Posted on 12/12/2013 5:01:30 AM PST by Kaslin
great article.
Jesus loved a happy giver, not a coerced giver.
He does indeed
Imagine if a bishop wrote this.
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“Naïve to trust economic as well as political power” to sinful men
Goes to the heart of the left/right ideological split.
I hope rush reads this. And I hope he gets around to reading the pope’s original document, doing so will boost his correct position and he will have less emotion more confidence in the onslaught to come
Rush is right. The pop’s position is indeed at odds with catholic teaching as many bishops are especially in matters of economics wherevtheyve been socialized to believe outside of the catechism that telling the government to be charitable is the way to go
They can’t see what a mess that has wrought not to mention the disobedience
Subsequent to Pope Pius XII popes began to speak an entirely new language: papal doubletalk. Analyzing or parsing their comments was a tedious and pointless activity as they were saying virtually nothing. Meanwhile the church was circling the drain.
There's actually a name for it: "studied ambiguity":
To be sure, the contents of the letter to Ryan weren’t just a product of Dolan’s need to appease both sides in the intra-Church struggle. It was also a classic example of a style of ecclesiastical document that the Vatican employs in complicated situations....This style of writing aims at “studied ambiguity,” a Vatican diplomat explained to me, noting that the people who write such letters are trained to think in terms of centuries, not sound bites. “So you always need to be able to say fifty years on, ‘Well, of course we never meant that,’” the diplomat said.
-- from the thread Mixed Blessing: The Ryan budget and the raging battle within the U.S. Catholic Church
I would NOT go that far
Naivete is all the author’s.
Indeed free market is the best force for prosperity, and the best background for a society wishing to engage in a spiritual pursuits. That, however, is only true if the free market is made up by moral and spiritual men. That indeed lifts all boats as American history prior to 1973 (to pick one date) shows.
Today in America we have a remnant of a free market: our domestic industrial base is nearly destroyed and the economy is rapidly becoming that of a third nation tourist attraction state: banking and entertainment sector, with overpriced high-tech enclaves employing mostly foreign labor.
With the destruction of family structures in the US and despiritualization of the American nation, the remnant of free trade capitalism that we have domestically is on its way to complete extinction.
The international trade is not by itself a bad thing, but a free market it isn’t. Our industry has relocated to China, a Communist country with one party rule and planned economy. Foreign trade is trade between governments, — not free by definition. Anyone with libertarian leanings should abhor it as any other statist plague.
But the Pope is not a pope for America. His is the pope for the world. Globally, so-called “free trade” capitalism surely prospered some areas, mostly in SE Asia trading posts and, again, in Red China. And the countries that wisely retained national economies, like Japan, prosper as well.
But to apply the wonders of “trickle-down economics” to the slums in Argentina or Brazil is laughable. These are truly islands of exclusion and are likely to remain just that.
The Pope is right, the limbaughs of the US should get out some more before they air their parochial opinions.
Look at pushback to begin starting next year. It has started against Obamacare BIGITME.
They then set out to make a blend of Americanism and Modernism they would say was Catholicism when in reality they were aiming for their own church that was as pliable as Protestants and a break with Rome to form something like the Church of England.
People are right to decry American Bishops and how badly they've gone off the rails and betrayed Christ. It's easy to do that but it's worth considering that Catholic Church in this country is still full of faithful Catholics serving Christ in spite of a century of undermining from within and without that's been far worse than the attacks that toppled, with the possible exception of the SBC, every single non-Catholic Church in this country.
The One True Church in this country is now like the Army of Gideon, stripped down to the point that the victories soon to come will obviously be the work of our Lord, not of men. Be ready for hard battles and amazing victories, not pity parties.
JMHO-
Yeshua NEVER did and NEVER could have and NEVER would have preached to his flock that what he wanted them to do was go and get the permission from Ceasar (secular power) to have his sword as a sign of authority (secular law) to go TAKE from their neighbors all they saw fit for achieving some benevolent act.
Yeshua NEVER preached that to take was to give.
Socialism, couched in a “democratic” venue is ALL about taking, not giving.
Yeshua was offered the keys to all the kingdoms of the world - secular power - and He rejected it, saying His kingdom was not of this world - the secular power systems.
Whatever our mission as Christians is, in charity toward others, secular authority is the last place for it, not the first.
That is because He understood the economics of Leviticus 25, unlike 99% of the Church. Without an accurate reading of Exodus 23:11, one never could understand it.
BTW, you won't find an accurate rendering of Ex. 23:11 in any English translation other than at chabad.org (they changed it pursuant to my book on the topic; albeit they have one more tweak to go :-).
CC
regardless, socialism is no answer or valid substitute
regardless of our lapses in charity - our own failure to personally live in accord with Exodus 23:11, socialism is no answer and no valid substitute
In the 1840's, as "Communism" began to rear its ugly head, the Official Church came up with "Christian Socialism," which morphed into a pan-European political party, directly leading to the EU, and the socialistic welfare states that are bankrupting Europe.
Here in the US, there was Dorothy Day and the "Catholic Workers' Movement," in Europe there were the "Worker Priests," and in SA, the rise of Catholic Liberation Theology. The theory was, "Keep the lower classes from becoming atheistic communists .... by giving them everything the communists promise,in the church!"
Christian Charity has been replaced by Government Welfare ... oddly enough, that was aided and abetted by the Roman Catholic Church in many ways. In Maine it was Catholic Charities that worked hand-in-glove with state and federal welfare bureaucracies to dump Somali "refugees," on one state in the union that could not afford a quarter-million primitive, polygamous, and often quite violent Muslims.
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