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Why Pope Francis Is Keeping His Hammer-and-Sickle Crucifix
National Review ^ | 07/14/2015 | Dennis Prager

Posted on 07/14/2015 5:15:41 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Last week the Marxist quasi-dictator of Bolivia, Evo Morales, presented Pope Francis with a gift — a carved wooden hammer-and-sickle cross on which the figure of Christ is crucified.

The Vatican announced that the pope had not been informed in advance about the gift. And some commentators said that photos of the pope and Morales show that the pope was actually offended. That was a false — probably wishful — interpretation. The pope himself later announced that he was keeping the hammer-and-sickle crucifix and taking it home, saying, “I understand this work. For me it wasn’t an offense.”

And “Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi . . . said he personally wasn’t offended by Morales’ gift” (the Guardian).

The pope’s acceptance of Morales’s gift — along with his attacks on capitalism during his Latin American tour — further confirms one of the most troubling moral developments of our time: The Roman Catholic Church is currently led by a man whose social, political, and economic views have been shaped by leftism more than by any other religious or moral system.

It also reconfirms what is probably the single most important development one needs to understand in order to make sense of the contemporary world: The most dynamic religion of the past hundred years has been leftism, not Christianity, not Islam, not any other traditional religion. Indeed, regarding traditional religions, leftism has influenced them — particularly Christianity and Judaism — far more than they have influenced the Left. Mainstream Protestant Christianity, much of Catholicism (especially in Latin America, where Pope Francis lived his whole life before becoming pope), and most of non-Orthodox Judaism have become essentially liberal/Left movements with religious (and in the case of Judaism, ethnic) identity.

In terms of evil committed, what is the difference between the hammer and sickle and the swastika? Would the pope receive, let alone keep, a Fascist, racist, or Nazi sculpture with a crucified Christ on it? Of course not. Yet the hammer and sickle represents more human suffering than all of them combined. The number of people enslaved and murdered under the hammer and sickle dwarfs the number of people enslaved and murdered by any other doctrine in history.

To make things worse, Pope Francis received this gift from a man (Morales) wearing a picture of Che Guevara on his jacket. Is that, too, not worthy of condemnation by the Vatican? Che Guevara devoted his life to undermining human liberty, and to killing innocents in the name of Communism.

The only institutions that can resist the left-wing takeover of contemporary life are religious ones. When they fail, upon which institutions can we depend? What if, in a visit to an American museum, American artist Andres Serrano had presented Pope Francis with a gift — his work of art, Piss Christ — that features a crucifix in a jar of Serrano’s urine?

Would the pope have accepted it? Would he have brought it home?

There could not have been a gift that more accurately represents this pope’s value system than Christ crucified on a hammer and sickle. First, in a literal sense, that is exactly what Communists have done wherever they have assumed power — crucified Christ by working to violently destroy Christianity and murder Christians. Second, in a figurative sense, the gift represents the mélange of Christianity and Marxism, precisely what much of the Church — again, especially in Latin America, and especially in the person of this pope — stands for.

My heart breaks for the millions of Catholics who feel that their beloved Church is being led over a moral and religious cliff by a leftist pope and innumerable other leftists among cardinals, bishops, and parish priests.

Though I am not a Catholic, my heart breaks too. The only institutions that can resist the left-wing takeover of contemporary life are religious ones. When they fail, upon which institutions can we depend?

Tragically, we cannot turn to the contemporary Catholic Church. When the pope keeps a hammer-and-sickle crucifix; when the pope declares free-market capitalism, the one economic system that has lifted masses of people out of poverty, to be largely evil (“the dung of the devil”); when Cuba’s Cardinal Jaime Ortega declares that there are no political prisoners in Cuba; and when the pope issues an encyclical on global warming while the oldest Christian communities in the world are exterminated, it is clear that while one can still turn to individual Catholic priests and lay leaders for moral guidance, one cannot turn to the Church and its pope for moral guidance. On the contrary. One must fight back.

— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His book, The Ten Commandments: Still the Best Moral Code, was published by Regnery. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: capitalism; communists; morales; popefrancis; prager; socialism
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To: C. Edmund Wright
formerly conservative organizations

Have you read Rerum Novarum: On Capital and Labor by Pope Leo XIII? It's very interesting. I recommend it. In the opening paragraphs we find:

Hence, by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hard heartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition. The mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men. To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.

21 posted on 07/14/2015 5:38:28 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode (<<== Click here to learn about Evolution!)
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To: 21st Century Crusader

I’m still quite curious as to why B16 was hustled out of office. He’s no less physically robust than the current one.


22 posted on 07/14/2015 5:38:47 AM PDT by ScottinVA (Liberalism is the poison ivy that infests the garden of society.ct)
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To: livius

Pope John Paul II -—> this clown.

Ronald Regan -—> that clown.

Rudy Giuliani -—> the big clown.

How did we get from there to here?


23 posted on 07/14/2015 5:39:03 AM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day".)
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To: miss marmelstein
Your question shows you do not understand the religion. Catholics are brought up to understand that even priests can be bad men - it means little when one can still receive the sacraments.

And your remarks shows that you do not understand what God says about church leadership in 1 Timothy and Titus.

Your turn.

24 posted on 07/14/2015 5:39:23 AM PDT by kinsman redeemer (The real enemy seeks to devour what is good.)
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To: The Antiyuppie

Margaret Thatcher -——> the dhimmi clown.


25 posted on 07/14/2015 5:40:47 AM PDT by ScottinVA (Liberalism is the poison ivy that infests the garden of society.ct)
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To: defconw

You may want to visit a Bible believing fundamental church just to see what they are saying. My pastor goes from Genesis to Revelations and is very conservative. Took a while to find him and started at a Catholic church, but he is worth it.

