Posted on 05/09/2014 7:15:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Francis called Friday for governments to redistribute wealth to the poor in a new spirit of generosity to help curb the "economy of exclusion" that is taking hold today.
Francis made the appeal during a speech to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the heads of major U.N. agencies who met in Rome this week.
Latin America's first pope has frequently lashed out at the injustices of capitalism and the global economic system that excludes so much of humanity, though his predecessors have voiced similar concerns.
On Friday, Francis called for the United Nations to promote a "worldwide ethical mobilization" of solidarity with the poor in a new spirit of generosity.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
As a Protestant myself, I can tell you that you're grossly mistaken. It isn't about wealth. It's about Jesus Christ. Therefore, I'll ask again: why would any Christian envy the wealth of the Catholic church, when that is not what matters?
"Leftists, too."
Ah, so you group non-Catholics with leftists. Revealing, that.
" But the wealth is just an excuse. It's bus fare on the world scale. The main envy is of the Vatican's stature as an institution whose message can't be ignored, after being written off so many times in 2000 years."
Your priorities are in error; they cloud your thinking. It's not about your denomination, nor your church, nor your traditions, nor your "institution." It's about the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave His life so that we could live eternally with Him.
Anyone who comes to Him, Catholic or not, receives that grace and that gift. Yet you think folks are worried about the Vatican's treasures.
Wow.
"But you knew that."
What I know is that you seem to have a problem with misplaced pride. Remember the Scriptures---and there are a few---which instruct us to boast about nothing but the Lord.
Really?
Then why do the Catholic Charities have lobbyists in legislatures?
Repeat After Me: Subsidiarity & Solidarity
Subsidiarity and Human Dignity
Does the USCCB Understand Subsidiarity?
[CATHOLIC CAUCUS] The Principle of Subsidiarity
[CATHOLIC/ORTHODOX CAUCUS] Subsidiarity Over Social Justice
What is the USCCB’s problem with subsidiarity?
Subsidiarity: Where Justice and Freedom Coexist
Health reform still full of thorny problems for Catholics (Vasa comes out for subsidiarity)
What You [Catholics] Need to Know: Subsidiarity, [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
Catholic Word of the Day: SUBSIDIARITY, 06-11-09
In summary, get help at the local level, neighbor, church, friends first, then organizations like St. Vincent DePaul Society or Boys and Girls Club, then your local city or country agencies, family service, etc.
And don't tap into big government unless you absolutely have to. This is what Pope Francis is talking about.
WOW!!! Is it ignorance, or is it anti-Catholic bigotry?
The advanced modern capitalism developed mainly at the most important schools of Economy, the Austrian School with Von Mises, Frederick Hayek and its followers, and in the U.S., at the School of Economy of Chicago with Milton Fridman, Gary Beck and other luminaires whose ideas brought forward so much progress and freedom around the world.
It is a recognized fact that the prehistory of the Austrian School of economics can be found in the works of the Spanish scholastics, theologians, and economists at the University of Salamanca, in medieval Spain. These scholastics, mainly Dominicans and Jesuits, articulated the thesis that became the roots of the Austrian School (in fact, a truly Spanish School). At the same time, the father Francisco de Vitoria, also of the University of Salamanca, developed the basis for Modern International Law.
It is an historical fact that Jews were the pioneers and founders of socialism, as it is another historical fact that the Catholic Church was the first and only to oppose and condemn Communism and National Socialism since the very beginning of both socialist aberrations.
While the Duke of Windsor embraced Hitler, and also British Prime Minister Lloyd George , referred to him as the “greatest living German, the Catholic Church confronted Nazism at the ballot booth and later, on March 14th, 1937, Pope Pius XI published the encyclical “Mit Brennender Sorge”, a frontal condemnation of National Socialism.
The Encyclical exhorted that Catholics must never be anti-Semitic because “we are all Semites spiritually” and ought to hold the Jewish people in high regard accordingly. The Encyclical exposed to the world the III Reich’s persecution of the Catholic Church as well as the incompatibility between the principles of National Socialism and those of the Catholic faith.
