’ weather changes either because of their inability to replicate the models or the fact that the models have been so divergent from actual experience.
But the bigger problem I have with Pope Francis generates from his comments on economic policy. You may know the Pope recently went to South America. Other than doing normal Popely duties he delivered a dissertation on economics. He chose to deliver these comments in Bolivia, which as a country is following in the footsteps of Venezuela. Bolivia is ranked as the 163rd freest country in the world out of 178 countries on the list. The President, Evo Morales, has been in office since 2005 and has no plans for retiring. Bolivia is rich in natural resources and oil, but has produced South America’s poorest economy with average daily earnings of $2. Morales has expropriated more than 20 companies.
The Pope railed against a system that “imposed the mentality at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature.” That is a turning of a phrase that any Marxist would be proud to have stated. This speech followed comments from President Morales wearing a jacket from his mass-murdered collection which was adorned with a picture of Che Guevara.
The Pope even invoked the true enemy in describing capitalism when he quoted a 4th century bishop by saying it was the “dung of the devil.” Wow, what would he call the mass murdering societies of National Socialism and Communism? Certainly, capitalists do bad things, but to be so ignorant as to not understand that more people have advanced through democratic capitalism to a quality and healthy life than through any other form of government just reeks of prejudice and denial.
This Pope does not understand how wealth is created. That very wealth feeds his church and keeps it solvent. He also does not seem to understand that capitalism breeds believers in the fruit of the divine. Does he really believe that the alternatives are not aimed at destroying the church? In effect he is expediting his own church’s execution. Yes there are religious people who abuse capitalism, but more often than not the ones who adhere to capitalism’s true betterment of mankind our religious souls and the non-believers are the abusers.
On a trip to Thailand, we had to buy a suitcase to bring home all the inexpensive clothing we bought. But I focused on how great it was for the Thais that they had quality shoes and shirts and pants at affordable prices as part of producing lower-priced products for us. Capitalism has moved in the past 30 years a few hundred million peasants in China and India from uneducated, barely-existing lives to a hope for the future where they are clothed and housed and educated.
That is us capitalists, Pope Francis, Not Che and Evo’s socialist friends in Cuba and Bolivia. Sorry, sir, but you placed the devil on the wrong team. You may need to go back and study up on Pope John Paul II.
BTTT and ^5
In other words, he's amiably establishing that he likes Christians, he realizes that all Christians aren't the same, and he's not invading the Pope's (spiritual) business, but challenging him for invading the writer's (secular, political, economic) business.
Overall, within the limits of the casual op/ed genre, I'd give him an A.
Back on my hand, Flintlock, for calling the Pope a son of a bitch.
The more I read about this Pope, the less I like him.
Second guessing what you would have liked him to say doesn’t change what he said.
He didn't say anything about "capitalism," because "capitalism" as a system did not exist in the 4th century.
The headline-pirates and quote-amputators are quite fond of the pseudo-Chrysostom they've invented.
I simply tried to correct what appears to be a bad transcription or translation. The text in the article didn’t make any sense.
If you have an idea as to what would be a more appropriate correction, by all means post it.
BTTT
Here’s what he said, from a different source: “Do we realize that that system has imposed the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature?”
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-america-pope-makes-plea-man-nature-n389671
Which is pretty much what I said. I’m not defending what he said so much as trying to determine what he actually said.
Why does a commie have to be an Atheist? Answer, he doesn’t.
This is not true. For one thing, it mixes apples and octopuses,e.g. "certain conduct of the Inquisition" is a historical/juridical, not a doctrinal, fact.
Second, although you didn't specify which historical "teachings" we'd have to reject, I can guess; and the teaching to which (I think) you refer, were matters subject to Development of Doctrine(I like how John Henry Newman explained it), Hermeneutic of Continuity (via Pope Benedict XVI), and a certain legitimate genre criticism.
