Pope Francis Was No Friend Of The Poor

Manhattan Contrarian ^ | 23 Apr, 2025 | Francis Menton

[MtnClimber]

Pope Francis passed away two days ago, on Easter Monday. He had been the leader of the Catholic Church for just over 12 years. He presented himself as a well-intentioned and deeply religious man, none of which I ever doubted. But good intentions are the paving stones of the road to hell. I often tried to find some positive things about Francis so that I could admire him. But unfortunately I think that his overall impact on the world and on the church was overwhelmingly negative.

Thinking that he was working to uplift the poor and downtrodden of the world, Francis accepted all the most destructive prescriptions of the international Left. I’m sorry, but I don’t find that acceptable in a man claiming to be a major religious leader and asserting moral authority to tell others how to lead a good life. After a century and more of the destructive horrors of socialism, people in major leadership roles in society have a responsibility to learn about that and understand it and not continue to spread it. Even with the Soviet Union long gone, Cuba and North Korea and Venezuela and China are still out there to observe. We have a responsibility to know about them — why they fail, why they perpetuate poverty, why their people suffer. Supposedly good intentions have long since ceased to be a sufficient excuse for ignorance of something so important.

In general, Francis embraced the collectivist view of economic relations. He began with advocating generosity and compassion toward the poor, but then took that to the next step and asserted the Marxist principle that private property is essentially theft. This is from his 2020 Encyclical “Fratelli Tutti” (We Are All Brothers):

119. In the first Christian centuries, a number of thinkers developed a universal vision in their reflections on the common destination of created goods. This led them to realize that if one person lacks what is necessary to live with dignity, it is because another person is detaining it. Saint John Chrysostom summarizes it in this way: “Not to share our wealth with the poor is to rob them and take away their livelihood. The riches we possess are not our own, but theirs as well.”

In multiple places, Francis blamed the ills of the world on what he called “unfettered” or “unbridled” capitalism, and asserted that the poverty of poor countries was caused by pursuit of money in rich countries. As an example, here is a piece in the Guardian from 2015 reporting on a speech that Francis had given in Bolivia:

Unbridled capitalism is the “dung of the devil,” says Pope Francis. . . . Quoting a fourth century bishop, he called the unfettered pursuit of money “the dung of the devil,” and said poor countries should not be reduced to being providers of raw material and cheap labour for developed countries. . . . [Francis] said he supported their efforts to obtain “so elementary ad undeniably necessary a right as that of the three ‘Ls’: land, lodging and labour.”

If Francis ever recognized the critical role of private property in enabling the poor to lift themselves up out of poverty, I can’t find it anywhere.

Nowhere did Francis go more astray than on the subject of climate change. His 2015 Encyclical “Laudato Si” smacks of Gaia worship and Neo-paganism. It contains essentially every climate-related talking point of the environmental Left, and reads like it was ghostwritten for the Pope by Greenpeace. The Encyclical basically accepts the entire climate scam uncritically, perhaps most importantly the piece about climate change disproportionately harming the poor. Francis never figured out that expensive energy harms the poor far more than a degree of temperature one way or the other ever possibly could. Excerpt:

Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day. Its worst impact will probably be felt by developing countries in coming decades. Many of the poor live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing and forestry. They have no other financial activities or resources which can enable them to adapt to climate change or to face natural disasters, and their access to social services and protection is very limited.

Most recently, Francis had decided to weigh in in a big way on the issue of mass migration — and once again, he picked the wrong side. On January 21, shortly after President Trump’s second inauguration, Pope Francis reportedly sent him a congratulatory message, but at the same time called Trump’s plans for large-scale deportations of illegal aliens a “disgrace.” Axios reported on that day that Francis condemned “deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment ... .” In nothing that I can find did Francis ever recognize that there might be any limits to how many migrants America and the EU countries ought to take in. Was his position that once a migrant gets in, however illegally, then we are stuck with that person forever? It seemed never to occur to him that the poverty of the poor countries stems from failure of those places to honor rights in private property and free exchange (otherwise known as “capitalism” — or maybe “unfettered capitalism”).

Cardinals from around the world are now gathering in Rome to select Francis’s successor. Apparently Francis has appointed approximately two-thirds of those who will participate in this process. I hope that these people will have the good sense to back the church away from the woke adventures on which Francis embarked, but I have no confidence that that will occur.

[knarf]

Matthew 7:21-23
King James Version
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity
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[Cold_Red_Steel]

He has a lot to answer for.