The German government prohibited the entrance of the Encyclical into the country and it became necessary to smuggle it into Germany under the nose of the ruthless Gestapo. On Sunday March 21, The Encyclical was read from 12,000 Catholic pulpits across Germany. As a result, the Nazi’s campaign of innuendoes against The Church as well as the persecution of Catholics worsened.
On March 19, Pius XI published the Encyclical “Divini Redemptoris”. It was a most comprehensive and devastating condemnation of Communism as “intrinsically perverse.” Already Pius IX, as early as 1846, pronounced in the Encyclical “Qui pluribus,” a solemn condemnation of Communism “that infamous doctrine which is absolutely contrary to natural law itself, and if once adopted would utterly destroy the rights, the property and possessions of all men, and even society itself.”
Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical “Quod apostolici muneri,” defined communism as “the fatal plague that insinuates itself into the very marrow of human society only to bring about its ruin.”
Pius XI and Pius XII were highly active, energetic, and zealous opponents of totalitarianism and oppression in every form, believing that National Socialism and Communism were both intrinsically evil.
It is true that there have been dangerous infiltrations of Marxism from the 1970’s through the so called liberation theology, but the Church fought against that evil and tried to eradicate it, this is not so in many of the protestant churches that accept the Marxist infiltration as they accepted the Nazis control in Germany
The struggle of the Church against the Marxist liberation theology was in stark contrast with the successful communist and soviet infiltration of the State Department since FDR’s administration and also of most of our Universities and the media with complete complacence of the people and the authorities.
Farther than “feeling guilty”, Catholic intellectuals, missionaries, and the Spanish Crown should be proud of their legacy in America, in addition to bringing the Gospel, culturally speaking, Spain gave the very best to America. Spain founded 23 universities (the first, the University of San Marcos, Lima, 1551) and colleges in colonial America, graduating 150,000 (including the poor, mestizos, and some Negroes) something without parallel in history.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the great German scholar and naturalist Alexander Von Humboldt, after traveling throughout the American Continent, wrote a four-volume treatise titled “Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain” which was published in London in 1811. In this work he attested to the riches of the Indians which they preserved throughout the 300 years of Spanish rule.
The famous protestant and liberal minded humanist, witnessed the scientific progress of Hispanic America and praised it’s greatest accomplishments in the study of Natural Sciences that had been defrayed by the Crown.
After visiting Mexico in 1803, Humboldt maintained: “No city of the New Continent Alexander von, not even excepting those of the United States, can display such great and solid scientific establishments as the capital of Mexico. The capital and several other cities have scientific establishments, which will bear a comparison with those of Europe... Instruction is communicated gratis at the Academy of Fine Arts and hundreds of young students without consideration of rank, color, and race, were confounded; we see the Indian and the Mestizo sitting beside the white, and the son of a poor artisan in emulation with the children of the great lords of the country...No European government has sacrificed greater sums to advance the knowledge of the vegetal kingdom than the Spanish government...All these researches have not only enriched science with more than four thousand of new species of plants, but have also contributed to diffuse a taste for natural history among the inhabitants of the country.”
In Hispanic America, three hundred years before public education would reach the United States; a system of schools, colleges, and universities were founded in what would become the first public educational system in the New World and was wholly supported by the Crown of Spain. Some of these schools had as many as 800 to 1000 students and at these schools one would find the children of the Spaniards and the Indians in the same classrooms. In 1531 there were more than 10,000 Indian students in the schools of New Spain.
The first school for girls in the New World was founded in 1548 by the first archbishop of Mexico City, Juan de Zumárraga. Bishop Zumárraga was described as “an apostle, poor, humble, wise, prudent, educated, charitable, a mortal enemy of superstition and tyranny, an indefatigable propagator of the true doctrine of Jesus Christ, a protector of the helpless, a benefactor of the people, materially as well as morally...he founded hospitals, established schools for native boys and girls, and as the editor of many important works for the education of the Indians, he was very liberal minded.”
(Myth and Reality: The Legacy of Spain in America)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/808686/posts
We should be aware that the evils of Marxism may enter in periods of hibernation and we should be ready to confront them with the Gospel and the Truth. With Pope Francis we are witnessing a resurgence of liberation theology, a fact that Catholics should expose and meet head-on.