It's not light duty for the perky office temporaries, but with a little work it would explain how we got from "Unam Sanctam" to "Nostra Aetate".
I became a Catholic at age 45 because of John Paul II. I wouldn’t do it today. I’m becoming convinced that neither faith nor justice can be institutionalized without being corrupt.
I agree.
Although I think he’s falling prey to standard progressive nonsense whereby the advances in human prosperity, the billions climbing above absolute poverty, is taken for granted, while the side effects of that climb are denounced.
In 1820 85% to 95% of the world’s population lived in absolute poverty.
Today it’s under 20% and dropping rapidly, indeed more rapidly than ever before.
http://ourworldindata.org/data/growth-and-distribution-of-prosperity/world-poverty/
But all the Pope sees is the relatively few still in absolute poverty, and those who remain relatively poor compared to others. And the damage to the environment done by the economic activity necessary to bring people out of poverty.
I say "as far as I understand" because just about every sentence from Pope Francis makes me think, "What is he talking about here? Does he mean this, or that?"
A lot for FReepers-- probably a lot of people out there in the non-FReep world, too --- seem to be assuming that there are two systems, communism and capitalism, and the pope is anti-capitalism, so he must be pro-communism.
However, what if "capitalism" principally refers to the present world system of international credit and finance, huge untouchable engines such as Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund, the European Investment Bank, the various MDB's, the various Bretton Woods instituions, the GATT, the WTO, etc. along with their multinational corporate clients and the national and international regulatory agencies they have captured?
I admit I'm just babbling along here, and I know less than nothing about international capitalism ("less than nothing" because I'd have to unlearn some of the stuff I think I "know"), but --- a lot of Freepers will defend "free enterprise" who will not defend "crony capitalism," banksterism, and the whole freakin' system.
And what if we differentiate between "capitalism" and some distinguishably different private-property based system that has a lot more subsidiarity and a lot more liberty? Call it "free enterprise".
Let me reiterate a third time that I am ignorant, bu I'd tend to be anti-capitalism and pro-free-enterprise.
Or, in even sloppier terms, anti-Wall Street and pro-Main Street.
Just babbling.
I’ll babble along with you.
No truly free market system has ever existed, because for it to exist there must be rules and contracts enforced by a State.
Those in power in the State inevitably twist those rules to the benefit of themselves and their friends. To the extent this twisting occurs, the system diverges from being a free market.
Similarly, a completely non-market system has also never existed, as some sort of market existed under the strictest examples of Communism. In fact, those systems could not have existed as long as they did without markets propping them up.
So every economic system that has ever existed is a combination of regulation/command and market.
The proportion being of course, quite important. :)
BTW, big businesses are almost never proponents of the free market, nor should we expect them to be. The job of their managers is to maximize profits. If that is best done, which it often is, by manipulating the political system, then that is what the market says they should do. Even Adam Smith noted that businessmen hated the market, because it meant others could compete freely with them. Nothing a businessman hates more than effective competition.
As you say, for a trained theologian the Pope seems to have one hell of a time speaking clearly.
The Norks at 1.3. LOL
Thanks for the link.
Yes, "seperation" is properly spelled separation (I usually catch them) but separation of powers is NT Scriptural, as the Lord's kingdom is not of this world," (Jn. 18:46) and thus we do not wage war after the flesh, as the real weapons of our warfare are spiritual, (2Cor. 10:3,4) as that realm is where our real warfare is. (Eph. 6:12)
And thus the church did not rule over those without, leaving that to God, (1Co. 5:13) one belonging unto Cæsar and the other unto God, (Lk. 20:25) and the church never used physical force in church discipline but employed spiritual power as well as the passive means of disfellowship. (1Co. 5; 1Tim. 10:10; Rm. 16:17; 2Th 3:6,14; cf. 2Jn. 1:10)
At the same time the NT sanctions the just use of the use of the sword of men buy the civil powers. (Rm. 13:1-7l 1Pt. 2:13,14)
However, this separation is one that separates the church into a higher and a holy calling, protecting the church from the duties and means of the state, not the state from the church which the state needs for peaceful order. For insomuch as one is controlled from within then he should not need to be controlled from without.
