Posted on 05/26/2013 7:28:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
When Cardinal Bergoglio was first chosen as Pope, my immediate reaction was that, although he would probably not tamper with the Church’s views on sexual issues, he would likely move it to the left in terms of economic rhetoric. I based that to some small degree on his choice of name: Saint Francis is something of a favorite of progressives in the Church due to his vow of poverty and his love of animals. But even more important to me was the intellectual milieu out of which he came: Argentine populism, and his own public statements as a cardinal in support of those themes.
I was, of course, attacked by the Catholic left who were quick to denounce me for ignorance, (don’t I know that Francis Xavier was one of founders of the Pope’s Jesuit order), and arrogance (how dare you question the Pope’s Biblical exposition), inaccuracy (how could I, not a Spanish speaker, comment on the Cardinal’s economic homilies given in Spanish) and simple a lack of good will.
But I think subsequent events have borne out my initial impressions. The Pope has clearly identified Saint Francis as his inspiration, for example. Furthermore, I asked my friend Alejandro Chafuen, who is a native Argentinian, a theologian and an economist, to confirm my reading of the Pope’s homily about Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus is indeed referred to as a usurer and associated with foreign banking interests in the Cardinal’s homily, and used as a device to attack foreign bankers who insisted on having their loans repaid by Argentina, despite widespread public support for debt repudiation. But the actual gospel text declares Zacchaeus to be a tax collector, not a loan shark.
So the Gospel reading itself undermines any attempt to scapegoat market processes.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
In before some of our Catholic FRiends try to justify the new Pope’s obviously leftwing economic statements. At this point it has become abundantly clear that Pope Francis is an economic populist leftist - which is pretty typical of South American Jesuits.
If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
The author says Zacchaeus was a tax collector and not a loan shark.
I’d really like to know what his understanding of this passage in Luke 19:8 tells us about what Zacchaeus did before he repented:
” And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”
Too late. I posted the same article on Friday, and they came out to justify his position. Even got a complaint about which paragraphs I excerpted and which I left out.
If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
...they'll say it's not a duck. Rule One: The Pope is never in error, regardless of subject matter. Rule Two: If the Pope is found to be in error, see Rule One and kill the witnesses.
RE: Rule One: The Pope is never in error, regardless of subject matter.
I am not Roman Catholic but...
That’s NOT what ex-cathedra means. Let’s not create straw men here
It is just as immoral to strip the earnings of a hard working family to redistribute to freeloaders as it is to deny a helping hand in time of need.
Christian leaders seem to lean to the left on charitable issues but it is understood that it must be within limits. Unlimited charity is not good for either the giver or the receiver.
The answer to that lies in the way the tax-collection system worked. He wasn't a loan shark. Plain and simple.
If you will read some history on this subject you will discover that the tax collectors of the day would sometimes require more than what was necessary...and would demand a tax that was somewhat higher than was necessary. IOW: Say you owed 15%...they would tell you that you owed 20% and keep the extra 5% for themselves.
That is how they made their money...by OVER taxing. This of course is contrary to the law of Moses....which is why the Jews really hated Jews who did it.
LOANS had nothing to do with the system...it was a system built on fraud...which is why Zacchaeus said what he did. He had basically robbed people.
Kinda what the government does today.
I never mentioned their belief in "ex cathedra".
That’s not what Alex Murphy meant, either. Any critcism or note of possibly less than conservative statements by the Pope or even the Vatican, from a Protestant, is met with vociferous denial and copious lengthy replies, it just rains down.
The odd thing is, these same posters decry Vatican II, question all manner of liturgical issues, darkly infer that “the smoke of Satan” is in the Church and some even freaked out when Pope Francis didn’t genuflect early on and called *him* Satan.
They’re the rad-trads, verging upon sedevacantist in my outsider’s opinion, it’s a very conflicted view of things on their part, almost Sybill-like from one post to the next, one day to the next. Outside criticism is immediately pounced upon and a multipronged attempt to discredit is immediately mounted, internally inconsistent though it usually may be.
This is the source of all the tremendously lengthy denominational tracts, sermons, somewhat childish daily make-and-do lists, wear purple, run around the courthouse square shaking maracas, put your Barbie on the credenza, your left foot in, your left foot out, and other minutiae that clog FR on a nightly basis. I’ve taken to terming it holy-scroller time and I usually sign off along about then in annoyance.
If it’s intended to be evangelization or proselytizing it’s very clumsy and patently off-putting. We’ve always had Catholic FReepers but these guys are a different breed, often intentionally disagreeable, and unnecessarily so.
Ping for reference
Just sayin'...
Case in point.
He probably read the Bible. Yikes!
The official teaching of the Church is that it doesn’t favor one economic system over another. Also, popes have criticized the marxism masquerading as Catholicism known as “liberation theology.”
Pope Francis supports tyranny and the suppression of human liberty by leftist tyrants. He thus supports those who would enslave humanity, and thereby surrenders his claim to any moral authority whatsoever.
God. Damn. Him.
So this is how these pro-abort celebrities keep getting communion.
This is dumb, doesn’t the Pope know that Jesus invented capitalism?? Its in the Bible.
” Pope Francis appears to me to be a very humble servant of God.”
I’ve got no dog in this fight except that my wife is Catholic, but this whole humility, “servant-of-God” thing doesn’t square well when one has worked their way up the hierarchy of one of the most powerful, wealthy, often venal, organizations in the history of hard-ball Machiavellian politics, then puts down Capitalism in favor of the sort of feel-good propaganda that the Marxists always rely on.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.