Amen.
I agree. Forced volunteerism or charity isn’t either one. Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
No it’s not! When governments commit acts of “charity,” it’s not charity at all. The Pope is dead wrong on this. I suggest that the Vatican start by liquidating their vast treasure holdings and giving it all to the poor.
I am not a Catholic but I love this Pope.
Christians are to help the needy and those who don’t don’t belong to Christ anyways. But we are not called to support govt’s that would rob it’s citizens through govt wealth redistribution and keep the poverty industry running.
Words of Jesus Christ in Matt 25:31 - 46 are not a parable but a prophecy, the goats end will be terrible and they will have no excuse.
Matt: 31“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
According to Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Pope Francis has close ties with liberation theology, the same discaterio that once condemned the movement. In the 1980s the CDF under then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger attacked liberation theology as borrowing “from various currents of Marxist thought“.
It is a fact that in the Liberation Theology the Gospels are profoundly corrupted by Marxist ideology and praxis, including the promotion of class struggle and the creation of the so called “iglesia popular” (parallel and opposed to the Church), an instrument used by Marxist theologians to support the Marxist guerrillas and regimes in Latin America.
During the Nicaraguan Communist Sandinista regime, they went as far as substituting Christ on the Cross for a naked Che Guevara with his genitals exposed.
“During the ordination in Managua of Nicaraguan Napoleon Alvarado by the Jesuit Luis Manresa, who was Bishop of Quetzaltenango, and who was then rector of the University Landivar in Guatemala City, to the Offertory of the mass of ordination, Napoleon offered a machine gun extolling the Sandinista movement and the Jesuit liberation theologian Fernando Cardinal choosing him as a model of his priesthood at the service of the soviet. “ (Ricardo de la Cierva, “Dark Rebellion in the Church” pag.24)
The Marxist Liberation Theology, although it had its roots in the works of European theologians, it had its largest impact in Latin American, mostly by the works of Catholic theologians. This movement also infiltrated the American churches, and not just only the Catholic Church. Obama’s religious mentor for over 20 years, Rev. Wright, is a follower of the Marxist Black Liberation Theology, a racist anti-white church whose Marxist praxis compels his followers to pray “God damn America” instead of asking blessing for this great country of ours.
The American Maryknoll Order became one of the main promoters of the Marxist Liberation Theology in Latin America. In Colombia the Diocesan Father Camilo Torres joined the Marxist guerrillas and died in one encounter with the government forces. He is perhaps best known for the quote: “If Jesus were alive today, He would be a guerrillero.”
The subversive activities and collaborationism with the Marxist guerrillas of a group of Jesuits in El Salvador, including his superior, Ignacio Ellacurria, professors from the University of Central America (UCA), was so scandalous that in 1972 the Bishops of El Salvador threw them of the control of the Seminary of San José de la Montaña where there was a Marxist-Leninist cell among seminarians prepared by Dr. Fabio Castillo, who was the rector of the National University.
During the 1980’s,the Mexican American Cultural Center (MACC), located in the San Antonio Seminary, served as the headquarters for the Marxist Liberation Theology in the U.S. This Center, sponsored by Archbishop Patricio Flores, became the Mecca of Marxist Liberation Theology in the U.S. where priests, religious and lay Catholics came from as far as Philippines to be indoctrinated in the Liberation Theology by the luminaries of the movement, which included Father Gustavo Gutierrez’s putative father of Liberation Theology.
In the book store of the MACC you could buy not only the most radical works by the Jesuit priest Jon Sobrino or the Franciscan Leonardo Boff, but you could also buy the bible for the conquest of power by the Marxists, Saul Alinksy’s “Rule for Radicals”, a book dedicated to Lucifer, who he considered the first radical. This manual has proved to be very useful to Barack Obama, who excelled in applying it in his struggle to reach the White House using the Marxist praxis developed by Alinsky.
Spanish Catholic historian, Ricardo de la Cierva has written several scholarly works on the communist infiltration in the Catholic Church, including “Jesuits, Church and Marxism - unmasked liberation theology,” (1986) “Dark rebellion in the Church” (1988), and “The gates of hell” (1995).
