Posted on 05/12/2014 9:45:28 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage says if Pope Francis wants income redistribution he should start with his own Church.
On his Friday show, Savage said he would bid $1 million for Michelangelo's famous painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.
"The reason I'm offering that money to the pope and the Vatican is so they can redistribute the wealth that begins in the Vatican itself," Savage said.
Savage said he was making a point that there is vast wealth within the Catholic Church, including priceless works of art and major shares in global companies. Gold ingots could be sold for redistribution purposes, Savage said.
Francis on Friday told a group of U.N. delegates, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, that they should urge world governments to back "the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the state, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society."
Savage's response: "It's Karl Marx in a papal outfit."
He noted that Francis is from Argentina, home to liberation theology along with much of Latin America, in the 1960s and '70s. And although Francis himself never practiced liberation theology, "he was certainly shaped by it," Savage said.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Those words were from usconservative, not me.
The Goths stayed only 3 days, I think. I think there is a source which claims the Vandals took the stuff from Jerusalem when they sacked Rome. Of course that may or may not be accurate.
I think it’s pretty obvious most of the loot was melted down and spent. It is, of course, possible that the emperors kept one or two trophies around.
YOu are right that the Gothic sack was mild, as these things go, compared to that by the Vandals.
Both were restrained compared to that carried out by Imperial troops in 1527.
No offer. I want it to stay just where it is.
It also calls for the STATE to forcibly redistribute economic benefits that were earned by some in order to give them to others.
In short. It's a marxist rant.
If he were preaching to his own church and admonishing them as individuals to give more, then he would have been OK.
But he wasn't. He was speaking to a governmental organization and encouraging them to use the force of government to redistribute wealth.
The pope is not Catholic. He's marxist!
But I guess Savage doesn’t care about that.
Sure he does. But you are totally missing the point.
The pope is calling for the state to forcibly steal what we have earned and give it to those who have not earned it. Yet the church holds millions or billions of dollars worth of assets that they wouldn't think of redistributing to the poor.
Why is my wealth good enough to redistribute but the church's wealth isn't? Hypocrisy!
If that is what the pope was saying he'd be perfectly OK. Encouraging greater charity is a good thing.
But that is NOT what he was saying. He was saying the STATE should forcibly redistribute what we earned to those who have not earned it. Encouraging THEFT is not Christian.
This pope is not Catholic.
And you totally missed my point. The Catholic Church is already the most charitable organization on the planet ... there’s no need to sell anything.
It has to start somewhere. Start small. That’s what it’s all about.
Which is all well and good.
BUT why then is the church campaigning for the state to steal my money to give to the poor. Isn't their own money enough?
The problem here is not about charity. It's about a RICH organization coming after us much poorer people's stuff. Please see 2 Sam 12:1-12
there’s no need to sell anything.
Excellent!! Then there is also no need for the church to ask the State to steal my goods either. Thank you! That is our point.
This pope is not Catholic, he is marxist.
Giving a bottle of water to the homeless guy is charity. It's the right thing for anyone to do, especially a Christian, but it's not his right to be given the bottle.
Fairness means, to my mind, that people should be reimbursed by society in rough proportion to their contribution to that society. I am, BTW, fully aware of the difficulties, both moral and practical, of deciding what a given person's contribution really is and in distributing it. But I suspect few people would argue that some people in our society are massively over-compensated for their contribution and other equally under-compensated. Though they'd probably often differ about who belongs in those two groups.
Redistribution, OTOH, is Marx, and others before him, all over. It uses the other definition of fairness, that of equal shares regardless of contribution. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Not as charity, but as the needy person's right. Which means, of course, that "stuff" must be taken from those with abilities in order to redistribute it to those with needs, by force if necessary. Which it always is, in the long run.
Was reading the other day about the Navajo, and their admirable tradition of helping their families. If a Navajo becomes successful, the less prosperous members of his family will show up, and he is under obligation culturally to share his wealth with them.
Of course, this eats into his capital, and therefore limits his ability to become even more prosperous. If he does so anyway, more distant relatives will appear and he'll have to share with them. But the author at the same time decried the relative poverty of Navajos as a whole. Apparently oblivious to the fact that the very customs she was lauding were a, perhaps the, main cause of that poverty.
If a Navajo man works harder and makes more money, he doesn't get to keep most of it. Has to share it with his less-prosperous relatives. So he has less incentive to work harder, and so do they. Spread that out over an entire society, and there will be a lot less work done and a lot less wealth produced.
In effect, you can have a lovely sharing society, but it will by definition be pretty poor. Or you can have a wealthy society, but it will be by comparison with others selfish and somewhat cruel.
What you can't have is a wealthy society that is kinder, gentler and more sharing. Pick one.
What have you done for the poor lately?
You are STILL missing the point.
It’s not about what I do for the poor (which is a matter between me and God).
It’s not about what Pope Francis does for the poor (with his own money). I don’t care about that, it’s none of my business.
It’s about Pope Francis encouraging the STATE to take my money BY FORCE to give it to someone else. That is not Catholic. That is marxist!!
This pope is NOT Catholic!
As I stated before, the RCC is the most charitable organization on the planet. It already distributes wealth and services around the globe.
Are you intentionally avoiding the point?
