great, just what the world needs, a commie pope.
I've always been told that the key to a country's general success is to have a middle class. The most successful countries have the largest middle class, with minorities (numerically) at the wealthiest and poorest ends.
That ‘individualism’ thing is horrific. Time to dump it.
It would be justice if the Pope renounced his position so that a very deserving Cardinal could take his place. After all, they have suffered for so long and his selection deprived them of their rightful rewards.
Philip Pullella
why do people post Philip Pullella on this sight? He’s a lefty trouble-maker and his articles are full of lies.
Perfect for FreeRepublic?
This is why I was not thrilled when this pope was announced. Just another commie in a white dress
I think the thing we need to remember is that not all rich people in all countries are alike. Some people in various countries really believe that they are aristocrats, not cut from the same cloth as other people, and so debt slavery and other abuses are par for the course. I was just reading about a factory in Bangladesh in the WSJ today. The worker said it was better than her last job because there was “no hitting”. Rich people who run their companies like that are the target of the Pope’s message, I think. I think he is talking about a baseline of just behavior, and not about communist, government-mandated redistribution.
Sometimes it makes you wonder that its just too stupid to be stupid.
Therefore it is possibly intentional.
I've wondered if the real reason that the church keeps pushing socialism its to purposefully make everyone poor so that when the whole world is destitute and miserable, they will seek refuge in the church.
So many in the church believe that modern wealth is the key reason for the loss of religion's influence among people.
There is a certain twisted logic in making everyone poor in order to "save their souls."
Socialism might seem to be the perfect tool to these types of religious to reduce humanity to the material condition of Medieval Europe where the church held ultimate power in society.
"For ye have the poor always with you;"
Matthew 26:6-12
Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, 7 There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.
.8 But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation , saying , To what purpose is this waste? 9 For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor.
10 When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me.
11 For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.
12 For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial
You know, the poor *do* have some responsibility for educating themselves and trying to acquire marketable skills. What does he expect the rich to do when the poor won’t do anything?
It is possible to climb out of poverty. One merely needs the right attitude.
Why should there be an equal distribution of wealth? Why do the rich who have earned their wealth by productivity and voluntary trade need to give it away? They already gave their products in trade. Why is it immoral to produce wealth and keep it but moral to give it away? Why does someone’s need give them a claim to the life, the work and the property of others? These questions have never been answered rationally. It is fine to help someone voluntarily but to say it is their moral duty to help others is fantastic. Instead of calling for redistribution of wealth the pope should be campaigning for an equal distribution of liberty and for laissez faire capitalism because no other institution has done more to elevate the lot of the common man in the history of the world. It’s not even close.
Inequalities will always exist in this world.
Shouldn’t the Pope be concerned more with a man’s soul and not his wealth or lack thereof??? Millions of poor people are not believers. Telling the wealthy to share their wealth won’t save a poor persons soul.
And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much.And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.
And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury:
For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.
Boy this pope is pathetic compared to the last two
How many poor people have become rich through years of government giveaway programs vs. poor people who have become rich through years of discipline and hard work?
Yeah, the church isn’t rich is it?
Isn’t the Catholic Church loaded with that ‘filthy lucre’ stuff? Controls much of the world’s wealth? What is the Catholic Church doing about this ‘social injustice’?
Everything that these rabid anti-Catholics hate is “pure Communism”. The Pope’s job is to look out for the poor. Like the anti-Catholics sometime hero Jesus did. I also doubt that “social justice” (translated from what language?) spoken by the Pope has the same meaning as when it is spoken by the likes of Bill Ayers and his puppets in the White Hut.