[livius]

The “poor” were just window-dressing for him, the Marxist Pope with the biggest ego in memory. He really thought it was all about him….not about the Church of Christ and his position as Peter to confirm the brethren in the faith.

To make you really barf, he arranged his funeral and burial…not in the usual papal burial place, so thus it requires special arrangements….and will have 20 “poor”, homeless, migrants and transexuals standing at the door holding white roses as his coffin is brought in.

The man was evil, he used the Faith, and like any good Marxist, he used the underclass as a prop to gain power.

[faucetman]

The pope was only a friend to SATAN!

[caddie]

Genesis: By the sweat of your brow will you make your bread.

Parable of the talents: Apply what talents you have diligently throughout life.

First commandment: Love God with all your mind, heart, and soul. To me this implies thinking about things and relates to the parable of the talents.

Idleness and dependency, sloth and carelessness are actually sinful.

These are Christian traits: Industry, savings (see the parable of the man who built a silo), charity, counseling the sinner to NOT sin anymore, fortitude, humility, etc.;

The 'planks' of the Democrat Party are the same things exactly as the Seven Deadly Sins; Sloth, Gluttony, Lust, Pride, Anger, Greed, Envy (Which is the pillar of Communism, Socialism, Liberalism, and the Rat Party).

Francis displayed most every trait of a Communist or American Rat. Of course his nostrums about charity were always really collectivism disguised as virtue.

He was never in favor of actually helping people himself or exhorting people to help others themselves; it was always the USAID-type grift that he had in mind. He never preached letting others enjoy what they had earned; instead he just blamed them for the rather understandable plight of the feckless, the lazy, the sexually incontinent, the libertine, and always, ALWAYS tried to transfer the problem to the innocent third-party uninvolved normals.

The "world" has been cruel to the poor, the gay, etc.

[Pajamajan]

He also dealt harshly with Traditional and conservative Catholics.

[Ezekiel]

Pope Francis Was No Friend Of The Poor

Need a better Francis:

The Messiah is at the gates of Rome,[a] sitting among the poor, the sick and wretched. Like them, he changes the bindings of his wounds, but does so one wound at the time, in order to be ready at a moment's notice.

The Messiah at the Gates of Rome

Gotta love the signage...

("April 21 is the 111th day of the year..")

April 21:

Founding of Rome
death of Pope Francis

The funeral is tomorrow, 4/26.

It's as if all roads lead to Rome

בית דוד House of David = 426

Rome was founded in 753 BC according to the traditional date.

the time at the beginning of BTTF

The difference between a shin [ש] and a samech [ס]:

300 - 60 = 240

The difference between a shin [שין] and a samech [סמך]:

360 - 120 = 240

Joshua then said that the Messiah had not told him the truth, because he had promised to come today but had not. Elijah explained "This is what he said to thee, To-day, if ye will hear his voice", a reference to Psalms 95:7, making his coming conditional with the condition not fulfilled.[1][2][3]

Have you ever noticed that the verb here meaning to turn around is typically translated as sitting down?

1 Sam 16

11. And Samuel said to Jesse, Are here all your children? And he said, There remains still the youngest, and, behold, he keeps the sheep; And Samuel said to Jesse, Send and fetch him; for we will not sit down [נסב] till he comes here:
12. And he sent, and brought him in; And he was admoni [אדמוני = 111], with beautiful eyes, and good looking; And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him; for this is he:

we will sit down [נשב]
we will turn around [נסב]

The difference between sitting down נשב and turning around נסב:

352 - 112 = 240

In fact, the Ba'al haTurim (Rabbi Yakov ben Asher, 1269-1343) comments that when the prophet Samuel came to anoint David and first saw him, he was surprised by his redness and immediately thought "this one is murderous like Esau!" However, Samuel then saw David's soft and compassionate eyes and understood he is not like Esau.

Nonetheless, it is certainly not a coincidence that Esau and David are described the same way, and that Samuel's first impression of David was Esau. On a mystical level, their souls are deeply linked, and David served as the spiritual rectification of Esau.

https://www.mayimachronim.com/esau-david-and-mashiach/

Elijah explained "This is what he said to thee, To-day, if ye will hear his voice"...

[oldtech]

I guess my feelings were pretty much the same as outlined above. Of course I also felt like...who am I, a nobody criticizing the Pope? I have to say, as he was supposedly the representative of Christ on this earth...he didn’t quite make it.