It doesn’t matter if the RCC is the most charitable organization. It doesn’t matter if the RCC NEVER gave a dime.
What matters is that the pope, who is supposed to be the leader of the RCC (He is supposed to be Catholic!!), is telling the STATE to take my money by force and give it to others. That is marxism and is NOT Catholic.
This pope is not Catholic.
Pope Francis’ entire message (something Savage didn’t bother to share in his rant):
Mr Secretary General,Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am pleased to welcome you, Mr Secretary-General and the leading executive officers of the Agencies, Funds and Programmes of the United Nations and specialized Organizations, as you gather in Rome for the biannual meeting for strategic coordination of the United Nations System Chief Executives Board.It is significant that today’s meeting takes place shortly after the solemn canonization of my predecessors, Popes John XXIII and John Paul II. The new saints inspire us by their passionate concern for integral human development and for understanding between peoples. This concern was concretely expressed by the numeous visits of John Paul II to the Organizations headquartered in Rome and by his travels to New York, Geneva, Vienna, Nairobi and The Hague.
I thank you, Mr Secretary-General, for your cordial words of introduction. I thank all of you, who are primarily responsible for the international system, for the great efforts being made to ensure world peace, respect for human dignity, the protection of persons, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, and harmonious economic and social development.The results of the Millennium Development Goals, especially in terms of education and the decrease in extreme poverty, confirm the value of the work of coordination carried out by this Chief Executives Board. At the same time, it must be kept in mind that the world’s peoples deserve and expect even greater results.
An essential principle of management is the refusal to be satisfied with current results and to press forward, in the conviction that those gains are only consolidated by working to achieve even more. In the case of global political and economic organization, much more needs to be achieved, since an important part of humanity does not share in the benefits of progress and is in fact relegated to the status of second-class citizens. Future Sustainable Development Goals must therefore be formulated and carried out with generosity and courage, so that they can have a real impact on the structural causes of poverty and hunger, attain more substantial results in protecting the environment, ensure dignified and productive labor for all, and provide appropriate protection for the family, which is an essential element in sustainable human and social development. Specifically, this involves challenging all forms of injustice and resisting the “economy of exclusion”, the “throwaway culture” and the “culture of death” which nowadays sadly risk becoming passively accepted.With this in mind, I would like to remind you, as representatives of the chief agencies of global cooperation, of an incident which took place two thousand years ago and is recounted in the Gospel of Saint Luke (19:1-10). It is the encounter between Jesus Christ and the rich tax collector Zacchaeus, as a result of which Zacchaeus made a radical decision of sharing and justice, because his conscience had been awakened by the gaze of Jesus. This same spirit should be at the beginning and end of all political and economic activity. The gaze, often silent, of that part of the human family which is cast off, left behind, ought to awaken the conscience of political and economic agents and lead them to generous and courageous decisions with immediate results, like the decision of Zacchaeus. Does this spirit of solidarity and sharing guide all our thoughts and actions?
Today, in concrete terms, an awareness of the dignity of each of our brothers and sisters whose life is sacred and inviolable from conception to natural death must lead us to share with complete freedom the goods which God’s providence has placed in our hands, material goods but also intellectual and spiritual ones, and to give back generously and lavishly whatever we may have earlier unjustly refused to others.The account of Jesus and Zacchaeus teaches us that above and beyond economic and social systems and theories, there will always be a need to promote generous, effective and practical openness to the needs of others. Jesus does not ask Zacchaeus to change jobs nor does he condemn his financial activity; he simply inspires him to put everything, freely yet immediately and indisputably, at the service of others. Consequently, I do not hesitate to state, as did my predecessors (cf. JOHN PAUL II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 42-43; Centesimus Annus, 43; BENEDICT XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 6; 24-40), that equitable economic and social progress can only be attained by joining scientific and technical abilities with an unfailing commitment to solidarity accompanied by a generous and disinterested spirit of gratuitousness at every level. A contribution to this equitable development will also be made both by international activity aimed at the integral human development of all the world’s peoples and by the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society.
Consequently, while encouraging you in your continuing efforts to coordinate the activity of the international agencies, which represents a service to all humanity, I urge you to work together in promoting a true, worldwide ethical mobilization which, beyond all differences of religious or political convictions, will spread and put into practice a shared ideal of fraternity and solidarity, especially with regard to the poorest and those most excluded.Invoking divine guidance on the work of your Board, I also implore God’s special blessing for you, Mr Secretary-General, for the Presidents, Directors and Secretaries General present among us, and for all the personnel of the United Nations and the other international Agencies and Bodies, and their respective families.
Ya, I misspelled it, you still don’t understand what it is.
The paragraphs before this discuss Zacchaeus VOLUNTARILY giving away his wealth. Only a marxist would stretch that to the STATE taking our wealth BY FORCE and redistributing it.
Other key phrases are when he talks about sustainable development goals. Sometimes called "Central Control by the government" or communism.
Both of these concepts are anti-biblical and anti-Catholic.
This pope is not Catholic. He is marxist. (It's really not that hard to see)
The operative word in the bold sentence would be “legitimate.”
Let’s also consider what Zaccheus was too ... a tax collector. A government employee. And what did he promise? To give back what he cheated people out of and pay them restitution on top of that.
Sounds like the IRS to me. I wouldn’t mind seeing them forced to give back what they cheat us out of.
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