Posted on 05/16/2013 8:45:01 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Pope Francis has called on world leaders to put an end to the "cult of money"
He said free-market capitalism had created a “tyranny” and that human beings were being judged purely by their ability to consume goods.
Money should be made to “serve” people, not to “rule” them, he said, calling for a more ethical financial system and curbs on financial speculation.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Money is the distilled value you have provided to the world.
Ignore money, and you literally ignore the worth of the individual.
That’s not G-d. That’s Satan.
I don’t like this pope - he comes from the school of Rev Wright - Liberation Theology, aka Marxism.
Oh, I think the Pope knows pretty well what money is.
If he didn’t, he would have ordered Roman Catholic Churches to immediately cease passing collection plates at services, as part of this speech.
This is NOT a matter of Faith or Morals and shows a complete lack of understanding of Capitalism.
Socialism creates Tyranny.
Capitalism creates opportunity.
Governments are NOT charities and to the extent the pretend to be, they have stolen your freedom, at the price of power and control. (Freedoms such as Religious liberty...)
That’s real classy...to say nothing about what’s going to happen to your immortal soul.
“The LOVE of money is the root of all evil.”
1 Timothy 6:10
That’s the LOVE of money, not money itself, as is often misquoted.
Meaning if you’re willing to toss morals and ethics aside in order to accumulate money. I believe that is what the Pope was trying to say.
I guess he hasn’t figured out where all that money comes from in those little baskets they pass around every Sunday.
You can bet your bottom dollar those baskets are the first things that get cut when it comes time to tighten most families belts when people like him get in charge.
It seems the monastery’s ECON 101 class was napped through by this guy...
No one should get mad at you when you make silly mistakes like that.
You're only human.
So people who have real jobs are assumed not to know how to do the right thing, while people who DON'T have real jobs and whose salaries are paid for by the labor of others are assumed to be capable and have only the best of intentions??? How does this guy manage to shovel his Total in his mouth in the morning without stabbing himself in the eye?
Speculation is what avoids shortages. Yes some make a lot of money, but they also take on a heck of a lot of risk to make that money....My problem is when government steps in and reduces the risk, at the expense of the taxpayers.
I would suggest waiting to see what he actually said. And waiting further to see what he actually does.
There is a bit of naivete in his comments about money. On the other hand, there is also considerable naivete in the pure Ayn Rand view of things. If it’s everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost, that doesn’t work out very well either.
What you want is a free market with players who are decently moral and just. Well, you aren’t going to get either one completely in the real world. The market ceases to be free when you have big money players cheating at the top. And it ceases to be moral when you have big money players full of greed, raised by the public school system, and educated by Hollywood and the bong smokers.
So, you need some regulation. But some regulation soon becomes crooked, big government, crony regulation. All you can do is try to set up checks and balances, and try to educate people to behave better than they do. I think that’s what the Pope is trying to do. He’s not the head of the International Treasury Department. He’s one of the providers of moral advice to individuals and governments. He’s telling Catholics not to put money first, but to put God first.
And, of course, the press will distort everything he says.
Now that would describe China, a communist/atheist country.
I guess the Pope would like the government to be the god and provide all for the people.
“They buy artworks and other useless paraphenalia ...”
Can you name some of the artworks they are currently buying? Or do you mean they bought artworks 500 years ago and you’re still nursing that grudge?
People like you remind me of a Calvinist firend of mine. His father’s congregation met in (literally) a tin roof shack and they were so proud of its lack of ronamentation and poverty. His family lived in a beautiful house and they had two all-leather chairs in their living room which he admitted cost 1,000 pounds EACH. That was in 1987.
So they didn’t “waste” a penny on God’s run-down old house but they sure spent a pretty penny on their own.
What Francis said is consistent with the positions of recent popes, including John Paul II, and the official position of the church. Vatican Council II upheld the principle of the “universal ownership of all goods” and emphatically said, “If one is in extreme necessity, he has the right to procure for himself what he needs out of the riches of others.”(“Gaudium et Spes”, Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, Para. 69)
I recently read this short paper and recommend it for anyone interested in this subject.
“Papal Promotion of Collective Ownership and Theft” by Richard Bennett (former Roman Catholic priest) and Robert J. Nicholson
http://www.bereanbeacon.org/articles/sorted/01_On_Catholicism/Papal_Economics.pdf
I don’t imagine he would be Pope, if God didn’t want him to be.
Ecclesiastes 10:19
...money answereth all things
It's much more enjoyable to pretend he said something else.
How DARE you interject facts when people have a good rant on.
Do you not realize that FReepers are required to have a healthy skepticism of the press on each and every topic in the world except Catholicism. On that subject, they will believe exactly what the press says.
It isn’t Free-Market Capitalism that got us here, It is blatant Cronyism-greed (more akin to socialistic central planning) that has brought the worlds to where we are.
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