Pope John Paul II put Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in charge of confronting the doctrinal corruption that pervaded certain aspects of the Theology of Liberation.
In 1984 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published “The Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Liberation Theology”. It was a dagger to the heart of those theologies which, in one way or another, embraced the Marxist fundamental option. The preferential option for the poor will never be well served through an atheist ideology that has brought so much oppression and misery to the world.
After the measures taken by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the followers of Liberation Theology entered in a period of hibernation to apparently resurge with Pope Francis.
The liberationists rejoiced with the election of Cardinal Bergoglio as it seems that they take for granted that he is one of them. One of Pope Francis’ most vocal supporters since his election has been Leonardo Boff, one of the founders of liberation theology, and the most radical of it, a man silenced by the Vatican in 1985, and later by his Franciscan Order because of his attacks to the main tenets of the Church. An exulted Leonardo Boff expressed his feelings: ‘This pope will change the church’, basically, according to Boff, in fact we shouldn’t need a pope. The church could build a network of religious communities which communicate with each other.
It is very worrisome that is the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, himself a follower of the liberation theology, who confirms that Pope Francis has close ties with the liberation theology, something that is in clear defiance to the Magisterium of the Church.
and even worse it is unbiblical
Ah, one of the favorite passages to yank out of context and then beat people over the head with.
. . . which was clear from your being touchy about hearing someone define envy, when you're obviously familiar with the word as a speaker of English. It's something Catholics do, even if everyone knows the everyday meaning of a word, to re-discover it anew by looking through the eyes of a Doctor of the Church like St. Thomas. Protestant scholars do it primarily with Biblical quotations. Denominations, like tribes, have their customs.
Catherine of Aragon was a brilliant and heroic woman—arguably a martyr for the sanctity of marriage, since Henry VIII kept her a prisoner in poor, unhealthy conditions that killed her pretty quickly after he took up with Anne Boleyn. Catherine was supported in her defense of her marriage to Henry, and the indissolubility of marriage in general, by a great many leading lights of that period, including Martin Luther. Of course, Luther went to his grave considering himself a Catholic. (For that matter, so did Henry.)
I would not be shocked if Catherine (Catalina) were canonized one day. She seems to have been selfless, holy, courageous, and clear-sighted in her grasp of what was at stake. You have chosen an excellent nom-de-plume—and perhaps an intercessor worth praying to.
Please note that I went to some pains to point out that I don't think the Catholic Church's wealth is the real reason for envy on the part of most Protestants, or indeed, Leftists. I think it's the Catholic Church's claim to having been established by Our Lord Himself, and for being the most reliable source of the truth. So yes, indeed—the Church makes a bold claim, and it's about Christ.
May God bless you in your every discernment.
How so out of context?
Those that don’t help the least of these (the needy) Jesus will say, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Very clear to me.
I will stick with what Jesus said as recorded in the bible, you can ignore Him at your peril.
I said on this same thread that I deal with this by understanding that the Church is over here, set apart, and Pope Francis speaks as if he is over here, striking out rhetorically, on his own, independent of Church history, tradition and pronouncements on this subject and others, but especially about government “benefits”.
If the West is excluded from his innuendo then he should have said so. Not that capitalism can not be abused and abusive, but until Obama, the US was free in individual conscience to
be reasonable with employees or they could leave in numbers that could affect production. Now it’s systemic to leave conscience to the whims of government labor boards.
Now that God has been rejected here and around the world, we see that good and evil are indistinguishable depending on race, class, competence, etc., etc.
We are warned about that, however, and are reminded exactly who it is that is the author of all this confusion.
A Catholic forever, Rita :)
His own mouth makes a liar out of him. If he believed that, he would “re-distribute” the money of the Catholic Church.
He was misquoted Again!!! He said “Redistribute Economic Opportunity” which is totally different.
Perhaps the same fellow who translated at Nelson Mandela’s funeral has been hired at the Vatican.
Every time I hear the Pope’s comments on economic policy, apologists quickly rush out and claim it was not translated properly.
The fact that Pope comes from Argentina may explain his complete lack of understanding of basic economics.
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