"I'll TELL you what's fair and what's not!"
Posted on 02/04/2014 1:29:58 PM PST by Responsibility2nd
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Francis extolled the benefits of sharing wealth with the poor on Tuesday, warning that "unjust" social conditions like unemployment can lead to sin, financial ruin and even suicide.
The Jesuit pope has frequently railed about the excesses of capitalism and income disparity in a globalized world, and his message for Lent issued Tuesday echoed those same concerns
~snip~
"When power, luxury and money become idols, they take priority over the need for a fair distribution of wealth," he said in the short message. "Our consciences thus need to be converted to justice, equality, simplicity and sharing."
He said it's not enough to just make charitable offerings. ""Let us not forget that real poverty hurts: no self-denial is real without this dimension of penance. I distrust a charity that costs nothing and does not hurt," he wrote.
~snip~
Francis has riled some conservative Americans for his denunciation of capitalism and trickle-down economic theory, which is says is based on a survival of the fittest mentality "where the powerful feed upon the powerless" with no regard for ethics, the environment or even God.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Whether true or not, I've heard that said before. The point of the article, as I read it, is that those who have should give willingly to the poor! Yet we DO complain about the handouts---think it is unjust to force hard working people to support the others.
Guess we think too many of the "others" are content to be takers and teach their kids the same thing. Is stealing a sin?
Maybe I don’t understand what Rome says regarding the concept of social mortgage. Do you believe Rome only sees this social mortgage in cases of extreme necessity? Or does Rome teach that all of our goods are under this social mortgage at all times?
Where in Scripture do we find the idea it’s moral to steal when you are hungry?
You need to add an 'A' on the end for 'again'.
And at least one was a Lutheran!
The concept of “social mortgage” is precisely that the desperately poor have a right to assistance, or the right to steal what they actually need. The civil law recognizes “necessity.” You may steal a neighbor’s hose to put out a fire. You may steal your neighbor’s car to take someone to the hospital.
Where in Scripture? Hmm.
The priests took the bread from the sanctuary to feed the starving. Jesus mentions this when he and the disciples are criticized for picking heads of wheat to eat on the Sabbath.
Can’t think of any other specific incident. But one can always consult common sense as well as Scripture.
I have become convinced there are two ways to receive Francis and what he’s trying to say: (at any time not just now)
1. In a defensive way- looking for ways he’s wrong and/or ways he “doesn’t talk about me”. Dismissing him as inept, or a socialist, or a kind man who is just “misguided”. This is easy to do, and perhaps the right thing to do if what he says is a source of scandal, for anyone.
or...
2. In a receptive way - not looking for ways he is wrong (or even right) but how what he says applies to ME, as an individual. A person. Not a member of a group (an American, a Republican, a conservative, a capitalist), but for me, about me, concerning ME.
In other words, a provactive way (in every etiological sense of the word “pro-vocative”).
Does what he says concern me? Does it matter to me? Do I find his words offensive? Are they helpful? And the question “why”, tacked into those questions, for good measure.
Speaking for myself, I choose option 2 (and the two paragraphs following it). Not only because option 1 has nothing to offer me but bitterness and contempt, but because Jesus is just as real as the Pope.
The Pope seems to be saying:
Greed is a bad thing.
Unemployment is a bad thing.
Therefore, Greed causes Unemployment.
He`s a Jesuit. They confuse success/materialism with faith. If you`re successful you`ll have faith, if you`re poor you`ll have no faith.
Jesuits are close to marxists,”People cannot be liberated,” wrote Marx and Engels, “as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity. “
Also, so everyone may make a judgement based on truth regarding Pope Francis’ latest words, and not based on what the MSM thinks is “newsworthy”.
You are arguing the thought of Aquinas, not Scripture. The Bible prohibits stealing and supports private property rights, whereas Aquinas essentially laid out a philosophical basis for theft heartily adopted by Rome.
Why did Dives go to Hell for ignoring Lazarus?
No one goes to Hell for ignoring the poor. They go to Hell because of their sin.
The parable doesn’t mention any sin of Dives other than ignoring Lazarus.
We are born in sin. We are conceived in iniquity, dead in trespasses and sin from the start. We don’t need to ignore the poor to go to Hell. By nature that’s where we are headed. Dives had more than enough sin to damn him long before he ever encountered Lazarus. There is nothing about that parable that can rightly be used to support the violation of personal property rights of one man to assist another man.
Any man whose sin was not fully atoned for on the cross by will go to Hell, whether he gave ever cent he had to help the poor or not.
I’m not arguing against helping the poor. I’m all for it. Part of how we help them is to establish a fair economic system that protects personal property rights and supports the very clear Biblical prohibition of theft.
The idea that a starving man has no right to steal a loaf of bread is kooky.
"I'll TELL you what's fair and what's not!"
You can’t defend that position biblically. The Bible is my standard, not the philosophy of Aquinas.
‘Another Vatican Council II document upholds the same principle of the “universal ownership of all goods” and emphatically teaches, “If one is in extreme necessity, he has the right to procure for himself what he needs out of the riches of others.”’
Sounds even more like communism than socialism.
Of course, they exclude the riches of the catholic church in this philosophy.
If an idea is irrational, then I know that the Bible doesn’t teach it, because God is not irrational.
You need to post that.
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