Robert Winthrop (May 12, 1809 – November 16, 1894), and Speaker of the House from 1838 to 1840, and later president of the Massachusetts Bible Society, explained that, “Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the Word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or the bayonet."
However, the state itself must be governed, which in a constitutional republic is to be by the Constitution, interpreted according to the manifest mind of its authors. However, it also will reflect the judgment, true or false, of the electorate, as they elect the interpreters. And as the country becomes increasingly post Christian and amoral, so it elects "kings, but not by Me" says the Lord, making the economy the priority, (Hosea 8:4) not morality.
And as to a degree the state is not separate from the church, as its moral laws flow from religion, in the West even distinctively the Christian religion, so its laws can reflect an ant-Christ ethos, with the state becoming an enemy of the evangelical church, and requiring the church to oppose the state in principled dissent.
And herein is the ACLU-type of which is a different animal of that of the founders, as it treats the church as constitutionally being an enemy of the state, rather than its ally in the interest of beneficial government as formed by the Founders.
For the constitutional separation of powers protected the church from the state and the people from a state-run, state imposed church, which would punish theological dissent by the use of the sword of men, while instead under the constitutional separation of powers the church by spiritual means dealt with the ecclesiastical, theological and conversionary aspects, yet the state reflected the religious morality of the Founders and the people in its universal moral laws.
In contrast, having "hath cast off the thing that is good" (the enemy shall pursue him: Hosea 8:3) so now the state seeks to rule the church, to compel all to submit to its increasingly perverse laws, and do homage it its rulers, proxy servants of satan who seeks worship under an alternative society with its perverse counterparts to that which God created and ordained.
Which proxy servants are elected by appeal to the victim-entitlement mentality, with its "share the wealth" demand, as the devil basically demanded of God and seduce Eve by, (Is. 14; Gn. 3) under the premise that benefits are not to be earned, or even given in grace, but that all have a right to them regardless of merit.
Which the self-styled "saviors" promise the "victims" so that the former may gain power, to the end that these "saviors" - who unlike the real Savior of souls, are selfish and not sacrificial servants - may reign supreme, with the rest basically sharing the same lot in poverty, doing homage to the liberal elite in dependence upon them as if they were gods.
This is where the Western train is heading, but the Lord knows His own, who will not salute the flag of Sodom as required, but by faith seek to follow the risen Lord who wins in the end. May we all have that faith to the end.
Sorry for the prolixity of my post.
It refers to what obedience to the pope required at one time, including torture and extermination of the heretics from the land, while in another torture is intrinsically evil.
Second, although you didn't specify which historical "teachings" we'd have to reject, I can guess; and the teaching to which (I think) you refer, were matters subject to Development of Doctrine(I like how John Henry Newman explained it), Hermeneutic of Continuity (via Pope Benedict XVI), and a certain legitimate genre criticism.
Which is what had to be resorted to in the light of contradiction, but which affirms what i said, that "Rome can autocratically define herself, in which Scripture, Tradition and history only mean what she says in any conflict," which allows Rome to effectively redefine herself as needed.
What Newman found concerning the Vicentian claim that the RC faith "has been believed everywhere:always, by all,"was that,
It does not seem possible, then, to avoid the conclusion that, whatever be the proper key for harmonizing the records and documents of the early and later Church, and true as the dictum of Vincentius must be considered in the abstract, and possible as its application might be in his own age, when he might almost ask the primitive centuries for their testimony, it is hardly available now, or effective of any satisfactory result. The solution it offers is as difficult as the original problem. — John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., reprinted 1927), p. 27.
The “stipulated “unanimous consent” of the fathers itself has to be often defined as not being unanimous.
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