The social justice message drove me away.


26 posted on 07/14/2015 5:43:36 AM PDT by bray (Cruz to the White House)
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To: bray
Why do Conservatives stay in the Catholic church. It has been infiltrated by Marxist priests and bishops for decades.

You're right, but here's why I do. First of all because I believe what Christ said that the gates of Hell would never prevail against her.

Second of all, there is a growing contingent of Catholics--laity, priests and bishops, who will not tolerate this nonsense anymore. The liberal religious orders are dying out--go on their websites and all you see are old ladies in street clothes. Go on the websites of the orthodox orders, you see very young men and women, full habits, lots of vocations. Go to the liberal parishes you see, typically, old folks and very few of them. Go to a Latin Mass or other orthodox parish and you see young families--BIG families....we have four and we are on the small side.

This is a war of attrition. Liberal Catholicism is withering up. Oh it still may be too numerically dominant for my tastes, but every year its position grows weaker and weaker. And this current Sodomite mess is going to really separate the wheat from the chaff. The wimps who love human respect more than the Gospel will peel away fast, and those who are left are going to be purified by persecution and even more committed.

Also, the sheer size and worldwide reach of the Church means that even if American Catholics become miserable apostates, African Catholics will be there to carry the torch.

Without a doubt, the enemy is powerful, but in Christ victory is assured.

Pray for us.

27 posted on 07/14/2015 5:43:42 AM PDT by Claud
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To: Alex Murphy
"Sorry about that little episode of our guys helping the CIA kill Che back in 1967, Comrade. Will this little gift help smooth things over?"


28 posted on 07/14/2015 5:44:39 AM PDT by ScottinVA (Liberalism is the poison ivy that infests the garden of society.ct)
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To: livius

This


29 posted on 07/14/2015 5:48:02 AM PDT by silverleaf (Age takes a toll: Please have exact change)
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To: livius

One of the good things about all of this is that it may help exterminate the asinine idea of ultramontanism...that the Pope can do no wrong because he is the Pope.


30 posted on 07/14/2015 5:48:14 AM PDT by Claud
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To: SeekAndFind

I can’t think of a more fitting symbol for his papacy.


31 posted on 07/14/2015 5:49:04 AM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: Gamecock

This is ironic since one of the people you pinged labels herself as a “proud member of the Democrat party.


32 posted on 07/14/2015 5:49:17 AM PDT by verga (I might as well be playng chess with pigeons.)
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To: SeekAndFind

It has become quite obvious that Pope Benedict was told to resign or be removed from office.

The Commies have taken over the leadership of the Roman Catholic church.

The Roman Catholic Pew Sitters have a choice. Fight the leadership and remove them from office or leave the Roman Catholic Church.

As the Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc have had to do, now the Roman Catholics must do.

Roman Catholics cannot stick their head in the sand and hope Pope Francis gets ok.


33 posted on 07/14/2015 5:49:19 AM PDT by Presbyterian Reporter
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To: kinsman redeemer
She understands just fine. We do not worship the Pope. Popes come and popes go. Jesus Christ is the one we worry about. There is not a soul on earth that I am going to agree with 100 percent. Even within myself there are conflicts. This Pope has said and done nothing that is morally binding on me.

The Pope accepted the hideous thing in order to show Christian love/charity. I seriously doubt he knew what to say. I mean what do you say when someone hands you something that hideous?

BTW, for good or for bad. This Pope sure has a lot more people paying attention than did his predecessor. So over all, despite whatever crazy stuff he says next, at least people are thinking and talking.

34 posted on 07/14/2015 5:49:31 AM PDT by defconw (Fight all error, and do it with good humor, patience, kindness and love. -St. John Cantius)
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To: SeekAndFind
The cross the Romans built proved powerless against Him.

That one isn't going to do any better.

35 posted on 07/14/2015 5:49:51 AM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Honestly, I don’t understand why anyone would be offended by this. It’s representing Jesus being crucified on an instrument of torture. That is accurate, isn’t it?


36 posted on 07/14/2015 5:51:16 AM PDT by Theo (May Christ be exalted above all.)
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To: SeekAndFind
THIS Pope would've rightly rejected such an offensive symbol as a communist hammer and sickle out of hand.


37 posted on 07/14/2015 5:51:40 AM PDT by ScottinVA (Liberalism is the poison ivy that infests the garden of society.ct)
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To: Alex Murphy

“Liberation Theology” - combines marxism and racism.


38 posted on 07/14/2015 5:52:59 AM PDT by newfreep ("Evil succeeds when good men do nothting" - Edmund Burke)
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To: Theo
Honestly, I don’t understand why anyone would be offended by this. It’s representing Jesus being crucified on an instrument of torture. That is accurate, isn’t it?

Are you not seeing the implication of the combination of the two images? What more clearly speaks to "liberation theology" than a such a perversion of the cross?

39 posted on 07/14/2015 5:53:08 AM PDT by ScottinVA (Liberalism is the poison ivy that infests the garden of society.ct)
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To: Presbyterian Reporter
The Roman Catholic Pew Sitters have a choice. Fight the leadership and remove them from office or leave the Roman Catholic Church. As the Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc have had to do, now the Roman Catholics must do. Roman Catholics cannot stick their head in the sand and hope Pope Francis gets ok.

You are absolutely right. Here in PA the bishop sanctioned the ousting of a lesbian Theology teacher who got...ahem..."married". The minions of Hell are crawling over Facebook and news outlets expressing outrage. But we need to step up our game and go on a campaign to get these miserable craven heretics OUT OUT OUT.

40 posted on 07/14/2015 5:54:34 AM PDT by Claud
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